There were two high value, one word .com domain names that closed at auction this afternoon at NameJet. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that both domain names were previously registered to major corporations, and instead of taking a gain from the sale of a valuable domain name, the registrars and auction platforms were the beneficiaries rather than each of these companies.
Bladder.com sold via NameJet for $23,956. Prior to its expiry and subsequent deletion, Bladder.com was registered to Sanofi Pasteur, a division of Sanofi, a French multinational pharmaceutical company. Sure, $23,956 may be a drop in the hat to this publicly traded company, but it is still a considerable amount of revenue to simply disappear into the coffers of another company.
Picker.com sold via NameJet for $22,800. Prior to its expiry, Picker.com was registered to Philips Medical Systems, a division of Philips, a multinational conglomerate headquartered in Amsterdam. Just like the sale of Bladder.com, the $22,700 in revenue ended up going to another company.
One word .com domain names have been going way up in value over the last few years. In my opinion, the sale prices achieved were at a wholesale level rather than retail pricing. Had these two corporate registrants engaged the services of a domain broker – perhaps even at their domain portfolio management companies – they could have sold each domain name for much more money.
That said, the potential retail values are just that – potential. In reality, these two companies lost nearly $50,000 in revenue they could have booked if they took just the minimum step of renewing and sending the names to auction.
Again, I know this is a tiny drop in the bucket for Sanofi and Philips, but $46,000 is still $46,000 in lost revenue that shouldn’t have been lost.
One phone call by their lawyers saying an employee goofed up would solve it, no joke. If that doesn’t happen than they just don’t care. I am too lazy to see if they were even in use.
Bladder.com fully expired, deleted, and was caught by a different registrar so that wouldn’t happen.
Perhaps but it would mean a heck of a time if they decided to try the new owners stomach out. The old “is the juice worth the squeeze” fits the situation best. This is why as big as some drop companies are on a $20k+/- name it is much wiser financially to simply bow to the real giants of industry and their excuses and give the name back, before it moving of course. Two nice names, def worth more you are correct.
The better option would be to renew and keep until someone makes a worthwhile offer. In the case of Bladder.com, Sanofi could have asked CSC to broker it or put up a simple for sale page. All could have been done at no cost to them with very little to no effort. They could have told CSC to put up the for sale page and not contact them unless they get a $100k offer.