The live domain name auction from Domainfest Global just ended resulting in $717,450 in sales.
QR.com led the way selling for $325,000.
Empire.com sold for $135,000 and another two letter .com QE.com sold for $85,00
Marriages.com sold before the auction started for $36,000
Catfood.com sold for $62,000 after selling just a little more than 2 years ago at the TRAFFIC auction in Las Vegas in January 2010 for $41K, a 50% return.
Here are all the domain names that sold:
Domain | Price |
Qr.com | $325,000 |
Empire.com | $135,000 |
Qe.com | $89,000 |
CatFood.com | $61,000 |
Marriages.com | $36,000 |
ICard.com | $26,000 |
RentalTrucks.com | $12,500 |
Avengers.com | $4,000 |
Margo.com | $4,000 |
StripMall.com | $3,700 |
LiverDonor.com | $3,000 |
VintageMirrors.com | $2,750 |
SportsTherapist.com | $2,500 |
CivilUnion.com | $2,400 |
ActivityCenter.com | $1,900 |
AntiqueGuide.com | $1,700 |
CaliforniaRolls.com | $1,500 |
LiberalArtsColleges.com | $1,500 |
AutoSupply.net | $900 |
Xeam.com | $900 |
Guavas.com | $800 |
WeddingCards.net | $700 |
HotCoupons.net | $400 |
PrescriptionRefill.net | $300 |
$717,450 |
Tony says
RentalTrucks.com was bought for $8,000 on 4-1-11 from a Snapnames pending delete auction. I was second highest bidder…
st louis restaurants says
CivilUnion.com was a steal at $2,400. Congrats to all the buyers and sellers!
Gnanes says
Not bad sales for the last DomainFest.
InGurus says
My stand now is vindicated as QR.COM gets sold.
As stated its too high priced for a domainer and too low priced for a end user
Owen Frager says
How much do you think Friskies Cat Food, just this one brand made by Purina PetCare, spent on advertising?
The New York Times article published last week about Friskies new cat food commercial (the commercial that seems to show the cat hallucinating visions) gives us some interesting insight on just how much money is spent by the mega pet food manufacturers on advertising. So…with just this one brand of pet food – Friskies – take a guess. How much money is spent on advertising?
“Nestle Purina PetCare spent $17.7 million to advertise the various varieties of Friskies in major media in 2007.”
“And increased that to almost $25.9 million in 2008.”
“In the first three quarters of 2009, close to $29.7 million was spent to advertise Friskies in major media.”
That’s a grand total of $73.3 million dollars in less than three years ONLY on advertising in major media for one product.
About a third of the $73 million goes to buy the top spot under keyword “cat food”
Then there are the cat apps… 1000s of them- NY Time just did a story about it—none which can have an illustration of a cat with an empty can of food that is meaningful to any country or culture— sponsored by Friskies that donates a portion of your purchases to feed cats in shelters seeking adoption example…..
Very Hungry Cat – Once again a new app is at the top of the charts. 6 million downloads and no web presence for the developer iDevUA Treelight Limited with a construction page at iDevU.com This week it’s Ukrainian publisher IDevUa’s brand new game Very Hungry Cat that takes the #1 spot. The goal of the game is simple: a cat is asleep and dreaming of his next meal. Players must feed the cat birds, but avoid hazards like bombs and poison. Very Hungry Cat is ad-supported and includes a $0.99 in-app purchase that unlocks additional features. The game was developed by another Ukrainian studio, Gadgetcrafts and was released on November 22nd.
Similar games have achieved 20 million downloads at 99 cents each. Like words with friends. Hey I own Time For Friends that wouldn’t get a single bid at Domainfest yet holds $20 million potential for the developer with a great app but no name.
600 folks invested average 1K collectively $600K and at the end of the day what they really need is a great buy they can flip or a buyer for an asset they bought low and can sell higher. 1/3 of the program is auction- so collectively 600 flippers spent $200K to watch a couple of dozen people benefit from it. If each attendee was allowed to submit one name at buy it now wholesale price and given the $200 from their fee as a credit towards purchase- all would sell generating almost 2 million dollars and sending everyone home happy either making 20% on a sale o buying something they could make at least 20% on later. That’s an auction that creates a $400K gain for the attendees– a $600 average gain plus $200 credit results in net conference cost $200 less than the rounds you’d buy to meet 2-3 local folks. Here you can meet 600 folks at $3 each and still drink $200 worth of booze.
Time for a rethink. Making $41k on a name in less than a year is good. Licensing the name to the hungry cat guys for 10 cents a download- $200K much better.
Now it’s up to TRAFFIC to reinvent, reimagine and reinvigorate the event they invented.
