Liberty Procurement Co. Inc., a subsidiary of Bed Bath & Beyond has acquired the premium generic domain name Beyond.com!
Based on whois history records, the transaction appears to have taken place around January 1, 2018 but that is when the company appears in whois records. Prior the domain name was under whois privacy, so there is potential they may have acquired the domain earlier in 2017, potentially as early as March 2017. The prior career service that was on Beyond.com, did a rebrand on June 18, 2017 to Nexxt. Did the sale of Beyond.com have anything to do with the rebrand to Nexxt? Or did the rebrand spark the sale of Beyond.com?
It hasn’t been the first time a company rebranded and sold the domain name they were using, so it’s a potential and $$$ is what can drive it. Domain names are very unique, one of a kind assets, so guessing what the domain name sold for would be very hard. Is the domain name worth six figures? Sure! Does passion, desire and a healthy bank account make things happen? You bet! So in general, Beyond.com could have sold for $50K, $500K or $5M but I do not know the exact sales price.
Bed Bath & Beyond didn’t waste any time with the new asset and has launched a beta membership program for $29 a year that provides free shipping and exclusive savings for members on Beyond.com. This is a growing trend as retailers compete with Amazon and its Prime service.
The company is calling the service “Beyond +” (Beyond Plus), which IMO does create some confusion. Do you call it Beyond or Beyond Plus when telling others? Although it creates some confusion, since + is not a valid character in a domain name, simply promoting it as Beyond.com IMO would be best. It removes any confusion.
Although, Bed Bath and Beyond did a great job and also purchased the prior owned domain name BeyondPlus.com. They purchased this domain name from HugeDomains.com, which appears to have taken place in January 2017. My educated guess would put this purchase at around $2,000-$5,000.
All around, Bed Bath and Beyond has done a great job domain name wise on this launch of the membership program. They acquired the premium domain name Beyond.com that fits perfectly in line with the companies brand and acquired BeyondPlus.com to cover any confusion with that + symbol that I personally would have left off. They not only purchased BeyondPlus.com, they are redirecting visitors to it, to the companies main website, that introduces the Beyond membership offering.
This is pretty textbook domain wise and they were able to pull it off nicely. Congrats to all of those involved and a job well done on the launch of Beyond.com.
I think Beyond.com used to be some sort of comparison shopping engine about 10 yrs ago
Yes it was, back in 1999 time frame and was owned by Software.net Corporation, then BeyondROI, LLC and then the past owners.
BB&B deserves 10/10 mark on their domaining homework. I don’t see a big branding agency MarkMonitor or CSC in whois so it seams they have done all this using their own IT team, smooth! A+
Great work Jamie- superb job by BBB on their domain acquisitions and this looks like it could be a good deal for consumers as well since the 20% discount will work on the entire purchase (as opposed to having to carry around countless coupons- and there was a limit that BBB would take on 1 transaction) plus the free shipping.