Wisconsin based furniture manufacture and retailer, Ashley Furniture Industries, Inc. has purchased the premium generic domain name Ashley.com according to whois records.
The Ashley.com domain name was long owned by a company called Ashley Consulting Group Inc. out of Ontario, Canada but appeared to be listed for sale around September 29, 2014 using the Uniregistry system. The domain remained for sale for the past 3 years, with whois moving to privacy around June 2016. The domain name did change registrars around that time, so there is potential it sold around the June 2016 time frame, but not likely to Ashley Furniture.
On November 20, 2017 Ashley.com transfers registrars from GoDaddy.com to CSC Corporate Domains and officially changes whois records displaying Ashley Furniture as the current owners:
In general, Ashley Furniture owns about 1,000 domain names in total, and now “the best one” for the company. This really is the perfect domain name for Ashley Furniture and will help the company in many ways! The name simply makes sense, matches exactly to what they predominantly brand as, with the companies logo displaying Ashley the largest, easier email addresses, much shorter: Ashley.com vs AshleyFurniture.com/AshleyFurnitureHomeStore.com and simply much more professional looking.
How much? Always the key question and not one I have the answer to! I can tell you that the seller and buyer were happy with what the price was or the transaction wouldn’t have taken place. If that was $100K or $1M, it is what it is. The want/need factor of a one of a kind asset like domain names can make the purchase price, nearly any price! NameBio.com took a nice look at first name domain name sales with the highest reported being Jasmin.com at $310,250 and the most recently reported sale (2015) of Amber.com at $180,000. Based on the article and “frequency” (popularity of the name in the US) of the name Ashley at 516,923 and Michael’s estimate of paying about $1 per the frequency… if Ashley Furniture paid around $500K, they got a good deal!
To note, Ashley Furniture did file a UDRP on Ashley.com in 2009 and was DENIED, so this could also greatly effect the purchase price (making it higher).
