Toys.com – Sold For $ 5,100,000 to Toys R US

Posted by Erdem OZKAN on 6 March, 2009

This item was filled under [ General, News ]

After a very hot auction between ToysRUs and National A-1, ToysRUs bought the domain name Toys.com at for $5.1 million. This was the first great domain name purchase of 2009. In fact, this is the second sale of Toys.com in one month.

Firstly, Faculty Lounge has put $1.25 million on the table for Toys.com in an auction organized as a result of the recent meltdown of The Parent Company. The Parent Company filed for bankruptcy in December 2008 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of Delaware, and has auctioned off several substantial assets at the law offices of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP.

ToysRus really wanted the domain, for obvious reasons. Everyone except ToysRUs and domain holding company National A-1 (owner of domains such as free.com, boys.com, girls.com, and divorce.com) bowed out of the auction at $3 million. The last $2 million was just those two companies going back and forth for hours.

To encourage type-in visitors, a domain name needs to be simple to remember: A domain name can be reached in two ways: one in which an internet user types in the name on the browser and another where it comes up when a relevant keyword is fed into a search-engine. Toys.com is an answer to these two ways.

Domain name market has a divergent behaviour : A meaningless name like “Google.com” may become the most valuable domain in the world but generic domain names like “Toys.com” are still valuable, too. Real estate business seems dead but online real estate business is still alive!