Rick Schwartz had to go through the hoops of a UDRP process for Queen.com, in order to show its potential buyer that he meant business.
While quoting seven figures might seem excessive to some, the long term benefits of owning the domain that matches your brand can be substantial.
Frands Jepsen, the owner of Danish flower company, Queen.dk, didn’t expect a quote of $2 million dollars, and his response to Rick Schwartz was “Are you kidding me?”
Strangely enough, I recently sent a five figure quote for a domain to another Danish company, that came back with “You can’t be serious?”
When I asked them to allocate a budget for this short, two word domain, or seek an alternative elsewhere, their response was that “it’s not a matter of budget.”
And this is the key to the domain sales kingdom.
These types of responses aren’t related to the ability of the buyer to define a budget for a domain name, they are linked to the overall attitude towards the acquisition of intangible, digital assets.
In Europe and elsewhere, many types of businesses seem to find no justification for spending a lot of money – typically, cash – on anything that’s not a car or a house.
Domain names are digital property, and the proliferation of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are changing the approach to digital valuation fast.
Brand specialists, marketing professionals, and digital asset consultants have the ability and authority to repave the road to domain valuation, educating their clients about the true valuation of domain names.
Domain industry publications, and conferences alike have the ability and the obligation to educate the corporate masses and the executives running them.
Hopefully, five years or less down the road, such incidents will become obsolete, leading to bigger and better domain sales.
I have said it numerous times on NP but as a financial professional who sees corporate spending, it amazes me the mindset of most SMBs and developers toward domain names – that $XX is the max one should pay for a domain. Yet these same organizations give little thought to spending thousands of dollars on other normal operating expenditures.