If you missed part one, I suggest you stop on over and read that one first and then head back to this report on domain name sales from DomainNameSales.com and me adding some info to the domains, so it’s not just a name and a price. It takes a good deal of effort to do these but I think it’s worth it and my readers enjoy it, so here we go with round two:
- Domain Purchased: Plethora.com
- Purchase Price: $105,000
Plethora Corporation which used the domain name PlethoraLabs.com prior to spending the six figures on Plethora. Nick Pinkston is a founder and here is an interview with him from TheBlueprint.com. Nick had recently sold his past company CloudFab and started Plethora, which is a hardware start-up.
- Domain Purchased: Vroom.com
- Purchase Price: $75,000
AAGP, LLC (based on the trademark filing of the logo) Vroom.com itself is a used car sales site “by a group of auto industry veterans who are out to change car buying forever”. The website itself makes zero mention of a company but it’s hosted on DealerTracks servers and was AutoAmerica.com prior… Scott Chesrown owns the Auto America domain and he was listed on Vroom.com prior to it going to whois privacy at GoDaddy. Great domain but also risky! Risky? A lot of trademarks for the term, and many in the automotive industry. Change of ownership in domain names and a trademark prior to the change can come into play. Target Brands Inc. owns automotive trademarks on the term Vroom.
- Domain Purchased: LuxuryVilla.com
- Purchase Price: $70,000
Luxury Villa LLC has its work cut out, because Bookings.com B.V. has spent HUGE money snapping up a lot of Villa and Villas domain names, include both of the EMD’s. Villa.com and Villas.com. I couldn’t find much on the company Luxury Villa LLC, but there are several bio’s on the about page starting with CEO Samuel Cohen.
- Domain Purchased: Senator.com
- Purchase Price: $70,000
SENATOR GmbH & Co. KGaA is a Germany based company in the Gifts & Premiums Products industry offering pens, mugs and accessories.
- Domain Purchased: NewIP.com
- Purchase Price: $60,000
IPM Private Registrations. The Intellectual Property Management Company provides Global Corporations with Corporate Domain Name Management Services in all available countries and all available extensions. The seller got ALL of it out of this sale IMO! Only a handful of domain investors that I can think of would ask/get this price for this domain and one of them was the seller, Frank Schilling!
Domain Purchased: FlowerBox.com
Purchase Price: $55,000
FlowerBox Inc. is a company that offers a “flower box” that is a vase. The vase snaps together and can easily be stored flat when done or recycled. FlowerBox Inc. is located in Portland, Oregon. This appears to be a fairly new company, as I couldn’t find much on them but the product looks pretty cool.
- Domain Purchased: HealthSelect.com
- Purchase Price: $44,800
Catholic Health Partners (Mercy Health) Mercy Health operates more than 250 healthcare organizations in Ohio and Kentucky. The domain has a Coming Soon message on it.
- Domain Purchased: NowSecure.com
- Purchase Price: $12,000
viaForensics, LLC which secures mobile devices, mobile apps, BYOD or how they put it: NowSecure is advancing mobile security worldwide with nearly 300 million devices and app downloads protected. I still like my domain LockedSolid.com for a secure type service 🙂
- Â Domain Purchased: ProBowling.com
- Purchase Price: $10,500
FarSight Studios which is an independent developer and publisher of multi-platform videogames. They do have a game called Brunswick Pro Bowling, which was launched in 2010 and that is the game the domain resolves to, but for the app!
Wrap-Up
If you missed the first part of this series, check that out here please if you liked this article.
In browsing these domains, digging them, whois searches, Gooooogling, TM searches and much more, a lot of the reported domain sales do not even look like they sold, because whois didn’t change at all. This can happen when a domain name transfer takes place and the past registrant data remains. IMO, this should NEVER happen and I don’t like it when it does. It happens though and sadly, whois is really one of the only ways to tell who owns a domain (well there are a lot more ways, but in general, whois is the system). If nothing changes, it makes you wonder… did it really sell?
Health related terms are hot and health related companies must sleep on money mattresses! They are not shy at spending some bucks on domains and branding of products and services they produce!
The domain industry is buzzing with tons of nice reported sales and this is great to see! I have sold zero domains in 2015, so that is not so great but I am hopeful that I can still be around to see how great this year ends up for many in the domain industry!
Jamie,
This is a solid post. It provides the reason “why” companies buy domains and the possible strategic advantage. Thanks for sharing.
Love the great information that you are sharing with the rest of us! Keep up the great work!
Great great information.
Now, this is news I can use.
You are a professional Domain Investigator.
Tremendous investigative work Jamie, the forensic domainer.
Excellent research Jamie, and interesting info on these sales and the companies behind them. “The story” behind a sale is equal to the price. I enjoy seeing a real website emerge on the heels of a big transaction. Confirms that the sale is authentic imo.
On your comment “whois is the system … If nothing changes, it makes you wonder… did it really sell?” I have had this same thought numerous times over the years where a mediocre name goes for a surprisingly high figure – and many months later the domain still goes to a landing page or doesn’t resolve at all. And that’s a ton of domains. Raises suspicion about the legitimacy of the supposed sale. These questionable sales in which the domain never materializes into a real website are always 100% hidden behind privacy whois.
Thanks everybody! I enjoy doing these articles as I think it provides the details that should be with a reported domain sale when the domain sells for a decent amount. This data takes time to obtain, because of transfers, privacy, payment etc. whois doesn’t always reveal much, so more digging is often needed, or simply time from the sale. I may do another one or two of these articles over time with the data that I have and hopefully see a few more whois changes on some of the domains or sites are launched.