Morning Folks!!
There is a story to tell and it must be told in an understandable and cohesive manner. It must also be hard hitting and filled with example after example of facts that are easy to verify. Consider this a starting outline and all the things that need to be filled in.
Does anyone really believe that DrugStore.com would be what it is today without the domain name? Had it been JimmysDrugSuperMarket.com with the greatest content and the best backend would it have been where it is today without the name? I doubt it. Let's just say that it increases your chances dramatically and your front end 'Branding' costs are much lower because they are funded by SALES and not borrowing. Let's just say it's the smart thing to do if you can and it takes a lot of burdens out of the picture. Let's just say one domain is cheaper than building one store. Let's just say all the damn benefits because if we don't, who will?
Thousands of visitors each day before you even open up the door. JimsDrugs Something or other .com would have never have gotten that benefit. It would have taken a lot of “Branding” just to get where Drugstore.com was the day it opened for business. That takes a lot of money.
That is not true of just drugstore.com but all the other high profile, category killer domains like Insurance.com, Insure.com, Books.com and all the rest. And while they hide behind wanting everything but the domain name, they are all lying. They want that domain name! They will never let go of that domain name. That domain name has cost Walgreens hundreds of millions over the years in lost business and lower prices.
Barnes and Noble owns Book.com and Books.com and BN.com and who knows what else. Amazon is Amazon. And Boarders? Well they are broke and closing up as I write this. They did not survive and I think we can make the case that had they owned book.com and books.com the outcome would have been different. MAYBE! It showed how one company was ahead of the curve and another company crashed into the curve. One company did not miss a trick and one company did not show up at the show.
I am sure Walgreens could have bought Drugstore.com for a lot less years ago. $1M, $3M, $25M, $100M, $200M, $300M, $400M…….but since they did not understand what was going on, not only did they pay $400M++++ but they lost sales and profits during all those years. Add that up! Just because you can’t see it does not mean it was not lost. Those employed in those high levels are there NOT to miss stuff like this. And nobody says a word or dare point it out. I just did. Imagine how many companies are GUILTY of this right now?
Most are still clueless and the rest will just argue the point. Be patient. An avalanche of companies are about to be bought and the one common thing they will have that few will talk about, the high profile domain name that motivated the deal to begin with. But Shhhhh, hush, they don't want anyone to know. But the more crowded the field becomes, the more important the location becomes.
Congratulations to Walgreen's for getting what I would say is one of the very best domains in the world. A body blow to CVS who is expanding very rapidly but lost the biggest prize it could have hoped to get.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
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Rafael Castillo
Hey Rick! Hope that you doing well. I took a walk early this morning in downtown Curitiba Brazil. Great City!..Well, I noticed a pharmacy with the word”Drug Store” and wondered who owned the domain name DrugStore.com. Thanks for the lesson.
todaro
it still amazes me how slow corporate america has been to catch on.
it’s like they don’t understand the concept of location.
888_222
It is unreal how many companies that get do well – Just look at the link you have on Ian Andrews site –
http://www.descriptivedomainnames.com/info/Descriptive-Domain-Name-Ownership/i=9
These people”Get It” so many others dont….
Toys R Us waited until Toys.com went bust to get that asset and I bet it is paying huge dividends now owning Toys.com….
888222.com
James
If you look at cost of aquisition per customer, buying a stellar generic domain with hundreds or thoussands of visitors per day is the only sure bet. Those visitors are already in the shop – everything else is just an effort to entice them in.
Using the analogies of a domain being a plot; a website a store – then the traffic from a quality domain must be the foundations. A solid base on which to build.
Anthony David
Agree with todaro. It’s amazing how slow corporations from English language speaking countries have caught on. Domains have been around for over 25 years now. Let’s see if more corporations can begin to”get it” like Barnes & Noble does.
