The Rick Schwartz Domain Name and Traffic Blog: RicksBlog.com – Home of The Domain King®

Good Afternoon Folks!!

One day they may write about this. How a small New England Candy company disrupted one of the largest and oldest industries in the world. Congratulations to Melville Candy Company of Massachusetts.

Rick Schwartz

G&J Holdings Announces the Purchase and Development of Candy.Com
BOSTON, MA — June 3, 2009 — G&J Holdings, LLC today announced the purchase and acquisition of the web domain Candy.Com and the development of a new internet based confections retailer d/b/a Candy.Com. A growing distribution channel that is here to stay, G&J Holdings, LLC has invested in Candy.com for the purchase price of $3,000,000. The new internet candy retailer will service the growing demand for consumers to find their favorite bulk, gourmet, and gift confectionary products with great service, a unique and social shopping experience, competitively priced products, and expedited shipping.
Candy is an American treat that everyone enjoys, whether at a birthday party, bar/bat mitzvah, corporate event, baby shower, wedding, or a holiday gift. Candy.com will provide unlimited access to confections from around the world with candy you remember as a child and even candy that is even healthy for you---all part of a new virtual candy store. With over 5,000 confectionary products, consumers will be sure find a fun treat to share with their family, co-workers and friends. The Candy.com team will add and update new products continuously to ensure customers have the latest and best products available from the confectionary world.
The vision of Candy.com is to provide the best online customer service candy shopping experience in the world. Confectionary products are what Candy.com will sell but the shopping experience will be the driving force behind its success including providing: live customer support online; toll free dedicated and trained customer support personnel; and quick E-Mail responses. Social shopping experiences will also be found at Candy.com including product reviews, blogs, and discussions boards creating an unparallel experience while shopping online for tasty candy products.
Perhaps the most important features of Candy.com will be its expedited shipping and competitively price products. With partner distributors in California and Virginia, along with Candy.com’s main location in Massachusetts, US customers will enjoy shipping anywhere in the United States in four days or less and in most cases two days or less. Candy.com has also partnered with a Canadian distributor to supply an international reach to customers. Prices will be competitive with distribution channels both online and off. Customer will feel secure in knowing that Candy.com has negotiated the best rates for their purchases with manufactures and suppliers to bring all candy products allowing easy, quick and enjoyable one-stop shopping.
Candy.com was founded by two highly experienced confectionary executives Joe Melville, CEO of Melville Candy Corporation & Greg Balestrieri, Vice President of Melville Candy Corporation—the 30 year old family-owned candy manufacturing company owned by Gary Melville. Greg Balestrieri will assume the role of President of G&J Holdings. Plans to launch the site are slated for July 1st, 2009.

Candy.com is the second largest domain purchase of 2009 selling for $3,000,000 second only to Toys.com ($5,100,000) to Toys R Us. One of the top 15 reported domain sales ever. With over 800,000 searches for the word candy online each month Candy.com will fill orders and provide information and resources related to all things candy.

The domain was purchased from a Florida based domain holding company run by legendary domainier Rick Schwartz (WorkSmarter.com) aka “Domain King” who last year sold the iReport.com domain to CNN for $750,000 and Property.com to Foreclosure.com for an undisclosed amount believed to be one of the most lucrative domain deals ever. Moniker.com was responsible for the escrow of the Multi-million dollar deal and was the final lynch pin in putting this acquisition together. Trinity Law Group, LLC which specializes in startups and emerging business provided the necessary documentation to complete such a deal.

Morning Folks!

The long awaited sale of Candy.com is just about complete and could close as early as today. Moniker will be handling the escrow and transfer. The press release is ready to go and will announce the company that bought it. Then we can all watch this small candy company transform themselves to a powerhouse right before our very eyes. In all the deal took about 6 months. Besides the $3 million for the domain, I will share in the profits with 2% royalties off the gross for 15 years. That should more than double the entire transaction. And with a little luck…..who knows.

I will post the release here once we close.

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
http://www.twitter.com/DomainKing

Morning Folks!!

Yesterday I sent the following email out to the TRAFFIC mailing list. I decided to post it here as well.

T.R.A.F.F.I.C. has always been the show for domainers by domainers. The method behind the madness when we created TRAFFIC was to bring folks together that knew each other but had never met each other. Some had done business for years. So TRAFFIC revolved around several things. First and foremost was to slow everyone down for a couple days. Give them important content to help you grow your businesses and meet the right companies to do that. Then after a 12 hour day we would have a pretty darn good party or two. The key in the formula was to break bread with each other to form deeper more meaningful relationships and it was a good way to meet new people at every meal.

As the industry matured the meals have become less attended but still a very important part of the equation. Many now have private dinners and small gatherings. We never know and we pay for those meals whether they are served or not. It is also where we have our greatest expense. Where we have to predict the most and make those projections early on. That is the reason we have Early Bird pricing. The more we know early, the better we can plan. However we still have to guess about other things and there is never a way to accurately predict how many folks will come to any particular show.

So the point of all this is that I need your input. We can continue the formula we have used that has set the standard, or we can eliminate many of the meals and scale down the others. This would allow us to do a $995 early bird as well as reduce the spouse rate considerably. Does that have value to you? Will that $500 make you more likely to come and sign up early? Do you prefer being fed like royalty? This is YOUR show. The choice is YOURS. We just want to give folks what they want. So give us some feedback. We will weigh the overall response and report back to you in the next few weeks.

The changes could look like this.

1. Instead of a full breakfast, it would just be a continental breakfast or none at all.
2. Instead of a sit down lunch we will serve a Caesar salad or cold sandwich on one day and have our Keynote and Main affair at lunch on the second day.
3. Opening cocktail party will have limited food and drinks.
4. Dinners would be eliminated. Just a cocktail hour after each day, maybe.

That would be an outline of what could change to bring prices down. Cut more meals and the prices can go down even further. Your choice. On the other hand you may like what we do and how we do it and you see no reason to change the formula that has set the standard. Your wish is our command. Just share with us your thoughts and have faith that after listening to all suggestions, we will give You what YOU want..

So, do you want the no frills TRAFFIC with a $995 Early Bird Price or do you want the full deal at $1495? Your money, your show, your business, your decision. Let us know. Our ONLY agenda is YOUR agenda! We are listening.

Thank You!
Rick and Howard