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GoDaddy Girl Candice Michelle
March 8th, 2007 by 
Jay Westerdal
I had to post this, Candice Michelle (”The GoDaddy Girl”) was at Traffic this week. She was signing autographs and was posing for pictures with GoDaddy fans. Hey Bob, thanks for sending Candice. Customers like it when the company they do business sends their superbowl superstars to take pictures with them. It makes them feel in touch.
It made me chuckle a little that the other registrars are being out marketed by GoDaddy. GoDaddy has been the leader in new registrations for several years in a row. We have reported year after year that GoDaddy is the clear leader, there are no registrars that even come close to the amount of registrations GoDaddy does on a daily bases.
Let me explain why GoDaddy is winning.
A while back I had the pleasure to dine with Jim Sinegal the CEO of Costco. Costco has a Market Cap of over $25 Billion. Jim explained that they have a 3% profit margin and that they mark up their prices by 10%. That 7% goes to paying employees, covering real estate, and paying other operational costs. I asked the devil’s advocate question, “why doesn’t Costco mark up by one extra percent and make a 4% profit. This would increase Costco’s profit by 33%”! This would make Costco worth an extra 7 Billion. Jim remarked it would be easy to do and most likely customers would not notice or care that much either. It seems like a win-win for everyone, but wait then he explained the finer points and the reason he doesn’t do it. Jim said an extra percent is like Crack Cocaine and that the shareholders would get addicted and demand it. An extra percent here, an extra percent there, and several years later they would be in a bad spot. The company would be so addicted they would not be able to go back to 3%. This leaves the door wide open for competition. Someone else would start a competitor and before you know it they would be eating Costco’s lunch. If a company can stay with low margins and still offer excellent customer service then no one would enter the market against that company.
Network Solutions had the chance to keep everyone out. They could have lowered prices back in 1999 from $35 to $10. Network Solutions had 100% market share in 1999, not many companies can say that or even dream that, but now it has 7.6% of the market. Had they lowered prices to one dollar over costs they would surely be at 85% market share right now and several of the registrars in the market would not exist or even have been formed. Network Solutions let over 90% of the market escape because they were addicted to the $26 profit per domain.
GoDaddy is the closest business model of all the registrars to Costco. But then again Costco does not have Candice Michelle.
UPDATE: We have added a LOT more detail to our last post about the last live domain auction. We did not have time to write a thorough review yesterday but we wanted to post the prices as they happened so I encourage you to read it again.
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Posted in GoDaddy, Network Solutions |
March 9th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Interesting article… Now if Godaddy lives off of such a small margin, why is 1&1 able to do domain registries for only $5.99 a domain and without the extra icann fee’s as well?
March 10th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Lost leaders are common in many places. When my friends buy those advertised popular CDs at Walmart they are paying below the wholesale cost for which Walmart purchases those same CDs. The only reason some customers go to the Walmart store is because they know the CDs are the lowest price. While the customer is in the store, they have to walk by many isles of goods and generally purchase several other goods at the same time. Before they leave the store, Walmart is making a profit off the customer.
Same thing goes with the web. Domains are the lost leaders of the Internet, especially for a hosting company. Hosting companies sell monthly-recurring-revenue (MRR) products with much higher margins. So selling a domain at below cost makes sense to them.
March 12th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Jay, I am wondering where is your right hand in the photo?
Lucky guy!
Most serious, what you comment here is so TRUE…and I applaude Jim Sinegal lucidity.
Continue improving your great service following your friend advice.
March 12th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
unfortunately, godaddy has fast become known as having the worst customer service and not so great downtimes with their hosting. honestly, i used them one time and will not use them again. their 9.20 per domain isnt the lowest price in town.
March 12th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Honestly I have 20 sites hosted with godaddy but after the last updated>> on 3/11/07 from 12:30pm to about 5:45pm >> all 20 sites were down because godaddy had ” so call ” server problems.( 1000’s of other sites had this problem
Tell me who makes up for this time and $$ wasted??? I am thinking about changing very soon.
Note:
( they need to spend more of our money in their services not models..)
March 13th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Low price and hot babes! woooo! that’s a real businessman.
Let’s look at the way the girl is dressed vs the businessman in the above photo.
There’s no mystery about using the sexuality of a model for marketing. No secret that a large percentage of the world’s thoughts and motives turn on “hot babes! wooo!” — but then that part also has it’s limitations and there are many other dimensions to thought and action - yes, even from those who are not male and 14 to 40 emotionally and spiritually.
Real businesspeople (men and women) - get their “hot babes!” at the hot babe store and their business web service decisions are kept separate from that and are made - not on the basis of who is the cheapest - we’re not buying commodities like bread or cheese or toilet paper at a Costco - we’re buying serious and well-funded service.
March 13th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
I really like GoDaddy. Found a great hack for getting gift cards.
http://www.brianfoust.com/screenshots/neil-bauman-owned.PNG
Neil Bauman owns eBaumsworld.com. I hope he didn’t mind the whole thing.
May 16th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Cosco is lean profitable company. Godaddy.com has a great PR campaign but thats about it. There are lots of registrars offering better service at a better price.
Network Solutions didn’t just over price themselves, they earned a reputation for underhanded and unethical business.
June 7th, 2007 at 6:25 am
Hi Jay, i’m Alex, a disable guy ‘om Italy… can u, or some of ‘ur friend, give, an e-mail where I can send a message to Candice Michelle?
Many thanks and I hope to be so lucky one day!
UPDATE by Jay:I would contact GoDaddy directly. I am sure they have a fan club for her.
December 30th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
As a “domainer”, and a typical male, I love my domains and the opposite sex. I cant remember the last time that I was at a wet t shirt contest, but safe to say I am overdue. Yes, Godaddy has some pretty good eye candy; I would say near topnotch. However, it could never be enough to distract me away from godaddy’s horrible customer service. Godaddy is definitely bottom rung in that department.
I would much rather go out to a strip bar, for the cost of a few beers and a few dollar tips. After which, I could go home and log onto a registrar that does not take your name after 12 days of expiry to sell in their own auction, or their hostage ploy lock it from transferring whenever the whois gets changed. Boobs and beer, good. domains and ethical customer service, good. mixing the two up = godaddy.com
January 25th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I remember Go Daddy back when they were primarily just a domain registrar. They were great back then but one thing stuck to mind: They were a great domain registrar…only! Not a great host for web sites.
Also to speak of the guy complaining about losing his domain(s) after they expired…what did you expect? They’ve had auto-renewal for years my friend! Try using it! You’ll keep those domains then.
As for Candice and the other Go Daddy women they’ve had from time to time…that’s their PR and it seems to work for them.
Like I said, they’re great for registering domains. That’s why I use them.
January 28th, 2008 at 5:56 am
GoDaddy’s chicks are for you knuckleheads who think with your ’southern brains’… but hey, it gets you thinking about the company/them doesn’t it?
As for all the other crap, look, the reason GD is the biggest, is because they DO give good customer service. I’ve had a few problems with them, but they can always be reasoned with and they will always try to see your side, which is more than you can say for many other large companies.
I wouldn’t register with anyone else.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:15 am
We get greedy and we want more and more and more. Allowing a competitor (that only wants a ‘fair’ amount) to walk right in and steal our customers.
And we foolishly do it again and again and again.