In this edition of The Sales Roundup, I’m taking a look at several domain name sales from two of DNJournal’s recent bi-weekly charts. The aim is to find out why certain domain names sold for the prices that they did.
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Mules.com – $150,000
This six-figure deal was reportedly closed at Uniregistry on behalf of Tony Lam, who seems to own a portfolio consisting of several thousand names. The domain name was, according to DNJournal, acquired by Sticker Mule.
Sticker Mule is a company that produces custom stickers as well as labels, magnets, and more. Aside from the fact that the company has “Mule” in its name, there’s no real indication as to why it bought Mules.com. There are no new trademarks and no new products that I can see, either.
This could be the start of a rebranding effort by Sticker Mule since the company has branched out to selling far more than just stickers now. Mule.com, the obvious upgrade, is owned by Kawasaki Motorcycles and may have been unavailable.
BubblePay.com – $72,500
BubblePay.com for $72,500 is a sales price that could only have occurred with a motivated buyer and an unmotivated seller. The sale of BubblePay.com was uncovered by George Kirikos in an SEC filing from seller AppTech Corporation.
Acquisitions of domain names from large corporations can be difficult and can often take significant sums of money in order to drive the company to actually sell the name. It’s often easier for corporate employees to ignore incoming offers than to take action on them.
It seems, though, that AppTech Corporation couldn’t ignore an offer of $72,500 for BubblePay.com. That offer came from a company called BubblePay, which needed BubblePay.com to host its website promoting its “mobile-first buying experience.”
BubblePay is a product from Attentive Mobile Inc., a company that focuses on consumer-to-business interactions. Attentive has raised $393 million in funding including a $230 million Series D round that closed in September 2020.
Arizona.com – $350,000
State domain names are difficult assets to value. While some of the larger states may command seven-figure fees, such as California.com ($3 million), others sell for much lower, such as NorthDakota.com ($33,000).
Sitting somewhere in between those two sales is Arizona.com, which was sold recently by VIP Brokerage for $350,000. The value of state domain names could be linked to the state’s population and GDP. For example, California’s GDP is $2.79 trillion whereas North Dakota’s GDP is $54 billion.
Again, Arizona’s GDP sits somewhere in the middle at $321.43 billion.
Arizona.com was acquired by L. Custen Realty Inc., doing business as Realty.com. The Realty.com platform is a partnership between Lance Custen and Brent Oxley. The company also owns domain names such as Texas.com, NorthDakota.com, Tennessee.com, and Alabama.com.
It looks like Realty.com utilizes state domain names to advertise real estate listings that are specific to that state.
Owning the exact-match state domain name in a real estate market is obviously something that the company owners feel is a winning strategy, as the state domain portfolio continues to expand. I’d expect to see Realty.com continue to strategically acquire state .COM domain names.
Explanation.com – $70,000
The sale of Explanation.com is another deal closed by Braden Pollock’s Legal Brand Marketing. Braden, who has recently added Cold.com and Boundary.com to his stellar portfolio, is renowned for extracting full value from his domain names.
Braden’s previous sales include Packet.com for $350,000 and Q.org for $500,000. He also recently announced the sale of Triangular.com for $55,000.
It will not surprise you to read that Explanation.com sold to an end-user. Specifically, that end-user is The Explanation Company LLC as an upgrade from ExplanationCompany.com.
The Explanation Company has a target audience of children, helping peak curiosity by helping to explain things such as “why does the Moon glow?” The company has an app called Vizzable on the App Store.
From what I can tell, this company may be linked in some way to Mystery Science, which operates on Mystery.org. In 2020, Mystery Science was acquired by Discovery Education in a deal worth $140 million.
ApartmentsNearMe.com – $25,111
Alongside ApartmentsNearMe.com for $25,000 was the sale of DoctorsNearMe.com for $21,407. Both names were sold at Afternic and both names were sold by the same company to the same buyer, from what I can tell.
After researching this, I am led to believe that both ApartmentsNearMe.com and DoctorsNearMe.com were acquired by a Texan entrepreneur who runs several companies and online web ventures.
ApartmentsNearMe.com is in the process of being developed, but as of writing, DoctorsNearMe.com is still hosting a parked page. Although from what I can gather, both domain names will most likely be developed. These can be considered to be end-user purchases, then.