Agreed. We will continue to market directly with Geotrust until something is further done on SRS's end...
-- Mike Allen, 4CheapDomains.Net [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.4CheapDomains.Net (812) 275-8425 - Office (815) 364-1278 - Fax ----- Original Message ----- From: "William X Walsh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Kim Phelan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 10:11 AM Subject: Re: New Certs Supplier > Thursday, June 20, 2002, 7:50:47 AM, Kim Phelan wrote: > > > Hello, > > > First off, let me introduce myself. I am the new product manager for the > > certs product for Geotrust. Darryl is moving on with other projects, so on > > that note: > > > Re: Pricing. > > I understand your concerns around price of the certs. I'll explain our > > reasoning. > > It is important to remember the value add on the certs themselves, the > > service, the support, and integration related to these products. You are > > also getting the Tucows methodology of the wholesale model, that we are not > > going after your clients, and will not market directly to them. > > You get all that through other Geotrust resellers as well. > > > Re: Different products at less prices- True the QuickSSL product will be > > cheaper when we offer it, > > and we are working on building integration to the rest of their products, > > for Q4. > > > Although there are other cheaper vendors out there, we made our choice based > > on the following criteria: > > - are they offering products that our resellers want? > > - are they solely focused on the digital security market? > > - will they match the wholesale model that we strive for? > > > Geotrust was the clear choice with those criteria in place. > > Maybe you missed my point. > > Essentially Tucows is a reseller of Geotrust in this case. So is > SSLPlanet.com. Their retail price is already lower than the price > Tucows is charging to its subresellers, and sslplanet offers > additional lower prices for resellers who use their service. They > also do not market to your customers, etc. > > So essentially, we can get better prices for the same Geotrust product > from another Geotrust reseller, 15% lower without any additional > incentives, and a 22% commission on top of that in their referral > program. > > Surely with the wide base of OpenSRS resellers, Tucows can offer a > betterprice to RSPs that another Geotrust resellers sells the exact > same product for to the public? > > Yes, I harp on price with regards to the cert program. All other > things being equal, RSPs get a better deal ordering the same product > from another vendor right now, to the tune of about a 35% difference. > > That means that SSLPlanet is selling the cert for: > > SSLPlanet sells the same cert for $84.95. They pay a commission to > the referring provider of 22% or roughly $19 and changes. That's > $65.xx roughly. That also jives with my reports that if you > prepurchase enough eBusinessID certs through SSLPlanet, they will > provide a price as low as $60 per cert. Figure they are making enough > to cover their overhead and profit in that, and it looks to me like > they are probably paying sub $50 for the eBusinessID product from > Geotrust, a price I personally know Geotrust has offered for that > product to a handful of other high volume resellers. > > I'm not saying that Tucows shouldn't markup these certs, what I am > saying is that the markup in this case makes this offering as > unattractive as the Entrust one, albeit for a different reason. > > I hope Tucows will consider a more aggressive pricing point for this > product line. > > -- > Best regards, > William X Walsh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > -- > > >