ScottM
Having had contact with merchandising and executive people at Walgreen’s corporate in Illinois over the years they have all alluded that the merchandise selection in their stores, the lack of
a lot of customers in any given store at one time, and the sometimes”inefficent help” doesn’t affect their revenue nor earnings very much, they make most of their profits from recurring prescriptions and/or billing insurance companies. All the more reason Walgreens should have bought drugstore.com, drugstores.com, pharmacy.com, pharmacies.com and a few other generic domains years ago.
Well another big company f-i-n-a-l-l-y got around to”getting it” as you say Rick, better late than never I guess! What many generic domain owners, especially some early”domainers” missed however was not getting the plurals. I know of one instance where he didn’t get the plural at the same time he got his stellar singular generic in 1994. He now has a competitor 4X his size who is using the plural domain. A simple $100 or even $30 oversight in 1994 now can cost you tens of million of dollars when the time comes to sell your company and its domain. This is also true with DrugStores.com, it still isn’t owned the previous owner of DrugStore.com nor by Walgreens either I believe.
Kevin Tay
Walgreens will gain immensely from acquiring DrugStore.com. It can add on endless aisles of shelf space, with eye-level merchandise display (above the fold, or with minimal scrolling).
kevin from casinos.mo :)
Good Domain Names
Many former market dominators did not just miss on domain names, but on taking new media serious as a whole. Quite astonishing from todays point of view how even traditional mail order shops left the field to Amazon and the likes.
DomainPig
Rick, once again amazing post :) You’re the Muhammad Ali
of domaining with Joe Calzaghes undefeated record!!
I think you would be a great song writer because your
words always hit the spot and open peoples eyes to the facts.
Domainers are very lucky to have you guide us and everyday I thank
God for having your help.
Imagine all the busiest cities in the world with 70% of the shops
closed! That’s the way I feel about most premium names they are
going to waste with all that great traffic. It’s only a matter of time before most of them open and turn into great businesses like drugstore.com
RJ
Despite the domain DrugStore.com, the company posted losses year after year. Since they launched in the late 1990’s, they have lost 300+ million. i.e. if you owned the company back in 1999, the sale in 2011 would just about result in a break-even situation after factoring in inflation.
How can that be good?
All this while Amazon.com has been stealing Drugstore.com’s market share on non-prescription goods like vitamins etc..
Yes, the only reason they broke even is due to the domain and the customer / subscriber base built up over the years.
Jason Thompson
Great domain name indeed, but there are plenty of other opportunities which can be exploited by these companies. Keep in mind, Walgrees, CVS, RiteAid have all become name brands without the need of a category killer domain name. These companies have been operating and competing against one another for quite some time. Yes, Walgreens finally gets it and purchases a”business” built on a great domain name but they are acquiring the business.
There are plenty of pharmacies, drug companies and overall businesses which are acquired yearly that you don’t hear much news about. The thing that makes this different is you’ve got a big company acquiring a little company for a considerable amount of money. :) If JimmyDrugSuperMarket.com were bringing in numbers similar to DrugStore.com they would be approached by some of the larger businesses within this segment. We can ignore the business behind these domain names.
Jason Thompson
Correction on last line: We can not ignore the business behind these domain names. :)
BullShitWebsites
Excellent!! There will be more people on the internet when the Middle East countries open up the internet frontier to their people.
As I said many times, if you do not have a good descriptive domain name,then your website is……BullS
domain guy
there is a big difference between the domain drugstore.com and
a business that walgreens can ask for the last 3 yrs of tax returns. then any idiot ceo can use earnings accretion to add to walgreens bottom line without any risk.and we are not going to compare jimmysdrugsupermarket to vitamins.com. what about business.com? busted what about sandiego.com? bankrupt.what about men.com do you see maxium,gq or playboy on this domain?no corp america”gets it” when you show them an operating biz with a supporting financial statement that can be audited. pretty simple
15 yrs later.while domainers hold on to a domain collecting pennies for ppc.this is the lesson here for domainers in less than 200 words and 15 yrs later.
William Whipple
One of the most ignorant end users of domains (who relies heavily on his websites) is this radio money talk show host named Ric Edleman.
