Report: TAO.com Sold “for over $1M”

According to the DN.com newsletter that was sent to subscribers earlier this week, TAO.com was sold “for over $1M.” The exact purchase price for this domain name was not reported.

Here’s what DN.com reported in its newsletter:

“An interesting find-out, I assume everyone knows the sale of strawberry.com, which is brokered by the famous domainer Andy Booth. Andy is also a certified user at DN.com. If you don’t know the sale yet, see here. Anyways, the buyer of this domain name seems to be Fashion One TV. However, if you dig deeper, you will find out that Fashion One TV is owned by Bigfoot Entertainment. The founder of Bigfoot is Michael Gleissner, a film director, producer and a domainer. And Michael has owned the very valuable pinyin name TAO.com for many years, he recently sold this name through 4.cn for over $1M. Besides TAO.com, Michael also owns many other premium names.”

I reached out to a representative from Bigfoot, and they confirmed the sale of Tao.com, although they did not have any further comment about the sale of the domain name for this article.

Interestingly, despite selling for a reported 7 figures, Tao.com is not resolving at this time. I am unsure of how this domain name will be used. It appears that the current registrant is based in China.

Although the DN.com newsletter said the domain name sold “recently,” I am unsure of when this domain name actually sold. Because there isn’t an exact sale price reported, I highly doubt we will see this sale reported on any of the domain sale tracking websites.

According to the Year to Date domain sales chart maintained by DNJournal, there has only been one publicly reported seven figure domain name sale so far in 2016 (the $1.2 million sale of LA.com).

Aside from the newsletter report and confirmation from the company that previously owned the domain name, I have not personally confirmed the sale or a sale price.

Thanks to Charley Chacko for sharing this with me.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
  1. Received this today in an email solicitation : “Next Domainbrokers is one of the leading brokers of premium domains, brokering transactions in excess of $15 million. Our transactions sales include the sale of TAO.COM for $1 million…”

  2. I reported this sale on May 18 in the News section of my site Coreile.com/news. The reason “Tao.com is not resolving” is probably because the buyer is an investor so does not need to put anything on the domain name. Tao(淘) is a big money word in China and Tao.com will be very expensive to buy, so even a landing page is not required. Any future sale may likely go through a broker.

    Buyer Mr. Wu also acquired Tao.cn this year. Price unknown. He’s a business owner in a traditional industry but is very interested in domain investment. He also owns many premium names such as 177.com, 960.com, 211.com, mika.com, and xiao.com.

    Chinese source: http://news.ename.cn/yumingjiaoyi_20160517_104441_1.html

  3. Kudos for bringing this to light. The non-disclosure sales of .COM Assets is still submerged out of sight. The continued efforts to mask .COM Assets Values still remain prevalent. Yet we hear certain domainers whose thirst for .COM Assets on the cheap still telling .COM Asset Holders their assets are not worth as much as owners are asking.Rick Schwartz had an interesting comment on this subject.Rick says to prospective buyers, who say its not worth what you are asking ” I will just wait till it comes to light in the future that it absolutely is worth what I am asking” NYET!
    Patience is the key to .COM Asset valuations to be fully realized.

    With the advent of Ad Blockers and .COM Centric Online Marketing Strategies flourishing the highly flawed Google-Centric pricing System now in place will look rediculously CHEAP. Higher Valuations are coming Soon, count on it.

    Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Former Rockefeller IBEC Marketing Analyst/Strategist) (Licensed CBOE Commodity Hedge Strategist) (Domain Master https://www.UseBiz.com

  4. I have a sold a good amount of brandable names to Gleissner/Bigfoot. The very first name I sold to them was actually found right here on DomainInvesting, the now defunct Weekly Brokerage Listing. If it wasn’t for them finding that first name all of the other sales would have never happened. Thanks for that Elliot.

  5. Hello Elliot,

    What do you think you or your readers could do with the information we are going to reveal right here on your Blog. We have repeatedly broadcast this information to our following believers, who are taking advantage of this information.Within 5 years Search Engine Marketing will be a Marketing strategy that very few will use because of it being an obsolesced technology , due to superior new online Marketing strategies hinging on .COM-Centric Marketing technologies.Our proprietary research almost guarantees this happening.JAS 6/10/16

    Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Former Rockefeller IBEC Marketing Analyst/Strategist) (Licensed CBOE Commodity Hedge Strategist) (Domain Master https://www.UseBiz.com

  6. In China, there is huge pent up demand looking for the Highest and Best use Domains, and once the masses there finally learn that new TLDs are a come on and the real deal .COM Assets are where they want to focus, we will experience a huge spike up in .COM Asset Valuations. Prepare and position to enjoy ! JAS 6/12/16 Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Former Rockefeller IBEC Marketing Analyst/Strategist)

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