King.com Ascends to the Sales Throne After Commanding $155,000 at Sedo

by Ron Jackson
  

Some eyebrows were raised when word of the King.com sale leaked out. That domain had been stolen and when it happened the news was widely disseminated on the web. Less attention was paid when the rightful owner, Peter King, succeeded in getting the domain back, so some thought the thief was behind the sale. That wasn't the case and it's nice to report that this story had a happy ending with the proceeds going to the right guy. 

Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com posted a pair of big winners this week; #4 CamClub.com at $22,515 and #9 ProShares.com at $11,250. Afternic.com rounded out the top half of the chart with the $20,000 sale of #5 RealEstateAgency.com. 

The Ohio food company that bought Foods.us for $20,000 last week, Natural Foods Inc., was busy again this week, buying two more .US domains (via Sedo) from Miami's Griggs & Co. Inc. for five figures each. One of those, GourmetFoods.us wound up at #10 on our mainstream chart after going for $10,750. The second one, OrganicFoods.us, finished just off the chart at an even $10,000. We'll have more on the increasingly active new extension market (.infos also did well this week) in our New TLD section a little later on. Right now we want to give you a look at the complete leader board for the week ending Oct. 9:

In the lone private sale on this week's chart, the folks at AjaxReview.com laid out $14,501 to get iBegin.com. The buyers plan to use the domain to roll out a new site in December that will showcase their Web 2.0 AJAX application. Sedo completed their Top Ten six-pack with a pair of �10,000 ($11,991) domains that tied for the #7 position; PartnerProgramm.com and Cours-Particuliers.com. SnapNames.com and Afternic also had five figure domains just off the chart. SnapNames sold iPal.com for $10,450 and Afternic found a buyer for Loan1.com at $10,000. 

SnapNames had a long list of solid sales again this week including Foockle.com (1,359 with the extension in Overture) at $9,500 and IndiaPost.org at $9,300. PetSource.com ($7,600), KaiaiTravel.com ($6,200), Unescape.com ($5,924) and AdultErotica.com ($5,655) were also among the winners. At $5,101, Horse-Racing.com scored some points for hyphenated domains. GrannyPics.com clicked for $5,050 and GSA.org brought $4,700. GourmetGrocery.com bagged $4,600 and BirthdayToys.com took in $4,544. SnapNames also had a sizeable pack of sales ranging from $2,000-$3,600 that you can see in this table:

Sedo's supporting cast was also a strong one with GayStar.com going for $7,500 and TheGaffer.com grabbing �4,000 ($6,985). Three others landed at �5,000 ($5,996) each; WebsiteWeather.com, Djam.de and Versteigerungen.at ("auctions" in German). .De is Germany's country code while .at is the ccTLD for Austria. Sedo also had country code successes with BWG.co.uk at $5,000, ChampionsLeague.de at �4,000 ($4,797) and 440Strand.co.uk at �2,500 ($4,366). HandelsMagazin.de ("trade magazine" in German) added �2,500 ($2,998) and CSE.co.uk chipped in �1,500 ($2,619). Back in the global extensions, Passepartout.net ("mount" in German) made �3,500 ($4,197) and Erard.com racked up �3,000 ($3,597).

Back at Afternic, Jall.com ("well" in Korean) went for $6,000, AdImpact.com pulled $3,500 and PoconoGolf.com holed out at $3,333. DietSupplement.com tacked on $3,300, Chives.com added a $3,200 appetizer and MediaGames.com played out at $3,175. DriedMushrooms.com drew $3,000, UBGroup.com ground out $2,888 and OnWebcam.com flashed $2,500. Adam Woeger also went to Afternic to acquire Prays.com ($2,450) for an Internet ministry.

Moniker/DomainSystems supplemented their pair of Top Ten trophies with Mazatlan-Mexico.com at $7,200 and MarinaClub.com at $5,375. Enom's Club Drop raked in $2,600 for TravelRental.com and $2,500 for HairBleach.com. Meanwhile at Ebay, a very nice two-letter .org, HH.org, changed hands for $6,200. 

