SolarEnergy(.)com sold for $1,650,000

[H2FC]

I just found this bit of exciting news for all who like myself, invest in green alternative energy names, especially solar.

The following was taken from the 10Q filed today by Solar Energy Initiatives,inc. http://biz.yahoo.com/e/081224/snry.ob10-q.html

"During the quarter ended October 31, 2008, we acquired approximately $1,662,755 of business assets, and furniture and equipment for office purposes. $1,650,000 of the capital expenditures were for the purchase of the domain name, solarenergy.com."

This is the highest price I've seen paid for a green alternative energy domain name....no other even comes close.

Merry Christmas to all.....

[Vijaya]

Summary of SOLAR ENERGY INITIATIVES, INC. - Yahoo! Finance

"Significant Capital Expenditures
During the quarter ended October 31, 2008, we acquired approximately $1,662,755 of business assets, and furniture and equipment for office purposes. $1,650,000 of the capital expenditures were for the purchase of the domain name, solarenergy.com, We have used these assets to begin our business operation. "

[Focus]

Fantastic domain, unlimited potential........they should do well

[stewie]

good luck sounds great!!!!

[MediaHound]

Nice find!

[H2FC]

Thanks for posting Vijaya....I'm happy to see this sale as its just another example the alternative energy sector is growing in leaps and bounds. There's no end in sight and I suspect this same domain will be worth 3 or 4 times more in a few short years.

[cursal]

Thanks for sharing.

Indeed a perfect name for the industry & imo "category killer" for direct-navigation.

Now to see the solar sector really start taking hold, in the US particularly.

[lordbyroniv]

geeeeeeez

thats a gem of a domain

[PokerPie]

i always wonder if you guys saying this stuff are just doing so to encourage end users to keep paying stupid prices for domains. we all know this domain would have gone for xx,xxx or less if it was dropped and went for auction...thus, that was its true value.

think this company will turn a profit selling the domain when they go bankrupt? no, they'll sell it for $20k or less. they got fleeced.

it is the hope of a dream come true idiot like this that makes it so hard to buy domains from people. they sit and wait and hope that some slobbering, retarded, drunken hobo will come by and pay them off like this. it is bad for the industry imo. the one in a million shot, like winning the lottery, that distorts the perceptions of everybody else in the industry.

i'd pay money to see the negotiation.

'come on man, we'll pay you $1,250,000 for solarenergy.com, we really need this domain'

'i'm sorry, i have to have $1,750,000, this is a premium domain and i have received higher offers than that in the past' (ya right LOL)

'ok we have gotten approval to go to $1,500,000, but that is our limit'

'i can't do it, this is one of the best domains in the world (LOL) and it demands top dollar....$1.65 is the best i can do'


joke. this is why our industry gets a bad name.

[james2002]

Brilliant sale in this kind of difficult time.

[all4cost]

we all know this domain would have gone for xx,xxx or less if it was dropped and went for auction...thus, that was its true value.

No - I'm afraid ONLY You know that ...

I'd bet even in the current PPC/Parking phase it would make that much per year easily PARKED.

joke. this is why our industry gets a bad name.

I was thinking the same thing .... But not about this sale.

[draggar]

Domains are worth what people will pay for them. Don't ridicule a sale if you don't know what was going on. Yes, it might have gone for far less to a reseller / drop auction but this was to an end user - not a domainer / reseller.

Solar energy is gaining popularity with the whole "green" initiative, the Kyoto treaty, and higher fuel / energy costs. I think the company will do extremely well with the domain and easily make the money back within 2-3 years.

[PokerPie]

Domains are worth what people will pay for them

They are worth what they would go for at auction. Anything more than that is salesmanship and ignorance. The whole notion of 'end user' and 'reseller' prices preys on stupidity. It is like buying things in third world countries with a white face. White price is double the local price...only because the white people don't know any better. Does that make the value of a t-shirt change dramatically from one moment to the next? No, it makes some people stupid.

A domain is an asset, like anything else you buy for your business. Do you think this business would have willingly overpaid for office space? No, they would want to buy it at market rate. Do you think they would overpay for their supplies? Or their employees? No, they want them at market rate (or less). So why should they pay grossly more than market rate for this 7 figure asset? They shouldn't. They are stupid, plain and simple.

Somebody should add this domain to 'the greater fool theory' wikipedia article, because the only way they'd ever turn a profit on selling this domain (once they have to, because they go bankrupt making decisions like this) is to find somebody even dumber than they are. Unlikely though, I think this domain has reached the end of the stupidity train.

[cursal]

When considering the cost of advertising per print media numbers start looking a little different.

To run a full page color ad in a popular magazine that has millions of subscribers for 1 month can run around $15,000 - $30,000 USD
now run that ad for x 12 months = $180,000 - $360,000

now do that in a few more popular publications and that ads up to the price of the name.
A few magazine ads is only a very small portion of a company's adverts budget for such an industry.

start piling on TV, Radio, and Adwords etc...the advertising budget grows and growns.

The name shouldn't need more than a full blow campaign for more than a year before the site/domain name is a household name.
Then they can pull back some from the advertising and allow all the media, bloggers, affiliates?, take up the slack.

[whitebark]

They are worth what they would go for at auction.

A domain is an asset, like anything else you buy for your business. Do you think this business would have willingly overpaid for office space? No, they would want to buy it at market rate. Do you think they would overpay for their supplies? Or their employees? No, they want them at market rate (or less). So why should they pay grossly more than market rate for this 7 figure asset? They shouldn't. They are stupid, plain and simple.

