Domain Pricing, ENOM/WHMCS Reseller Account

[indieben]

So, I have (at least until now) chosen to go down the WHMCS Enom route where WHMCS essentially make profit out of domain sales without making that immediately clear as the ENOM module leads to a reseller account being created under WHMCS' main ENOM account. The deal seems to be that, on 99.99% of occasions, WHMCS should be offering the customer service associated with domain reselling whilst WHMCS get the lions share of the profit. To give WHMCS their dues, they have tried but with the long delays between responses, sometimes a whole working day worth, and replies not always totally grasping the point, i'm quickly coming to the realisation that it is hopeless. 

Whilst the wide range of TLD's offered at least at first appears to be extremely generous, the reality is that the majority of the domains that are available require the webhost to collect documentation and deal with the paperwork and any issues. 

As a UK reseller, these are my startup costs on domains - 3% - enom fee for topping up the account (oh, I thought WHMCS run the gig I ask cynically as that's the stock response from enom CS) then there is the 2.75% bank fee for currency conversion (enom only sell in USD), then there are Stripe  Fees. In order to sell at any reasonable rate, i'm left with very little to do the paperwork on complex domains (weird renewal and expiry policies etc), not to mention the reputational damage in selling them and a client that is less knowledgeable feeling like we screwed them over. So, sensible answer = cut out anything other than generic domains - that actually leaves very little choice. Also, it would seem that WHMCS do not agree that Jersey (.je) actually exists as they've blocked it from being sold (what happened to the Isle of Mann (.im) for that matter??

For a 6 hour plus turnaround on many occasions for a response on WHMCS (unless you pay extra), domain selling is a fool's errand but of course everybody knows that a webhost **has** to provide domains, particularly when clients new to webhosting are the key or a significant portion of the target market and a website will not work without one. 

I'd go as far as saying that my experience of WHMCS from the top to the bottom of it over the last 30 days leaves me wondering why the hell they are still in existence. I've been misadvised, passed from pillar to post between them and enom and everything, and I mean everything within WHMCS is created to take as long as possible. Yes, it makes no sense as people give up but then I can't honestly say that their business model makes any sense in many other ways either - particularly where client service is concerned. I've come across the sheer amount of ignored customer requests (apparently they don't have the resources to deliver on everything, well, clearly they don't have the ability to deliver on the basics), increasing criticism of WHMCS not listening to clients and what I shall call the  #pricegate crisis over legacy "support" packages. 

As is often the case in hopelessly incompetent IT companies, they will defend themselves with the sheer number of responses that they have provided to my tickets. These wouldn't have been necessary if WHMCS was actually intuitive in the first place. I've worked with billing systems for a long time from a customer service perspective - this is far the most hopeless in terms of what is inferred to be industry leading. Why the goodness are the big businesses not voting with their feet? I appreciate I am still here but it's only because i'm financially stuck as a startup. 

I mentioned everything being designed to take as long as possible with WHMCS - here's some examples (and I am not a coder): 

1. CSS - over 500 domains to add, no ability to add a second domain without saving the first, bulk management boxes do not move with the scrollbar down to where you are working. I've had Repetitive strain injury several times this week and I am bleary eyed staring at my laptop. 

2. Bulk management tools - you can't use the price multiplier function for 1 - 10 years without providing the price for each TLD 3 times first. 

3. No CSV import ability to import your prices from a spreadsheet (people have been requesting similar for a decade or so). 

4. All bulk tools assume that all TLD's cost the same and will sell for the same - an all or nothing approach. 

5. Currency conversion - hopeless for many use cases. 

6. CSS - customiseable??? Apparently the cookies need to be cleared every time that you want to preview a change that you have made in the CSS - what happened to simply clearing the cache and what good is that when you want to customise a client area that you need to be logged into to see? Also no list of items to be targetted to change the twenty-one (or any other) theme. 

And their answer to all things; WHMCS Marketplace where I am sure that WHMCS get a handsome markup on third party vultures charging for the missing functionality to be provided. 

Rant over. 

Edited February 23, 2022 by indieben
Didn't do my own post justice