Both purchases were big when you add it all up.
e.biz was the highest selling one letter .biz domain name at $66,001, right? And at $350,000, Overstock.com paid a lot more for o.co than o.biz, right?
Don’t jump to that conclusion.
Overstock was awarded o.biz, which it currently uses as a b2b commerce store, through a request for proposal from .biz registry Neustar. Although the RFP didn’t require Overstock to pay much money directly to the registry, it did have to agree to spend significant resources promoting the o.biz web site. It may sound outlandish, but word on the street is RFP responses to Neustar’s release of one character .biz domains may have included a commitment to spend over a million dollars promoting the site.
Sure, a million dollars is little to Overstock; and if the company is going to promote a new web site it surely plans to spend that much on marketing, anyway. But when it comes to upfront commitment, o.biz was probably seven figures. Who knows, maybe its deal with .co included similar provisions. But they probably didn’t need to be in writing — by spending $350,000 on this domain, it’s clear Overstock is committed to the domain.
jeff says
o.biz never heard of it 🙂
Jason says
Both names were a waste of money. It just makes it more efficient for customers to reach overstock. I would much rather put O.co in the address window than to type out the entire address.
BN.com works well for BarnesandNoble.com. To purchase O.biz for $66K is a travesty. They should’ve invested their money into trying to land O.com. The domain lands on an error page.
I associate .biz with movies, tickets, sports, and other entertainment related businesses. Who was actually competing against Overstock to increase the price to over $350K? E.co was the catch of the .co TLD. The owner can easily sell subdomains.
I’m going to stick with .com domains. They are much easier to sell.
Ned says
.co could surpass .com in value within a few short years because of the push into all things mobile and shorter idn’s.
Flipping Domains says
Just a was of money , but I guess they can afford it and they are getting a lot of people talking about them buying the o.co name so they are building their brand O
chandan says
just publicity stunts 😀