Somebody should add this domain to 'the greater fool theory' wikipedia article, because the only way they'd ever turn a profit on selling this domain (once they have to, because they go bankrupt making decisions like this) is to find somebody even dumber than they are. Unlikely though, I think this domain has reached the end of the stupidity train.

It's a company that bought it - they are going to use it for business purposes. It really seems you think domains are only the property of domain resellers - and what a closed-minded attitude that is!

Cursal's post explains the business end. I'm also guessing you have never paid for real print/tv advertising in your life. Such a domain will pay for itself in a short time.

And if you think auction prices are the benchmark of domain pricing I've got a bridge to sell you.

[PokerPie]

His post explained the sales pitch, not the business end. You guys have been wrapped up in this system so long you believe the brochure.

I understand all the reasons one could give them to make them think it was a good investment. i understand all the reasons that it may in fact be a good investment. I also understand that this name is not worth anywhere near that amount of money.

The only disagreement here is on the definition of value. You guys define value as 'the most I can get some idiot to pay for it'. I define value as 'the amount the name would fetch at an open auction'

This same exact thing happened to the trading cards industry. Shop owners used to use Beckett magazine to price their cards and sell them to kids. Then eBay came along and changed everything. There are still those old codgers claiming Beckett is the real value, but you can get cards on eBay for 10% of what Beckett lists them as.

The same will happen to domains in time. End users will figure this process out and stop paying stupid prices, resellers will have to start selling domains for less than they think they are worth, and prices will come down....and there will be liquidity in the marketplace.

[Gerry]

They are worth what they would go for at auction. Anything more than that is salesmanship and ignorance.

My goodness.

You mean all those domains I have sold over the years to end users was pure salesmanship and ignorance?

Who are you claiming is the ignorant party?

The buyer or the seller?

How much would you have paid for TyTz dot com?

Mostly like nothing, right?

or reg fee...

Why? because it means nothing to you. Nothing.

Because it means nothing to you it should therefore mean nothing to anyone else.

I do not reveal private sales. Never. Even more so when the buyer does not want to disclose this.

There is nothing to hide. The buyer got an invoice. I, the seller, got a statement from the buyer. Income was claimed and taxes were paid.

If you insist a domain is They are worth what they would go for at auction. yet this was not purchased and sold at auction, does that mean the buyer should have only paid reg fee for it? It was not worth anymore than what I paid? Which was reg fee?

What do you think I could have gotten for this at auction?

Do you think TyTz dot com would have brought $xx,xxx.xx - $xxx,xxx.xx on sedo? Afternic? Traffic? Snap?

[PokerPie]

Doc com,

It was salesmanship on your part and ignorance on their part. If they had approached you in a different way (probably involving lying about who they were or what they wanted the domain for) you probably would have sold it for a lot less. If you wouldn't have...that is only because there exists greater fools, and you wanted to wait for one. If there were no fools...you would sell that domain for the $20-100 that it is worth (maybe a bit more, I'm not exactly sure of the LLLL.com market right now)

[Gerry]

This same exact thing happened to the trading cards industry. Shop owners used to use Beckett magazine to price their cards and sell them to kids. Then eBay came along and changed everything. There are still those old codgers claiming Beckett is the real value, but you can get cards on eBay for 10% of what Beckett lists them as.

You really can't be serious.

You want to compare a sports card printed in quantities of perhaps 50 million to a one of a kind and the only one domain?

You can't be serious, can you?

I used to laugh my *** off when I sold Mark McGwire rookie cards for $300 bucks each when he broke the record. They were going for $450 to $600 a pop.

Why did I laugh my *** off? Because I have perhaps 100 of them that I bought at cost in the "Year End" sets.

Here is a real test for you and your math:

How many A Rod rookie cards were printed by Topps, Donruss, Fleer, and the countless other makers?

Millions? Billions?

How many Joe Dimaggio, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams baseballs were actually signed by them in their lifetime? Tens of thousands? Perhaps even more were forged?

How many SolarEnergy.com domains are there?

How many will there ever be?

My god, please come back and present a better argument than comparing domains to baseball cards and using a Beckett publication as a guide.

And stick to buying and selling domains or perhaps baseball cards on ebay.

[Vision]

His post explained the sales pitch, not the business end. You guys have been wrapped up in this system so long you believe the brochure.

I understand all the reasons one could give them to make them think it was a good investment. i understand all the reasons that it may in fact be a good investment. I also understand that this name is not worth anywhere near that amount of money.

The only disagreement here is on the definition of value. You guys define value as 'the most I can get some idiot to pay for it'. I define value as 'the amount the name would fetch at an open auction'

This same exact thing happened to the trading cards industry. Shop owners used to use Beckett magazine to price their cards and sell them to kids. Then eBay came along and changed everything. There are still those old codgers claiming Beckett is the real value, but you can get cards on eBay for 10% of what Beckett lists them as.

The same will happen to domains in time. End users will figure this process out and stop paying stupid prices, resellers will have to start selling domains for less than they think they are worth, and prices will come down....and there will be liquidity in the marketplace.

Poker Pie,

I noticed you only joined here a couple months ago.

Based upon your glaringly ignorant posts (i.e. comparing domains to baseball cards, telling Doc he bamboozles buyers, etc) -- I highly sugest you read "The Domain Game" authored by Wallstreet Journal writer David Kesmodel.

The book will provide you a good education/history with respect to digital assets.

-Michael