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King.com moves into the first ten on our Year To Date Top 60 chart after that $155,000 sale at Sedo. The newcomer settles into a 9th place tie with Porker.com. King.com was the only domain to crack the elite list this week as the entry level has risen to $50,000. A lot of good domains have scrolled off the chart the past three months, so we have put together an expanded chart showing every sale of $10,000 or more in the first three quarters of 2005. We have  placed a permanent link to that list at the bottom of the YTD chart in case you want to revisit it in the weeks ahead. Here is a look at your Year To Date leader board through Oct. 9: 

New TLD Section

The .US hot streak has been extended to three weeks in a row. It started with Business.us a couple of weeks back, continued with Foods.us last week and rolled on with GourmetFoods.us and OrganicFoods.us this week. As we told you in the mainstream section of our report, those went for $10,750 and $10,000 respectively at Sedo. Still another big one looks like it is about to close. NaturalFoods.us is marked "Pending Transfer" in the public WhoIs record. Since Ohio's Natural Foods Inc. has been buying all of these food-related domains it is almost certain that they are the ones about to acquire their exact name in the American country code. 

.US fans have expected to see these kinds of sales ever since the extension was opened to public registration in April 2002. Others are less certain, arguing that .US potential is "limited" because it represents only one country. Considering the USA has an annual gross domestic product of over $11.75 trillion and Internet growth is exploding, we would guess there will be more than enough new businesses coming online to give the American ccTLD a shot. In fact, .US has acquitted itself very well against its global brethren, .biz and .info this year. .US has dominated the upper reaches of the chart, accounting for 6 of the top 8 sales. .Info has the other two and .biz makes its first appearance at #9. 

.Info continues to have the most overall Top 50 sales and flexed some muscle this week as well with four more four-figure sales including #3 Wetten.info ("bet" in German). That domain changed hands in a private sale for �5,750 ($6,895). Sedo accounted for 5 of the 8 charted sales, including #4 Traumhaus.info ("dream house" in German) at �1,800 ($2,158). Afternic also contributed to .info's success, moving a pair of domains; IBuyHouses.info and WeBuyHouses.info, at $2,000 each. Here is a look at the complete New TLD leader board for the week ending Oct. 9:

A pair of sales from Sedo anchored this week's chart. #7 BioEnergy.us booked $900 and #8 TPN.info added �700 ($839).  In other new TLD sales at Sedo BioMass.us brought $675 and Pandemic.info posted $500. Bed.info sold for $630 in a private sale and Afternic sold four others .infos; Guy.info ($550), Marine.info ($525), Cry.info ($525) and Infant.info ($500). 

Looking ahead to next week, I sold a group of five domains (4 .us and 1 .biz) at Sedo to a buyer that, based on the names, I think will turn out to be the food company making so many purchases in recent weeks. All have been paid for and are currently awaiting transfer. 

Our New TLD Year-To-Date Top 50 chart gets three new members this week with GourmetFoods.us and OrganicFoods.us both moving into the first ten. The entry fee gets bumped up to $2,655 this time out. With the first three quarters of 2005 now in the books we have put together a expanded chart showing you every new extension sale of $1,000 or more through Sept. 30, 2005. We have also added a permanent link to that list at the bottom of our YTD New TLD chart so you can access it in upcoming weeks if you need quick access to the information. Here are 2005's highest reported new TLD sales through Oct. 9:

As always, we welcome all verifiable sales reports from companies, private sellers or individuals with knowledge of an important sale made through any channel. To contribute information and help make this column better,  just drop a note to [email protected].

We truly appreciate the industry leading companies represented on our charts who share their sales information with us to help everyone in the business get a handle on current domain values. Individuals like Richard Meyer of the American Marketing Corporation also provide invaluable help by sending us data for these sales reports each week.

Every Tuesday we publish the highest reported domain name sales for the previous week. On Monday our contributors send us their sales data for the previous 7 days. We then compile that information and write this report for Tuesday publication to give you the freshest sales report in the industry. 

We will close with this standard caution. These are not average selling prices - these are top selling domains. One of the biggest impediments to making sales is pricing domains at unrealistic levels. For most of us, pricing domains at the levels achieved on the Top Ten chart will leave us waiting a long time to make a sale! We hope you will use the information presented here as a measuring stick that will help you price your domains at levels that will put more money in your pocket more often!

Editor's Note: If you wish to review previous Domain Sales columns, they are available in our Archive.

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