Michiel Kikkert is the owner of FXDomains. With more than 13 years of experience and over 20,000 customers across the globe, he’s one of the top resellers in the GoDaddy community.
We last checked in with you four years ago. What’s happened since then?
It’s become even more challenging to exceed in this business due to more competition. For a period of about two years, I ran the program pretty much on auto-pilot without spending too much time on improving the website.
Up till about half way through 2017 this was the case. At that time, I got more involved in Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). Due to my “other” job, I was asked to join a little CRO startup with some big players in that industry. That triggered me to once again put more focus on FXDomains.com.
I decided to do a complete redesign and rebuild of the website. Luckily, this coincided with a renewed interest at the GoDaddy site to offer the resellers better tools to integrate the custom storefront with the back-end processes. A nice WordPress plugin was developed by the team from GoDaddy, which I knew would give me the possibility to build a better website.
The new site launched in November 2017, and I’m happy to say that that effort was really worth it. For the next few months, I’ll focus on extensive A/B testing to further improve the website.
How many customers do you have now?
I have hit just over 24,000 customers — an increase of about 4,000 customers since 2014. My main focus with all the improvements I implemented on the site is to grow this number faster over the next few years.
Is pricing and competition still your biggest challenge?
Without a doubt. I’m still a huge proponent of loosening up (or getting rid of) the minimum retail price at which we have to sell the products. Pricing competition and the overall lack of being able to compete on price for many products is actually what is currently holding the site back growth-wise.
I know that the GoDaddy reseller team understands this and I really feel that they’re working hard to address it. I really love the fact that the reseller team has a renewed focus on the program and that they’re there to help us out and improve the program as a team effort. They deserve our respect for helping us as much as they can to earn healthy commissions.
Competition-wise, yes, this remains always a challenge especially as our biggest competitor is of course GoDaddy itself. But hey, I like the challenge and I don’t let it deter me from my growth goals.
Do you have any additional advice for other resellers?
Personalize your offering. Make sure you offer value-adds to the products. There are 20,000+ competitors who all sell exactly the same products for about the same price. Think hard as to why a customer who lands on your site should buy from you. Build a smashing custom website and make sure it works very well.
Any tips on the best way to grow your business?
Keep at it. Build a social media presence. Use any (promotional) excuse to post on social media. Offer additional services that differentiate your business from others. Build a custom website. And of course, keep pressing the resellers team for better pricing and promotions.
What keeps you coming back (renewing) year after year?
Simple — I make good money from the program. I love it!
Many thanks to Michiel Kikkert for sharing his story. Be sure to check out the FXDomains website.
Learn more about the GoDaddy Reseller Program.
