Eircom have dropped their pricing on domain names.
While this is currently appearing on the Eircom.net business site as a “sale”, there is no indication of the duration.
Their price on .ie domains drops from €99 to €67, which puts them almost €3 below both Novara and Hosting365, while their pricing on .com domains (€10) comes in slightly above that offered by some of the larger hosting providers.
It’s an interesting move, as they seem to be offering a form of online order form as well (although it doesn’t display properly in Firefox).
It’s a pity they didn’t test the site on Firefox!
Compare what you see if you use Internet Explorer:
with what I normally see:
Kind of hard to read, wouldn’t you say?
Ambrand Dot Com says
What is the eircom ordering URL (no I don’t want to buy anything from them, I just never knew they still sold stuff like that)
michele says
If you go to business.eircom.net and click on domains you’ll find it
Dan King says
Actually, they changed their prices back last year in October or November. jmcc wrote a bit about it on his blog: http://blog.whoisireland.com/2006/11/01/eircom-gets-serious-about-web-hosting/
Not sure of any impact its made.
Ambrand Dot Com says
I don’t think anyone else noticed… They are only charging EUR 10 for a .tv, GoDaddy charges approx EUR 30, should one make hay while the sun shines 😉
michele says
I’m not sure how they’re managing to do the .tv domains so cheaply. I guess whichever registrar they’re using must have given them a really good deal…
Stephen says
Either that or the nice eircom lady made a booboo with the website cms 🙂
michele says
Stephen
Quite possible too 🙂
Michele
John McCormac says
It seems to have had very little impact Dan.
Eircom had a great opportunity but due to a lack of understanding of the hosting and domains market, it squandered it. Now, Eircom is really just treading water with the number of new domains it is getting each month. It is, for a hoster of its size, barely breaking even. I don’t know if Eircom management realise how the market has changed. But then ISPs only account for 17% or so of the market now. At least Eircom isn’t a basket case like Esat.
As for the .tv registrations – the renewal fee might be uncertain.
michele says
John
I’d guess they’re running .tv as a loss leader. The promo is only valid for the launch / relaunch, so I can’t see it staying that low in the long term
M
Stephen says
I wouldnt write Eircom off yet – they’ve hired a lot of new faces in the last few months, specifically in these areas (and including John Quinn, ex Strategic Director of Digiweb).
John McCormac says
I’m not writing them off just yet Stephen,
But it will take some time for them to change what appears to be an institutionalised mindset. With Digiweb back in the game, I think Eircom has far more serious competition than just hosters to worry about. It still has enough marketshare to make it a serious player but it failed to take advantage of its position. Knowing the strategy is nice but the tactics win battles and this is where Eircom is weak. Even with all the new faces, it will take some time for Eircom to recover unless it takes a short cut and buys a Tier 2 hoster.
John McCormac says
Yep Michele,
I can’t help thinking that the .tv thing might cause problems at renewal time (prices going up) after people spend a year building a site. But for most, it is still .com/.cctld. The .tv extension is nice for media types but they also need a credible realworld brand.