Back in April, Chinese mobile device maker Xiaomi purchased Mi.com for $3.6 million, some reporters noted that the MI made perfect sense for the company as Mi can work as an acronym for Mobile Internet.
Since that acquisition it seems that brand protection specialist Mark Monitor has been out scooping up Mi domains in other country codes. Mi.co.uk was reported sold on DN Journal for $14,000. The domain was reported sold by DomainNameSales.com. This domain was reported sold before the Mi.com sale, roughly two weeks before.
This week Mi.co.id (Indonesia) sold for $60,000 on Sedo. Now right off the bat it makes you wonder did the negotiation skills of the .co.id just transcend that of the .co.uk owner, or did the .co.uk owner not push the negotiation ? .Co.uk certainly is a much more liquid and popular extension. Now in the weekly report from Sedo that we posted, one commenter said he sold Mi.co.za.
Well this is VERY upsetting to say the least and confusing!
I sold MI.co.za to MarkMoniter via SEDO a few weeks back for only $2,000!
Obviously at the time I did not know who the buyer is (One of my pet hates about SEDO). I certainly resisted the price and really struggled to get them up to 2k. My initial offer was 9k and theirs was just 1k!
So I really pushed and they were not interested in going further. Hindsight being 20/20 I now wonder what would have happened had I said no? Had I known it was Markmonitor I probably would have said no as they conned me before on a global product name for Nestle.I think large corporates and TMs have a damn cheek trying to be surreptitious about their names especially with something generic like an abbreviation or two letter name. A bit like Apple registering a whole new dummy company just to try pretend to the owner of apple.co.uk that they were someone else!!!
So why spend so much on a totally unknown ccTLD like co.id?
As a result of this secrecy SEDO affords buyers I stick to Afternic which at least gives you a username…
You can see all comments on this post here:
https://www.thedomains.com/2014/06/24/sedo-transactions-total-900k-as-mi-co-id-sells-for-60000/#comments
The commenter makes a good point about one of the perils of negotiating on a platform that provides you little due diligence. Of course the Co.id seller also used Sedo and got $60,000. I would have thought the .co.uk could have gone for $60,000 especially since DomainNameSales.com gives you more tools when a lead comes in.
It also seems that Mark Monitor has scooped up Mi.sg the country code of Singapore. Xiaomi has an office in Singapore.
None of the domains point to any corporate website. They actually don’t even resolve in most cases, the .Co.Za just has a placeholder saying, “This domain is registered and protected by MarkMonitor”
Mi.asia also sold back in May but the whois is not Mark Monitor, that domain sold for $1,110. The domain is parked at Sedo currently. Xiaomi does own Mi.cn and redirects it to the .com website.
There is always a debate that rages back and forth when negotiating with a mostly anonymous buyer on a platform like Sedo. I have read some people say they always negotiate like it is Apple or Google on the other side of the email and others feel content to just go for the price they want.
Certainly when you own a short LL domain that domain can have a lot of value to a lot of corporate interests around the world. Mi is a very good two letter combo, pronounceable, has meaning, good acronym possibilities. It will be interesting to see who Mark Monitor has been scooping up all these Mi domains for.
Not many two-letter .com names are available for resale, a majority is already in possession of large corporations that will hold them forever. Next year we might see 8-figure two-letter .com sales.
They certainly are the gem Peter.
That’s why I never use Sedo because there is no transparency whereas DNS (DomainNameSales) and other domain parking companies gives you the detail about the buyer and you have the information right in front of you. This helps in deciding the asking price. Although this is just one helping factor but a good one.
Yeah if you had to negotiate blind on Symphony.com would you have gone to $375,000 ? Congrats on that again sir.
Exactly! To be honest, I would have never fetched that price had I been dealing through Sedo.
Thanks very much for your kind words again and I really appreciate it 🙂
The Domain sales from Sedo and Afternic are so bogus ….
Thanks for highlighting my frustration and comments on the MI.co.za sale.
One thing I forgot to add is that when we could not get the “mystery” buyer any higher, we we eventually put it to auction on SEDO at which time I sent out a few hundred emails.
However the MI.co.za sale was 27 March, probably one of the first they went for in their bargain hunting “spree” so no one would know the potential budget/value. Had they bought the dotcom first, for the 3.6 million, obviously many would have jumped onto the auction of the .co.za
So it seems corporates are taking advantage of the secrecy SEDO affords them, which in my mind is putting downward pressure on domain names as a whole. Let us hope that some of these sales were not picked up by some unscrupulous Markmonitor employee and then resold to the company…?
Suffice to say we have asked SEDO to remove the 1,800 domain names we have listed with them and are now concentrating Afternic where we just sold an obscure .net for 1k, something you would not see on SEDO. We have always listed on both but now realise that buyers would prefer to go to SEDO if given the option, as they would probably know they get it at a lower price… MI is not the first corporate sale that we made that went way below expectation.
Unfortunately I was kinda cash strapped, so was not in a position to say no to the MI.co.za sale… one wonders how high they would have gone had I said no?
Dj
Auction/brokerage houses should realize that there will be no future for them if they try to lower seller’s asking/reserve price and ,as a result, the sale price for buyers. They should realize that they exist because sellers list domains.