I notice that most domain registrars sell a .com domain at $10 - $15 a year, but why Network Solutions sells it at $34.99? What is the advantage of registering your domain on NS than it is on other registrars?

NetSol was the original registrar. There might be a little something special to having NetSol manage your domains, but you can do just fine at GoDaddy or NameCheap.

Most sell that expensive to boost profit, since they pay a lot less than that.
Any Domain provider will be just as good in my view, it is all about profit and it may be that they have good sales and reputation, so they price it higher.

Or they may not sell that much, so they put the pricing up to cover that.

Network Solutions also provide additional added features such as hosting, email service, parked domain, parked domain with ads for revenue service, etc etc. These are also features that other providers provide, but they are a well known and trusted name for domain names.

You can draw the same parallels with regards to Verisign's Secure Site Pro with Extended Validation which costs $1499 for 1 year and then compare that to Comodo's same certificate for $359 for one year or why 76 gas stations are usually 10-15 cents more per gallon than Arco, or why Arco charges $0.45 for using a debit card at the pump but BP doesn't charge an additional fee.

Name branding and name recognition has a lot to do with price.

My theory exactly, I spend £100 on shoes, go to a cheap shop and can get the same for £20 there, name is very big these days.

The reason is because Network Solutions is targets those who are new to creating websites and can afford to pay a premium price for a slimmed down hosting experience. It also has allot to do with how much your customers are happy to pay.

Jack

A lot has to do with how you brand yourself. Network Solutions strategy obviously works for them.

It also has a lot to do with suckers.
People seem to be so willing to throw their money away on a name rather than do the actual research to see if they can get the same quality for less.

Verisign = Ripoff
Network Solutions = Ripoff

Gas stations? It just makes sense to go where the price is lowest

Until you see the inside of an engine using a premium fuel vs one using shop-own-brand :p

Different registrars charge different prices based on
* what else they "bundle" in with domain (tangibles like id-protection and intangibles like additional security)
* combined with their target market (cheap registrars are focussed on the reseller market, others on the direct-client market, yet others on the high-end corporate market)

For example places like GD are only cheap only if you're buying something else, and force your through 30 pages of upsell of overpriced junk to get registered.

Others cut corners on service/support or even the legalities like escrowing their data or paying their icann fees

And of course some like to make a profit

Are you talking about their value-add services?

While I wouldn't put it quite so bluntly, I must agree, a lot of people will go for companies such as Netsol or Register simply because they were among the first to offer the service, and some might even choose them because of a misguided "expensive always equals quality" belief.

OK, so that's all about names. That makes sense. But I think domain management is "simple" compared to web hosting, for instance. I understand that a lot of research should be done before you purchase a web hosting package, but it's just registering a domain name. What is the harm of doing it with Namecheap or Enom instead of NetSol?

You've not read NoDaddy or any of the RegisterFly debacle, or follow the de-accreditation announcements by ICANN or ...

Domains are important - without them working your online presence is non-existant - so treat them accordingly

Network Solutions is a big brand. Big companies like Yahoo etc. will use Network Solutions. Bloggers will only pay $10 or less.

Name Sol is only charging high because they are used by many big companies around the world.