ProStores admitted to a glitch that ultimately resulted in at least one seller's store being shut down. The problem occurred when ProStores' system failed to send the seller a notice informing him that his domain name needed to be renewed.
Joe Adamson, an eBay seller who also teaches through eBay's Education Specialist program, received an email on Monday from DomainPeople.com telling him his domain name, sdosupply.com, had expired and was placed on hold. As a result, he said visitors to his website were greeted with a link-farm page. He had registered the domain through eBay's web-hosting service ProStores when he signed up several years ago, he said, and had never received notification that his domain was about to expire.
ProStores Director of Marketing and Revenue Lin Shearer said normally, an email notification about pending expiration of domain by Domain People is sent 45 days prior to the expiration date. The email includes instructions on what to do, giving the option to renew with Domain People, transfer to eNom (the company ProStores currently uses for domain registration), or transfer to the registrar of merchant's choice.
In an email, Mr. Shearer said, "Joe Adamson's case is unique - unfortunately, due to a small glitch in our system - he did not receive our notification email. We are contacting him directly to explain the issue and offer him subscription credit due to our mistake." After further research, ProStores discovered that a few more merchants were affected, representing less than half of one percent of the total merchant base. Shearer said the company found the root cause and have addressed the glitch.
In July, ProStores dropped Domain People and Tucows as registrars and now uses eNom for its clients who choose to register their domains through ProStores. ProStores charges users $8.95 for a one-year subscription, which is waived for the first year if the seller registers a new domain within 30 days of signing up for ProStores. It also offers private registration for $10 so that sellers do not have to register their domain with ProStores to use a dedicated domain.
Mr. Shearer said active ProStores merchants who registered their domain names with ProStores/DomainPeople prior to July 21, 2009 should receive an email notification 45 days prior to the expiration date with instructions on transferring their domain to eNom, transferring to the registrar of their choice or renewing with Domain People.
Mr. Adamson's frustration with ProStores was clear from a post he wrote on Facebook after the incident, saying each party (Domain People and ProStores) blamed the other. But he told AuctionBytes that a ProStores manager reached out to him and apologized for the lack of notification. He was offered a service credit sufficient to cover the costs of both re-establishing the domain and moving it to another service, he said.
