Up To $1.8M Expired Domain Name Deal — Tucows Signs
Domain name registrar signs deal to sell expired domain names to third party.
This is a follow-up to Reglike’s note this morning regarding Tucows (AMEX: TCX) selling a $1 million portfolio of domain names and entering into an agreement to sell up to $1.8 million in domains to the same entity over the next 18 months. As the previous article mentioned, the latter is some sort of expired domain deal.
On the same day it disclosed the $1.8 million deal, Tucows also disclosed a fresh partnership to sell expired domain names through NameJet.
I asked Ken Schafer VP, Product Management & Marketing for Tucows, how this private party expired domain deal will work. Will the buyer get first rights to domain names ahead of they are sent to NameJet? Or will the buyer get to pick through any remnants that aren’t sold at auction? Schafer wouldn’t say much:
While we can’t disclose details of this agreement I can assure you that every day you’ll see thousands of names released through NameJet. I’m confident that many of those names will be appealing to domainers as well as businesses and individuals looking for a great domain name.
Some domain name registrars have deals with buyers to sell any expired domain names that don’t get picked up at auction. But if the buyer at Tucows is paying a similar average price to what he paid for the first $1 million worth of domains ($392), it must be some sort of off-the-top skimming. I’m not sure if the $1.8 million deal has the same pricing, but Tucows stated that this deal has similar terms to the $1 million deal.
Of course, Tucows also keeps some of the domain names for its own portfolio, so what you see on NameJet may be the bottom of the barrel.
