news Tucows Inc. Acquires eNom Inc. for $83.5 Million

[Soofi]

This news has to be one of the most interesting surprises of domain name industry in early 2017, Tucows Inc. acquiring wholesale domain name registrar eNom Inc. from Rightside Group, Ltd for $83.5 million.

A press release was issued by Tucows Inc. earlier today with a claim that combined entity will be the second largest domain name registrar in the world after Godaddy.

In our observation, the domain name registration space has intensified with recent developments of acquisitions happening one after the other. Godaddy has been aggressively acquiring large domain name portfolios from individual resellers while Tucows Inc. played a master-stroke here.

read in detail here...

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Related:

• Tucows Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Enom from Rightside

 

[Soofi]

Rightside also owns Name.com, right? I wonder if they are going to sell Name as well.

Yes, they do and there is mixed news about that so not sure. Anybody has good on it?

 

[Name Trader]

Rightside also owns Name.com, right? I wonder if they are going to sell Name as well.

Probably. If the price is right. They are going to concentrate on nGTLD's, as I understand it.

 

[Soofi]

Probably. If the price is right. They are going to concentrate on nGTLD's, as I understand it.

Name.com is a huge brand with a category killer domain name IMO

 

[Name Trader]

Name.com is a huge brand with a category killer domain name IMO

I agree. But I doubt they would be more expensive than eNom. They also have huge name recognition, but not the category killer domain, like Name.com

 

[Soofi]

I agree. But I doubt they would be more expensive than eNom. They also have huge name recognition, but not the category killer domain, like Name.com

How can we get data for domains managed under each brand?

 

[Name Trader]

How can we get data for domains managed under each brand?

RegistrarStats.com would probably be the best source. But you need an account to see the latest info. In the sample info from mid-2010. eNom were in 2nd place behind GoDaddy with 9.7M Registrations, and Name.com were not in the Top 20. Dotster were 20thth with 1.0M registrations. But a lot can happen in 6 years

 

[Arca]

@Paul Nicks - Tucows send their expired domains to GD auctions. Now that enom is under Tucows ownership, are there plans for enom to start sending their expired domains to GD auctions instead of namejet?

 

[Name Trader]

@Paul Nicks - Tucows send their expired domains to GD auctions. Now that enom is under Tucows ownership, are there plans for enom to start sending their expired domains to GD auctions instead of namejet?

I read somewhere that Tucows would stop sending their domains to GD Auctions but would send them to NameJet instead. So I cannot imagine that enom would be sending their domains to GD Auctions.

 

[Arca]

@stub - Thanks, I was not aware of that. I'm surprised that they're moving away from GD after less than a year with them. I can't imagine that they would earn more from sending them to NJ than GD. A lot more bidders, activity and competition at GD, and a lot of expired inventory that would move at low-mid $XX at GD is not backordered at $69 at NJ, and goes to pen del instead.

 

[Arca]

@Paul Nicks - Is GD planning to add more partner expiry inventory?

From memory I believe these registrars do not have any pre-release partnerships, and their names go from expired to eventually dropping: gandi, annulet, key-systems, cronon ag, rebel, fast domain, and tierranet.

 

[Paul Nicks]

@Paul Nicks - Is GD planning to add more partner expiry inventory?

From memory I believe these registrars do not have any pre-release partnerships, and their names go from expired to eventually dropping: gandi, annulet, key-systems, cronon ag, rebel, fast domain, and tierranet.

Hey Arca, we'd certainly love to pick up as many partners as possible. For now we're being pretty deliberate in onboarding to make sure we get the process down for each partner before we add any more.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

I read somewhere that Tucows would stop sending their domains to GD Auctions but would send them to NameJet instead.

I wonder if Tucows will still be sending their domains to NameJet given the imminent collapse their auction house is facing after the allegations of shill bidding have been (thus far) poorly handled by @NameJetGM

 

[Arca]

I read somewhere that Tucows would stop sending their domains to GD Auctions but would send them to NameJet instead. So I cannot imagine that enom would be sending their domains to GD Auctions.

Tucows sending their names to NJ didn't last for long. Tucows expired names have returned to GoDaddy expired auctions again.

@Paul Nicks - Are there any other registrars whose domains will be added to your expiry auctions currently in the pipeline?

 

[tonyk2000]

For how long will tucows use GD auctions? It appears tucows is so unstable with their intentions. At one point of time, they claimed that it is not good to resell expired domains, sent newsletters with this information and explanations to their resellers, and allowed domains to drop. Then, they opened yummy names and started to grab domains for themselves. They also tried to open their own expiring domains sales platform and it even worked for some time.
Also, it appears that they still filter the expiring lists and are sending to NJ or GD only those domains that they do not like or do not want to have @ their own portfolio (yummy names), correct me if I am wrong?

 

[Arca]

Also, it appears that they still filter the expiring lists and are sending to NJ or GD only those domains that they do not like or do not want to have @ their own portfolio (yummy names), correct me if I am wrong?

They still warehouse their users expired domains.

It appears tucows is so unstable with their intentions.

Since fall 2016 they've already moved from SN to GD to NJ to GD.

For how long will tucows use GD auctions?

It's notable that they moved back to GD considering that Tucows own half of NameJet (bought earlier this year from rightside). Leaving their own platform and moving to a competitor's platform indicates that sending their names to GD is simply far more profitable than selling these names via their own platform, NameJet. Otherwise this move simply would not make any sense, leaving their own platform to sell via a competitor indicates a huge discrepancy in terms of revenue produced by these two platforms.

 

[Arca]

IMO Tucows portfolio is a better fit for GD than NameJet. Tucows just don't have the same kind of quality inventory as Enom and Network Solutions. Their names often did not get $69 bids at SN and more recently, NJ. After seeing good results with GD, and then more lackluster results after moving to NJ, they recently changed all their NameJet pre-release names to $39 backorders, down from $69, in an attempt to replicate some of the success they saw with GD. This appears to not have helped, indicated by their sudden return to GD.

GoDaddy's lower prices $12 auction start and $11 closeouts, mean that more of these names will be bought as closeouts or bid on in auction, which is certainly better for them than just having these names go to pen del. And for certain names at GoDaddy, once bidding starts, pricing often reach surprisingly high levels for relatively low quality domains, due to automated API bidders (i.e. hugedomains) that piggyback off other bidders activity, with bot bidding wars ensuing. So domains that would not have gotten a $69, or even a $39 backorder at NJ, might sell for $XXX thanks to such entities using GD's platform in this way. Tucows/NameJet actually tried to replicate this too, by letting users automatically backorder any domains with 3 or more backorders via their API, but again it appears they failed to replicate the results provided by GoDaddy.

NJ's deep-pocketed user-base is largely focused on quality over quantity, making it a good match for Enom and Network Solutions' inventory, while GoDaddy has much larger number of buyers, many that mainly buy closeouts or bid in the low $12-30 range, making them better equipped to move a large quantity of Tucow's lower quality inventory than NJ.

 

[Paul Nicks]

@Paul Nicks - Are there any other registrars whose domains will be added to your expiry auctions currently in the pipeline?[/QUOTE]

Yup. Can't comment on specific pending deals at the moment but I can say that the response has been very good so far.

 

[dordomai]

are enom expired names going to GD auctions now?

 

[Soofi]

are enom expired names going to GD auctions now?

With the deal closed already, looks like it!

 

[bluemeteor]

I checked whois. Many names with registrar: Tucows Domains Inc.
But I can't find there domain register site.