[registrars] Incremental cost of a a registration to the registrY.

["Robert F. Connelly" <rconnell@psi-japan.com>]

At 03:13 AM 3/22/03 +1100, Bruce Tonkin wrote:
>Most businesses need to accept a certain level of risk associated with 
>receiving credit card payments.

Dear Colleagues:  Show me the business that has no risk and I'll show you...

I don't know what I'll show you.  I don't know a business which is free 
from risk.

Which brings up an interesting point about which I've been meaning to write 
for some time.

Some years ago, I worked for a manufacturer of a unique product for testing 
for contamination in many fluids and gases -- aerospace hydraulic fluid, 
liquid and gaseous oxygen and nitrogen, jet engine fuel, jet engine 
lubricants, potable water, pharmaceuticals, air in various environments 
(atmosphere, hospitals, clean rooms).

The company shipped the first order "open account" to any customer with no 
credit check.   I questioned a Vice-President about what seemed to be a 
risky practice.  His reply was that the company works on a 70% average 
profit (Lord knows what the incremental cost was for a filter disk).

However, he continued, "If we were running a steel supply warehouse with a 
5% profit, we'd have strict credit policies".

The VP continued, "If a firm with our profit ratio had zero credit loss, 
I'd recommend firing the Credit Manager -- he'd be costing the company 
profits by being too strict on credit policies".

It is my guess that the incremental cost of one more registration to 
Verisign, Afilias and Neulevel is less than $0.25.  For Verisign, that 
would be a cost of 4.2%, Afilias 4.3%, Neulevel 4.7% on each registration.

Some of our registries seem to operate like a steel supply 
warehouse.  After all, we are all totally dependent upon the registries for 
our supply of domains (from an inventory which has no cost to maintain, no 
spoilage, rust or theft).  If our account dips below zero on a weekend or 
three day holiday, there is very little risk that we will not bring it up 
to plus (credit balance) shortly after the holiday is over.

The problem is compounded by U.S. holidays, mostly on Mondays.  We have had 
occasions when we remitted funds from Japan on a Friday morning (Thursday 
evening Eastern Time).  For some reason, the registrY accounting department 
was not notified by their bank on Friday.  They did not come to work on 
Monday, did not process the deposit till noon or later on Tuesday, perhaps 
03:00 Wednesday in Japan.  From Saturday till Wednesday, we all went around 
with a cramped sphincter;-(

On the face of it, the Neulevel system should work better.  As I understand 
it, they maintain a debit account in our name.  We can wire funds into that 
account and it *could_be* automatically transferred to our account 
untouched by human hands:-)  I don't know how quickly the production 
department updates our credit limits.  But it does seem it has advantages 
over systems used by other registries.

Just thinking;-)  Regards, BobC


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The person who says he or she is too old to learn was probably *always* 
too old to learn".

One of the quotations collected by William E. Franklin, formerly
President of Weyerhaeuser Japan, Ltd., Past President of American
Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ).