Holiday.com auction cancelled

domainseller200 · Nov 5, 2014

http://www.cityam.com/1415187976/20m-holidaycom-luxury-domain-name-auction-cancelled

accelerator · Nov 5, 2014

Thanks for the update. I only first heard of the holiday.com sale a day or so ago, there didn't seem to be a lot of online promotion beforehand. Maybe delaying it will be a blessing.

Rgds

julian · Nov 5, 2014

guess that means holiday.co.uk is 400k then based on the 20% of .com value thingy

ohhh

and another 400k for the .UK too!

domainseller200 · Nov 5, 2014

Don't you mean £4m Julian

julian · Nov 5, 2014

holy shite - that's why I got an E in gcse maths! :lol:

domainseller200 said:
Don't you mean £4m Julian

Retired_Member38 · Nov 5, 2014

Surely america not using 'holiday' is massively deflating the value of it ?

Give me a straight choice with no cash in either direction between holiday.co.uk/.uk and holiday.com and i'm taking the .uk option.

I'd also rather have the plural, and/or you ideally need both as it might get confusing.

I'm just not feeling the value of 'holiday.com' here...

bonusmedia · Nov 5, 2014

£20m seems like a stretch. Putting that figure about has probably not helped them.

I reckon the singular is as good if not better - it's probably going to need a massive branding campaign either way.

Interesting that the plural .com is unused, the .co.uk redirects to First Choice and they haven't bothered getting the .uk

I wonder if all these super premiums that were bought defensively will ever get used. If I was First Choice I'd rebrand immediately.

Murray · Nov 5, 2014

Monkey said:
Surely america not using 'holiday' is massively deflating the value of it ?

Yes, from what I watch of American tv (quite a lot) , they seem to call thanks giving/Christmas "the holidays" and trips away vacations.

Retired_Member38 · Nov 6, 2014

Yes, and there is basically zero commercial aspect to that when you compare it against what we'd call "holidays" (i.e. multi thousand pound florida spends with flights, hotel, hire car, water park tickets etc all crying out to pay affiliate commissions on :lol: )

I'm pretty sure I tried to buy a holidays domain on a .com in the past... can't remember what it was now. It wasn't holidays.com though

jasman · Nov 6, 2014

julian said:
holy shite - that's why I got an E in gcse maths! :lol:

You're only 1 order of magnitude out. The author of that article stated that Insurance.com was sold for $35.6bn instead of million near the end. $Billions for a domain name ought really not to get through the proof-reading stage!

Retired_Member38 · Nov 6, 2014

jasman said:
You're only 1 order of magnitude out. The author of that article stated that Insurance.com was sold for $35.6bn instead of million near the end. $Billions for a domain name ought really not to get through the proof-reading stage!

Its just all round crap reporting. Quintstreet themselves say the purchase was 'more than a domain name' http://www.newsinsurances.co.uk/acquisition-quinstreet-acquired-insurance-com-for-35m/0169320206

markb · Nov 6, 2014

There is no way that holiday.com will sell for anywhere near £20m, Personally, I think they will be lucky to sell it, as they will probably have a stupidly high reserve. Just because someone thinks their domain is worth £20, doesn't make it so. Its similar to the stories that appeared about the domain x.uk when the owner was saying their domain was worth £10m, he couldn't sell it in the end. I don't know why he suddenly thought it was worth £10m.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...UK-record-as-web-firms-shorten-addresses.html

websaway · Nov 6, 2014

markb said:
There is no way that holiday.com will sell for anywhere near £20m, Personally, I think they will be lucky to sell it, as they will probably have a stupidly high reserve. Just because someone thinks their domain is worth £20, doesn't make it so. Its similar to the stories that appeared about the domain x.uk when the owner was saying their domain was worth £10m, he couldn't sell it in the end. I don't know why he suddenly thought it was worth £10m.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...UK-record-as-web-firms-shorten-addresses.html

You sure you are thinking this through properly.
I think holiday dot com may not get sold but if the right buyer comes along then 20 million or more could easily be a deal that stacks up.

You have to watch you don't fall into the mindset of a joe blogs looking at a Rolls Royce showroom.

markb · Nov 6, 2014

websaway said:
You sure you are thinking this through properly.
I think holiday dot com may not get sold but if the right buyer comes along then 20 million or more could easily be a deal that stacks up.

You have to watch you don't fall into the mindset of a joe blogs looking at a Rolls Royce showroom.

I'm not saying its impossible to sell holiday.com for £20m ($31.8m), but its very unlikely someone would come along and pay this. How many domains only have ever sold for over $30m? As mentioned, 'vacation' is more popular in the US. Who would spend this amount on holiday.com, without also wanting to secure holidays.com.

Retired_Member38 · Nov 6, 2014

markb said:
I'm not saying its impossible to sell holiday.com for £20m ($31.8m), but its very unlikely someone would come along and pay this. How many domains only have ever sold for over $30m? As mentioned, 'vacation' is more popular in the US. Who would spend this amount on holiday.com, without also wanting to secure holidays.com.

Exactly, the post you quoted is making no sense at all :-o

websaway · Nov 6, 2014

Yes I do agree it's a big ask.

mojoco · Nov 10, 2014

Holiday.com had a bid of £4.7m apparently...

http://www.travelmole.com/news_feat...=2&m_id=_rvb_r~AT_&w_id=10429&news_id=2014045

Retired_Member38 · Nov 10, 2014

mojoco said:
Holiday.com had a bid of £4.7m apparently...

http://www.travelmole.com/news_feat...=2&m_id=_rvb_r~AT_&w_id=10429&news_id=2014045

I don't believe them. If they did have a bid of £4.7m then imo it was crazy not to accept it.

I'm going with the theory of publicity seeking by saying they had that bid.

Retired_Member38 · Nov 10, 2014

Sean said:
I'm not sure, people can get attached to names in such a way that they make what many would see as irrational decisions. Perhaps they've convinced themselves that it's worth more?

I have a good friend who received a $500,000 offer for a finance related .net domain via a Sedo broker acting on behalf of an American client. At the time it would have been a World record for a .net and I urged him to take it but he pushed the broker to negotiate for £1 Million. To be fair to him, the buyer increased their offer to $1 Million but my mate had decided it was worth a £1 Million and wouldn't budge and the deal collapsed.

Perhaps, but surely if you genuinely have a £4.7m offer then sanity needs to take over and you just accept it rather than hold out for a pie in the sky valuation that has a 0.0001% chance of ever happening ?

Its a decent domain, but its not a 7 figure one imo because of the complete lack of American commercial use of it, and the realistic need of it to be paired with the plural.

With that .net one, that sucks really. He could have had $1,000,000 and now his domain is worth $100k max. Depending on how you view it, you could say he either got unlucky, or got too greedy.

mojoco · Nov 10, 2014

Monkey said:
I don't believe them. If they did have a bid of £4.7m then imo it was crazy not to accept it.

I'm going with the theory of publicity seeking by saying they had that bid.

I'm inclined to be agree with you, although it is possible the seller is cash rich and an offer of £4.7m is not enough to motivate a sale.