The domain name JHAH.com was sold by BuyDomains.com, in June on Afternic.com for 3,888 probably on a Buy It Now basis.
Today the whois on the domain name updated and the buyer is the world’s #1 oil producer, the Saudi Arabian Oil Company.
Saudi Arabian Oil Company according to Hoovers.com, is “the king of oil, and the world’s #1 oil producer, supplying more than 10% of global oil demand.
“In 2012 the company had oil reserves of 260 billion barrels (the world’s largest); it also owned 283 trillion cu. ft. of natural gas reserves (the fourth largest in the world). ”
“It operates refineries, markets oil internationally, and distributes it domestically. Saudi Aramco owns a fleet of oil tankers and invests in refineries, marketing, and distribution ventures in other countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, and the US.”
The domain name is going to a MarkMonitor.com placeholder.
Needless to say if the company really wanted this domain name they had the funds to pay slightly more and certainly six figures.
You may recall that the domain name Dudu.com sold for $1 Million dollars last year.
Would the world’s largest oil producer have spent $1 million for Jhah.com?
Guess we will never know.
I’ve found Middle Eastern buyers to be not only eager to pay more, but willing to play a fun game of negotiation and bargaining.
Apparently in this case, they took advantage of a BIN price.
That’s why you never price domains with a fixed price, until you research your buyer. BuyDomains left a lot of cold cash on the table with this one.
Thanks, Mike, for the Domain C.E. (continuing education).
Sincerely,
know thy customer.
MHB- I bet this kind of thing bothers you more than anyone of us besides the seller.
Well this is what buydomains aka saggydimes does, it whores out names, BIN model has always been great for auction houses, bad for the seller.
Can you imagine if this sale had been handled strategically, it could have wiped the slate clean of all those $488, $788 sales they have to churn out to keep the lights on.
I guess when you have over 100K domains, you lose track of what means what, and it all becomes a percentage game.
BuyDomains won’t change anything, they will shrug it off, and onto the next one, but if this was a domainer getting $50K, and using it in the aftermarket, can create a very nice portfolio compared to $4K
Sorry BuyDomains you sold the farm on this one, maybe saggydimes is an appropriate name after all.
GUYS DO NOT USE BIN PRICING, IN THE LONG RUN YOU WILL LOSE, ONLY TAKES 1 STRONG SALE TO CHANGE THE GAME.
They have such a large portfolio, if they negotiated hard on every name as if they were dealing with a deep pocketed company, they would lose out on a lot of $500, $1500, $2888 sales which keeps their cash flow going.
The many ‘small’ sales they get probably offsets the potential gains they could have had on a name like JHAH.com.
Most buyers are still thinking they can get a nice domain off you for 2 times reg fee, and I see a lot of offers still in the $50 to <$1000 range, and these people won't go higher. Not everyone is willing to pay $xx,xxx for a domain yet even if it perfectly fits their business needs.
I do not personally follow the high sales, BIN pricing model of BuyDomains for my own names, but I see how it works for them. I prefer negotiating as if the buyer really needs the name and will pay what it takes, but you don't get as many sales that way.
Actually, I’ve negotiated purchases from BuyDomains for myself and clients, and they are open to offers, which is great. This option affects a specific part of their domain portfolio.
However, the bulk of their domains rely on the BIN model, which is not the way to go for smaller portfolios.
Robb makes sense.
Robb
No 4 letter or 3 letter .com should be listed with a BIN price of $3,888
They own 1,000,000 domains or more
Some are fine to be priced at BIN but not those
I am sure Saudi Arabia will be very pleased to know ICANN granted an Arabic root extension if they don’t know already. Can you say brown nose?
My only gripe is that we built those oil refineries for them and now they are screwing us over and giving money to our enemies and well as to Western Europe to keep them afloat since Socialism doesn’t cut it. Other than that I have no qualms with them and I very happy they have added another .com to their portfolio.
I agree, LLLL.com can create some surprising sales when they fit the acronym of a big organisation. At least if they are on ‘Make Offer’ you have a hope of learning the identity of the inquirer and use that for negotiation.
Perhaps BuyDomains will change their wide scale model at some point to ‘make offer’, but they would need to hire a lot of domain brokers to field and negotiate offers, most of which would be lowballer time wasters.
I enjoy these posts of yours that point out low value domain sales to huge companies, keep it up!