Posted by Mark in For new updates and contest please scroll to the bottom of this article.
Who says the economy is down? When it comes to web real estate it seems like there is enough money to secure a good investment. ToysRUs recently bought the domain toys.com for a whooping $5,100,000, that’s right $5.1 million dollars. For ToysRUs this is a good investment since toys will now be directly related to their products and services and we can see why they didn’t want to back out. If you would like to see the entire bidding please follow this link : ToysRUs secures Toys.com for $5.1 million.
Now that one high profile domain auction has come to an end there is another one on the rise. We recently caught auction.com up for grabs on sitepoint. However, the auction didn’t seem legitimate from the very beginning. First and foremost, sitepoint isn’t really a place to put up a high profile domain or site for auction, especially when you are expecting million dollars out of it. Second, the owner/agent refused to verify the site on sitepoint which usually takes about 5 minutes. You can see from the image below nothing was verified to boost bidder’s confidence.
Within hours after the auction went live, the auction was closed. We didn’t take the snapshot of the comments but there were a few members on sitepoint asking the seller to verify the site. The seller refused to do so for some odd reason. Seller did mention that he might take the site off of sitepoint and stated that he was having talks with the CEO of Moniker. Well, the listing was taken off of sitepoint one hour after we captured the above snapshot. Take a look at the image below. Also you would think when selling a domain like “auction.com” the seller would give more details as to why the auction was closed or being pulled off.
By the way, for you to be able to snatch the domain the seller wanted $1,000,000 as down payment. Fishy? Absolutely.
After about an hour the description changed to sold.
We agree that domains like auction.com don’t last for too long in the market but then again we are not sure why anyone would be looking for a quick sale on a domain like this. The seller made it clear that the buyer would have to put a million dollar as down payment. The auction itself seemed very “pushy” as to get someone to put that down payment in.
We can’t totally put our foot down and say this was a scam but the way everything went along and within few hours, it sure does lean towards a domain scam. According to one of our sources the seller mentioned that site was going on Moniker for a live auction and then later said that it won’t be auctioned live since they were being pressured for a $2.5 million sale. As far as we know it won’t be auctioned live on Moniker as the seller stated initially before closing the auction on sitepoint. The fact that they want a million dollar down right away to secure the sale might make anyone uncomfortable. There was no mention of escrow in the listing either.
All we can do is wait and see if we hear anything about the sale of auction.com. But the way everything went on sitepoint in regards to the auction we can’t think of it as anything else but a domain scam.
What do you think?
By the way, if this auction were legit who do you think this domain would benefit the most : ebay, Amazon, Yahoo? Go ahead and share your thoughts.
Update : Upon further research it has been confirmed that auction.com is indeed up for grabs. Auction.com already has a buyer and they are looking to close the deal sometimes today. The purchase price as we know is $2.5 million unless someone else bids higher by the end of the day.
Contest : Now that it has been confirmed that the domain is up for sale with a possible sale by the end of the day, we thought we would run a little contest. Do you have any guesses who might be the buyer? Please share who you think might end buying this domain and if your guess turns out to be right, the commentator with the correct guess will receive $50. We will transfer the money via paypal to the first commentator with a correct guess. Make sure to give a reason as to why you think they might end up buying the domain.
No related posts.
Amazon should be the buyer. They are the one company that has the capital at the moment to spend on something like this. It sure is a lot of money to spend on a domain, but with people looking for even better deals these days, it would be in Amazon’s best interest to grab this one.
Not to mention, they could really get clever with their affiliate program. After all, they have tons of products already. They also know how to deliver the products via a web based solution. Seems like a great fit to me to tinker in the auction market and I could see they burning the proverbial profit candle from both ends.
I would think that Amazon would be the most likely buyer. Ebay doesn’t need it because their name is already synonomous with auctions – so Amazon could use it to be a very viable competitor.
I think Ebay will take it for sure. Amazon is a retail site first, not just an auction service. Ebay could extend their audience to those who do not recognize Ebay as an auction site.
I would guess ebay will buy the site – to keep it out of the hands of competitors, or to use it themselves for something. Many times in the world of top selling software companies (like Microsoft,Cadence, Mentor,etc) a large co will buy a small one just for the IP or to shut it down and reduce competition. Ebay certainly has the moolah…..
Google. Because they own everything. It would be a pretty effective way to compete with Amazon (wait, does Google own that, too)?
[...] reports are bubbling on Twitter and other sites that the ‘category killer’ domain name, Auction.com, may have been sold for $2.5 [...]
[...] reports are bubbling on Twitter and other sites that the ‘category killer’ domain name, Auction.com, may have been sold for $2.5 [...]
Just as normal you have offered several terrific data. Been a lurker on the webpage for quite a while and wanted to thank you for taking a few minutes to publish it.
I love to attend and buy some stuffs during Auctions, you can really get some nice stuffs in there.;-:
i like online auctions, they give that sort of adrenaline rush when buying’,`
I looking for domain aucton, and i got your website about domain auction
i love auctions, i think joining an auction and bidding is also an addictive habit ”-
I like coffee! Anyhow… I really enjoy visiting your website because you often give us excellent articles about my favorite topics. Fabulous writeup. I enjoyed it once again. I am excited to add this blog to my faves. I am going to subscribe to this feed as well. Tha most awesome paaart when waking is dark roast in yours mugggg.
Nice article. Most of the time come across fantasic writings here at your blog. Thanks for sharing. I plan to add this blog to my faves. One more thing, I am curious about paying for advertising spaces here. Sure would be a awesome website to advertise on. Great posts and smart layout. Send me the advert info please. Happy 2011…