Imagine the executive in charge of Apple’s APP business keynoting with a complete education on how apps get approved, how money is made and shared, how some apps blow up while others are like our domains at Sedo, lye in wait as a line item on a list of millions. I bet we’d see how the name and graphic contributes to the best sellers, while bad names and graphics that convey no meaning fail. I think we’d see how the app name also needs to be a domain name, a Facebook alias etc. That the developers who have that web presence gain credibility and become attractive for acquisition or joint ventures. It was almost impossible to find Very Hungry Cat or get the app store to cart it. One thing we might learn about apps is how much advertising is baked in and how many ad agencies are investing huge budgets in these. If the app is generic like cat food, a company like Friskies can promote it in ads, on packaging, point of sale coupons- event get the shelters to promote it if they derive a benefit. Once we realize how a name matters, perhaps the executive can introduce a program to broker names to developers. After all if a name drive demand, sponsored promotion and millions of downloads your name won’t just be helping a developer, but making a significant difference in Apple’s results. Perhaps the APP guy with the Apple clout our industry lacks, can convince the Friskies brand manager to explain their spend, and license a trial of Catfood,com to test the value such a name can create.
Apple has downloaded 20billion apps- carries 300K which has created a career opportunity for 136,000 developers. • VC investment in mobile in 2011: $6.3 billion or 42.4 percent of total budgets. • Top US mobile ad networks by revenue are Google, Millennial Media, Apple, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Jumptap. • Google’s $2.5 billion in annual revenue from mobile advertising. • eBay expects customers to buy and sell $8 billion of merchandise in 2012. • PayPal expects to see $7 billion in mobile payment volume in 2012.
Between 500 million and 1 billion people will access financial services by mobile by 2015, depending on estimates. The MFS market will be dominated Asia, driven by mobile operator-led initiatives in developing nations to bank the unbanked. Remittance/transfers by mobile is growing three times faster than m-banking.
Amazon app generated $1 billion in sales.
7 trillion text messages were sent, many promoting a product or site.
If the VCs understood how a name supports or impedes everything else they invest in and allocates 10% to branding- that would be a $600 million domain opportunity. Makes $717 auction seem like time chasing the lowest return.
Just saying…
unknowndomainer says
@Owen
Given the logic you present one could be forgiven for asking what on earth made them call their product Friskies instead of just Cat Food. I am, of course, joking.
Interesting auction concept though where everyone makes 20% or gets something they can make 20% on later.. sounds like the banking industry.
Don Murray says
Catfood.com was the best buy. Petsmart probably bought it. If not why not? 61k for the possible name for cat food.
The value of one cat for food that is, is around $200 for decent stuff. So you x that by 30 million cats and that is low figure. That is a lot of revenue.
Then you have a life time customer for say 10 years. What is value now. Does not even include medications, pet care that could be offered for extras on the site. Just endless.
The app would work great because it could incorporate the image of a cat eating something, and that matches the keyword of the domain name. 61k wow who was the lucky company.
Donny
Robert Clinee says
short domain names still rules and
LLL.Co s are still within most mortals reach.
Cartoonz says
catfood.com –
While one would think, like Owen, that any one of the major cat food companies would want to do something with it, surprisingly that was a complete dead end…
they just don’t get it.
Speculatr1 says
It is my understanding that QR.com DID NOT SELL! The bidder believed he was bidding on 12.com.
Not sure what the outcome of this is going to be.
Michael H. Berkens says
Owen
You make a great point but we can only assume the domain has been for sale since acquisition 2 years ago and an offer for $100K wouldn’t have been turned down since the domain name was placed into an auction with a $50K or so reserve and no one apparently came knocking
JTW says
Woohoo, go the QR domains!!
I own a few QR’s;
QRCalculator.com
QREmail.com
QRComputer.com
QRTelevision.com
QRInternet.com
QRCellphones.com
QRSmartphones.com
If only I could QR my tax return.
JTW.
unknowndomainer says
“they just don’t get it.”
sometimes domainers need to look closer to home when asking the question who gets what.. just to get a rounded perspective, you understand.
Michael H. Berkens says
UPDATE
So it appears from some reports that the QR.com sale may have not taken place
If the sale falls through then the total will be below $400K
Aggro says
As usual domainers wail “they don’t get it” as they wait for Mr deep pockets to come knocking on their door with bags of cash…
Methinks it is domainers (in general) who don’t “get” what the end users business is about – otherwise they’d be the ones doing it and making millions – instead of passively waiting & thinking the world owes them a living
As for the ‘end user’, they are quite happy being “not getting it” – BUT still making billions.
Domainers need end users (to maximize the sales price) ; however end users don’t necessarily need YOU.
Bwahahaha
Aggro says
How comes the Fragers of the world are not buying these ‘cheap’ domains if the deal’s so good …?
And yet after the fact, when it sells, they write a novel about the target industry & how Big Business doesn’t “get it”…
Try eating your own dog food – it might convince some that your argument has merit
Shahram says
Michael it is my understanding as well that the person that bid on qr.com was mistakenly bidding on 12.com. Then heard the starting bid on 12.com and passed.
Michael H. Berkens says
Well that is very unfortunate