For a very long time he has used his national radio show to drive traffic to his website which was ricedleman.com, on the radio he used to say”now thats rice delman dot com” I have to say, at least he owns the rick version which redirects.
Now he is pushing traffic to the flat-out awful domain name truthaboutmoneytv.com which is a redirect. And I could swear he said on the show once or twice”thetruthaboutmoneytv.com” which he also owns but does not redirect. He DOES own truthaboutmoney.tv and some other variants but they dont redirect; they go to a network solutions parking page.
BUT HE DOESN’T OWN truthaboutmoney.com or thetruthaboutmoney.com!!!!!
He claims to be the number one financial advisor in the US but doesn’t own financialadvisor.com or a single decent domain from what I can tell. But he sure loves the stock market!!!!!!
Perhaps his financial advice is on par with his domain selection anyway… he loves telling people not to pay off their houses.
Maybe his next acquisition will be numberonefinancialadvisorontheradioortv.com!!!!!
I’m sorry, but….. what foolishness.
Danny Pryor
I wonder if any of those hotel guys on Madison Ave. are reading your stuff yet. For years … YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS … the message has been the same.
Walgreens bought a domain that had $456-million in revenue, and the company is valued around $380-million or so … and, let’s see, they got the drugstore.com name for $402-million? That’s a discount. The Wall Street people would never let a company sell for a one-year P/E. That’s insane!
So guess what? Add that to the”they don’t get it” file.
LMAO!
I’ve got some fair names my meager ‘folio … got them cheap … and we’re eroding traffic from other domains that are supposed to be”official” sites.
LMAO again!!!
So glad I worked that first TRAFFIC in ’06.
More glad you invited me back!!! :-))
David Williams
Very true. So much money is lost by the big corporations through not owning category killer domains such as this. The longer they take to wakeup, the more money the lose.
Good Domain Names
The insurance industry actually seems to have different grip on these things, quite a few exact match (as well long tail) insurance domains sold.
UnknownDomainer
Why would someone with generics be promoting the idea of generics?
Borders went broke because they didn’t own books.com, book.com?
Borders went broke because the business model they followed collapsed. Their business model was taken out by the collapsing cool of cappuccino and the electronic transport of music and books.
Domain names? Phooey.
Rick Schwartz
Books.com illustrates that they were not leaders. That they missed that opportunity which illustrates that they were always behind and that included their business model. Their business model could have been reinforced with generics instead of the generic being something that works against them.
If your logic would follow thru all the other bookstores would be in the same boat and they are not. Maybe because they are more nimble. Maybe they think more out of the box. My point is if they missed books.com, how many other business decisions did they screw up on? THAT is why they are where they are. imo.
Uknowndomainer
The screw up was their entire business model of being big box, brick and mortar and involved in a medium that changed faster than anyone expected. They thought that social interaction, coffee, and music were valuable to consumers. They thought the method of book selling wouldn’t drastically changing. They missed an entire change in the way distribution of media was being performed.
When your major liabilities are B&M stores the generics you hold aren’t going to have a net impact. I agree, in part, that not seeing the value for books.com/book.com shows a lack of vision in how the future was shaping up but I rather believe having 20,000 sq/ft riverfront buildings bookstores 1/2 a mile from your competitors 25,000 sq/ft store is a starker example of their failure.
Who are the successful bookstores?
Waldenbooks ?
WHSmiths ?
Borders. Filing for Bankruptcy.
Waterstones. HMV looking to offload.
B&N. NINE months looking for a buyer… no takers. Stock continues to decline. In spite of book.com.
The issue is NOT about books.com, book.com, or bn.com (shorter is better). It’s about finding something that draws customers back. Understanding the market segment is why the kindle, in spite of the iPad, is successful for Amazon. Bookstores will be successful when they focus on their core market – book readers.
Logan
A recent coup in the insurance industry that nobody seems to be talking about is All Web Leads’ purchase of InsuranceLeads dot com in Q1 2011. AWL bought the whole business but do ya think the purchase had much to do with the generic domain name? I think so! I also think that AWL’s purchase will prove to be one of the best acquisitions of the year.