One of my favorite color .com domain names appears to have changed hands. Indigo.com, which has been owned and used by a company called Indigo Instruments for many years, is now forwarding to IndigoInstruments.com. The current Whois record shows that the domain name is now registered to someone affiliated with another company called Indigo, described as “Canada’s largest book, gift and specialty toy retailer.”
I reached out to the current registrant as well as the former registrant to ask if they could share details about the registrant change, and neither party replied to me to confirm that Indigo.com was sold.
When you visit Indigo.com and land on IndigoInstruments.com, there is a message noting the domain name change. On the page with more information about the domain name change, it states, “We have changed our domain. “INDIGO.COM” has moved to “INDIGOINSTRUMENTS.COM” SAME NAME – DIFFERENT DOMAIN.” Smartly, it looks like Indigo Instruments has owned the longer IndigoInstruments.com domain name since 1999. This likely made the domain name shift a bit easier and less costly for them. Whether the company bought this domain name for defensive reasons or in anticipation of a future sale of Indigo.com, it was wise and showed great foresight.
The company that appears to be the new registrant operates its business on the Canadian ccTLD domain name, Indigo.ca. From my perspective, getting the exact match .com domain name was a very smart move for this industry leader. It will be interesting to see if they decide to forward the .com domain name to the .ca domain name, use it independently, or opt to change their domain name to the .com.
If I were to guess, I would say the domain name was sold and the seller has a period of time to notify customers of the change, migrate any data that may exist on the domain name, and make any necessary SEO changes to ensure a smooth transition.
Indigo.com is clearly a high value domain name asset, and if I learn the sale price of the domain name (and can publish it), I will share an update. If I were forced to make a guess, I would say this was a mid to high 6 figure deal with the potential for it to be 7 figures. This is just a guess though.
Buyer is a company called chapters
They are the biggest chain of bookstores in canada.
This is what I see on the Indigo.ca website: https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/our-company/
“At Indigo, we’re passionate about being the best. Meet the management team behind the continued success of Canada’s leading book retailer.”
I’m surprised they didn’t already own it and even more surprised that ingido.com was owned by another Canadian company.
Chapters is actually struggling in Canada a few years ago they were closing down stores, they tried to be the amazon of Canada, but had to reshift.
They are more like Barnes and nobles
Question: was it really “Indigo Montoya” or “Innigo Montoya”?
That’s one heck of a domain.