WalMart picks up another business running on a premium one word, three letter domain name. CNBC reported that WalMart will acquire the website Art.com. In 2016 they acquired Jet.com for nearly $3Billion.
From the article:
Art.com is one of the largest online sellers of art and wall decor globally, Walmart said. A person familiar with the deal said the size of this acquisition is similar to Walmart’s other recent deals and that Art.com recently was bringing in more than $300 million in sales annually.
Personally I think they just like LLL.com’s
WalMart is the only old school retail company that really got the message and is at least trying to compete against Amazon on their playing field. They don‘t want to be the next Sears. jet.com, art.zom, shoes.com. AMZN is still way ahead but at least they decided to put up fight and I see a strategy here.
No No No
look at why they really bought it
http://www.walm.art.com
Subdomains people, subdomains 😉
??
MapleDots, I’m curious as to how you think a giant like Walmart will use art.com to market subdomains; given that developing/marketing subdomains is not their primary business.
I don’t think that big companies don’t see the value of domain names.3 million is a few primetime commercials,I really do think that one word domain names are going to really really skyrocket in a few years. Owning ART.com just the domain itself for 8 bucks a year forever OWNING a category is F—— priceless . I see a domain like this being worth 30 -50 million in 5 years.
Art.com as a domain alone is worth $100 Million plus TODAY. Forget about 5 years from now. I agree that (after the economic crisis) ultra premium .com domain names are going to skyrocket. Probably exponentially. But it will be too late for investors as the cost of entry will already exceed what 99% of investors are willing or able to pay. Art.com is one of the top 5 domains in the World in my opinion.
Drew, what are the other 4?
Now they can get creative with sub domain walm.art.com
Jet.com was three Billion? BILLION?
Not sure if I understand correctly. It seems to be a business purchase instead of a domain purchase.
What don’t you understand the article clearly states, “WalMart picks up another business running on a premium one word,”
Well, you’re right. Seeing “acquires Art.com” in the title had me under impression that it was a domain sale. I should have read the first sentence carefully.
Oh no problem, I always try to make sure people see it was a business or there will be a bunch of threads and tweets that a domain name sold for huge money on it’s own.
Well played Walmart. Domains undervalued consistently.
Does anyone know the original owner of art.com?
A few years ago I met a couple who registered dozens if not hundreds of key word domains in the mid-90s just after they got out of college. They got married and spent, if I recall, 100 USD on each domain, and their family members through they were “crazy”.
They sold some of those domains to some of the biggest companies in the world. They also have used the proceeds from the sales of their domains to build hospitals, and set up foundations and entities for medical research.
I have no idea how much they made through sales. But I’d estimate 500 million USD, at least. They keep an extremely low profile and still own a formidable portfolio. I was in discussions a few years ago to develop one of the domains into a site, as had many others, but they decided to just keep the domain and not develop.
Andrew mentions art.com as being one of the 5 most valuable domains. I have no idea — but it certainly is in the top 20. I’d put these as top: health.com, trip.com, med.com , cloud.com, care.com
Funny thing is, I’ve been shopping for art lately a lot and started to look at art.com. Their store SUCKS. I can see why Walmart wants to acquire it. It’s very low end art. All print art. No actual paintings or any one off/unique pieces. It’s low end / cheap art. Fits their model well.