French company Societe Bic has acquired the premium, exact match domain name Bic.com!
Societe Bic has long used the domain name BicWorld.com, because Bic.com was owned by Brookhaven Instruments Corporation and used as the companies main domain name and email. Not any more.
Bic.com has now changed ownership to Societe Bic according to whois records:
Societe Bic offers popular Bic branded lighters, pens and shaving razors to mention a few.
It is very likely that most people simply assumed the Bic brand owned Bic.com, because it’s only natural for them to do so. That is not always the case and often times, a company needs to invest a large sum of money to be the “one” who owns a specific domain name. In this case, Brookhaven Instruments Corporation was the first to own it and have a legitimate use for the domain name. Similar to Tesla, which used the domain name TeslaMotors.com (restrictive branding since they offer more than cars now), prior to acquiring Tesla.com from its past owners about a year ago.
The Bic.com domain name is not only vital for clear branding around the world, but also vital in communication needs by email. This was likely a substantial purchase, well into the seven figures for Societe Bic, if not more.
I have reached out to Societe for comment and was provided with “Unfortunately, we do not comment on this purchase.”.
Thanks for sharing Jamie!
This shows how much more money one has to pay for a domain when it goes developed and after that you try to acquire the domain. A lesson for those who don’t upgrade their domains at right time and end up paying lot more. It wasn’t targeted towards this sale but a common mistake which many are doing on continuous basis.
Companies seem to put little value put on exact match names until it’s too late. I find it odd that startups that receive large funding rounds fail to buy their exact match domain when it’s cheap. They always wait until they have to pay through the nose.