DotWeekly first reported TheMine.com domain name being acquired by Lowe’s (LF, LLC) in December 2016 but at that time, we simply didn’t know the future plans for the newly acquired domain name asset then. Well, now we do!
Lowe’s has rebranded ATGStores.com to TheMine.com. The stand alone brand highlights Lowe’s and offers Personal Concierge shopping, furniture, lighting, decor and more.
The Domain Movers series on DotWeekly often detects these early indications of new brands, products and services and this is a good example that Lowe’s was up to something with the domain purchase when we reported it almost 5 months ago.
Lowe’s acquired ATGStores.com in 2011 when the company held about 500 websites. You can learn more about this and the rebrand in this GeekWire.com article.
A little bit more about the domain name, TheMine.com
The domain was owned prior by NASDAQ listed (TCX) Tucows Inc. and was part of the “Mailbank” domain name portfolio they acquired in June 2006 for $18 million dollars. The portfolio mainly consisted of surnames and totaled some 17,000 domain names.
TheMine.com was first registered on May 9, 1996. 20 years, 353 days from today!
Lowe’s did not acquire or register the other main TLD’s like .net, .org etc. nor did I find relating domain names to TheMine. I’m fine with that as they own the best domain already and I don’t think it’s required to own the other TLD’s unless they wish to focus on a “local” level in other countries.
How much for the domain? Many domain names with the prefix of “the” can yield a strong sales price and I would expect Tucows offering TheMine.com in the low to mid five figure range.
Lowe’s in total owns about 1,649 domain names and uses CSC Corporate Domains to manage them. They registered about 22 new domain names in 2016, most containing the Lowes brand name and relating to new services they offer, like LowesDIY.com and ResolveByLowes.com which are both stand alone websites that are live for an example.
Trademark
Lowe’s filed 2 “The Mine” trademarks. One on May 26, 2016, some 7 months prior to acquiring the domain name. The second trademark, highlighting more of its plans, on June 7, 2016 for “an online store”. This also indicates how far back they were in the process of the rebrand.
So some “clues” were in place for Tucows to indicate who the buyer may have been for the domain name if they did the research.
Overall
I like TheMine.com better than ATGStores.com. Is the brand name great? I don’t think so but it’s not bad either. Lowe’s should have acquired the domain name prior to the TM filings
