Amazon is the global retail leader that has rapidly transitioned into a power player in several industries. A market cap of around $1.6 trillion has given its founder Jeff Bezos a net worth of around the $200 billion mark.
What you may not know about Amazon is that they acquire key domain names regularly. Here, I’ve listed nine of Amazon’s best domains, including a couple of recent purchases.
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Prime.com
Acquired in 2018, Amazon paid an undisclosed fee to acquire this key domain, although it’s thought that the purchase price was north of $1 million.
Prime has become a word synonymous with Amazon, as the company uses it for its membership service and its video streaming service.
After the purchase, Prime.com was immediately put to use by Amazon, who redirected the name to a sub-page promoting Amazon Prime.
Media Options looks to have brokered this name, as it is listed on the company’s past sales page.
Podcast.com
Picked up in 2020, Podcast.com is a recent purchase and another reportedly brokered by Media Options. Amazon acquired the name along with Podcasting.com.
In the last few years, the podcast industry has taken off, with a staggering 88 million US citizens having reportedly listened to one or more podcasts in 2019.
Amazon now owns the ultimate .COM domain for the industry. What is it doing with that name? Wisely, it’s redirecting traffic to Audible, its audiobook brand that has now branched into producing original podcasts.
Streaming.com
This 2019 purchase was again facilitated by Media Options, who also sold Streaming.net to Amazon simultaneously.
The video streaming industry is another that Amazon dominates with its Prime Video offering. Amazon has put a lot of capital into streaming, with Prime Video paying an alleged $250 million for the rights to The Grand Tour and a reported £90 million for rights to broadcast Premier League football.
The acquisition of Streaming.com and Streaming.net was likely a drop in the ocean compared to this, but ultimately Amazon stopped these domains from getting into the hands of a rival service such as Netflix.
Amazon.com
Disregarding the enormous inherited value of the Amazon.com domain, thanks to its usage, the domain alone has significant value as a brand name.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has said that he chose the Amazon brand name by looking through a dictionary; he settled on Amazon because it was a name that was “exotic and different.”
Bezos also liked the Amazon name as it begins with the letter “A,” and so would be top of alphabetized lists. The same tactic that Apple took when naming their company. Amazon.com was registered in 1994, a few months after Jeff Bezos founded the company.
A9.com
Two-character .COM domains are valuable assets to both investors and end-users. We’ve previously seen names such as D8.com, W8.com, and C5.com sell for six-figures each.
Amazon A9 is the name of a subsidiary that developed a search engine and search advertising technology. The A9 team is responsible for search results on Amazon, Audible, and even third-party online stores such as Marks & Spencer.
As for A9.com, the domain used to hold data regarding Amazon’s A9 project, but now the name redirects to Amazon.com.
Look.com
Quidsi acquired the Look.com domain for $400,000 in 2011. Quidsi owned other names such as Diapers.com, Soap.com, and Wag.com.
All of these names transferred ownership to Amazon after the company paid $545 million to acquire Quidsi. Interestingly, the Look.com purchase took place after Amazon acquired Quidsi.
Today, Look.com doesn’t resolve to a web page.
Vine.com
Do you remember when Vine was a thing? The phenomenon that was Vine had to exist on Vine.co as Bezos’ company sat on Vine.com.
As with Look.com, Amazon came into possession of Vine.com via Quidsi. In 2012, two years after Amazon’s acquisition of Quidsi, the company purchased Vine.com for an undisclosed fee.
Again as with Look.com, Vine.com now doesn’t resolve.
Exchange.com
The word “exchange” has taken on new meaning in the last few years with the cryptocurrency market’s emergence. Names such as CoinEx.com at $500,000 (short for coin exchange) have benefited from this trend, but Amazon continues to own Exchange.com.
The acquisition of Exchange.com came about in the late 90s after Amazon purchased a Cambridge-based startup called Exchange.com.
Accept.com
Also in the late 90s, Amazon purchased a company called Accept.com in a $101 million deal. The Accept.com domain has been in Amazon’s portfolio ever since, although it hasn’t been used.
Those domains will likely never be available to buy, ever. Unless you are richer than Jeff Bezo! 😀
stop squatting on these domain names, Jeff
I enjoyed your informative reading. If I wanted to sell a Domain name to AMAZON , where would be a good place to start in their corporate office’s and gain their attention ??? Thank you for any reply and HAPPY NEW YEAR