Hello everyone!
Regardig the domain name commissions, here are my 2 cents.
(Pease forgive me if I repeat any suggestion someone else may have already talked about. I didn’t read all the previous posts. Also, forgive my poor English. It’s not my first language, and it shows! )
First of all I think points are under-rated. I mean, points are valuable, because they are the result of our work and effort. They represent quantity of work and quality of work. They are the result of our time (and time is money), effort, work, creativity, and so on! The “point” (pun intended) is they are valuable and should be more used as a “Creativity Coin”. Considering this and the fact that SH owners must get the rightful profit and return for their investement (I don’t want them to go out of business!) and not only, here are my suggestions:
1 - As someone else mentioned, it would be a great idea if creatives could have the possibility of registering the approved domains, and be entiteled to higher percentegas on the domains they register themselves (after SH approval).
2 - Considering the first point, it would only be reasonable that creatives would pay for each domain submitted, using points(!).
3 - I agree that the scales of the commission percentages are somehow uneven. I understand that the registrant must have a higher percentage, because all the risk is on their side, but a ratio of 80%-20% is discouraging for the other part. I would be more happy to suggest published domains to contests, if the ratio would be more like 60%-40%, for the registrant.
4 - A further idea would be that creatives could negotiate the percentage using their points. For example, SH would set the creatives’ commission at 20%. And the creative could negotiate a higher percentage using his points. For example, he would need to pay 100 points for each 1% increase to the comission.
5 - Regarding the renewals of the domains, I would suggest three options instead of the current 2:
a) Don’t pay anything and get a decrease on the creatives’ percentage (like it currently happens, if I’m not mistaken);
b) Pay an amout of points (for exampe 100 points) and get no change to the commision ratio.
c) Pay the $10 and swap the percentages alltogether with SH (if it was 60%-40%, it would become 40%-60% with this option), considering that now the creative invests as if he would register/renew the domain, so he takes on all the risk for the next year.
6 - Another factor that is important when renewing a domain is the ratio between the number of views and the number of times it was shortlisted. The higher that ratio, the better the domain probably is and that should mean it has a lower risk of not selling. This could be used for both reviewing the domain’s price as well as for the maintaning or increasing of the percentage for the part that hasn’t invested in the domain (registration or renewal).
7 - Another thing that would encourage creatives to submit their published domains to marketplaces (and value their creativity) is to be able to get the sale commision (when the domain sells) as well as the prize of the contest (should it be chosen as winner). After all, “garanteed prize” should mean exactly that. The contest and the domain are two distinct subjects and the creative shoud be rewarded for both if he should be succesful in both.
I hope this helps the discussion. And, please forgive me if my coments are somehow offensive or if they hinder this discussion.
Best regards!
Ruben