Domain Resellers dealing in generic top-level domains (gTLDs) like .com, .org, and .net are businesses that partner with an ICANN-Accredited domain name registrar to sell domain names to the public, making use of the registrars facilities to do so. This has expanded the number of sellers and the competition in selling domain names for buyers, and allows people who wish to become resellers an opportunity to do so.
How Does Reselling Work?
Resellers usually receive discounts on domain names from the registrar with which they are associated, allowing them to discount their prices. Also, through a special software package or other means, the reseller is able to use the registrar’s system to register or renew domain name or transfer domain name registrations. Alternatively, the reseller may bring in business while the registrar takes care of the actual registration and customer support. In either case, the reseller takes care of setting the price and making the sale to the customer. The domain name registration, however, is listed through the registrar, not through the reseller.
Becoming a Reseller
If you would like to become a domain reseller your first move should be to find an ICANN-Accredited domain registrar to partner with. If you go to ICANN’s list of accredited registrars and click on the name, you can get to the reseller’s website and obtain more information. By starting with ICANN’s registry listing page, rather than Googling “Domain name resellers” or something similar, when you explore reselling possibilities, you make sure from the start that the ICANN accreditation is in place.
Domain registrar that are actively seeking resellers may advertise this fact on their homepage. For example, clicking on Wild West Domains, Inc. on the ICANN list takes me to a page on the WildWest site that shows me three reseller plans that they offer, FAQs about the plans, and a list of features, as well as support details and a comparison with some other ICANN registrars who work with resellers.
If you have read the article, “What is ICANN?” you will immediately see that the fees and other application requirements are much less for being a reseller than for being a registrar. In this sort of partnership, a lot of the investment and risk is born by the ICANN-Accredited registrar. If part of your work involves registering domains, you may find that becoming a domain name reseller facilitates that as well as lowers your costs.
Using a Reseller
If you are seeking a reseller to register a gTLD domain name with, you may wish to begin your search in the same way—starting with the ICANN-Accredited registrars list—to ensure that your reseller is backed by that guarantee. Besides that, you will want to apply the usual criteria for comparing one seller with another (see the article “Buying Cheap Domains” for more information).
If, on the other hand, you want to register a cTLD (a country code top-level domain), you may find an ICANN-Accredited registrar who is also designated by the country or dependent territory to register its domains or you need to start your search in a different place, because ICANN does not list the cTLDs on its site, even though some ICANN-Accredited Registrants are also accredited to handle them. The source you want, in this case, is IANA(Internet Assigned Numbers Authority)—click on ccTLDs in the menu above the chart, which, when you click on the Domain it will provide a URL for registration services at the bottom of the page. If you do this for the .us domain, for example, you will find that the registration address ishttp://www.neustar.us/
