.com vs .ca

If a .com sold for 1.5M what do you think the equivalent name in .ca would be worth?

I know generally most people seem to think it’s 10% but when do you think you are able to get more?

When an LLC company is inquiring!!



I am working with a couple of them at the moment on one word .ca's and have had two offers over 100k.

Given the fact I am dealing with mega large LLC companies I turned down both. Needless to say contact has not broken off and eventually I am hoping to close at least one of them.

I can let you in on at one of the deals because it is not a secret anymore....

I while back I made a bid of 1 million USD for pink.com and the owner stood firm at 1.2. Once I converted that to Canadian I decided it was a bit too rich for me. I then contacted a broker I knew and informed her that pink.com could be purchased for 1.2 million and that I thought VS Pink was the ideal candidate. A few months later VS announced the purchase of pink.com. Now I cannot say for sure what it sold for but one can only deduce at this point.

From there on I have been negotiating a deal on pink.ca with a broker and I told him that I know exactly who wants it. I can tell you we are well over 100k for offers on it at this point but I definitely will not be selling that low.


I predicted .ca would have the first million dollar sale this year ([notify]Bob Hawkes[/notify]) will attest to this and I stand behind that basically because it already happened with the sale of hush.ca. So much so that I think there may even be a second million dollar deal in the works eventually.

I am currently working on one I cannot disclose and I can tell you that it will not sell unless I get the million.




PS. I have all the emails documenting how I facilitated the pink deal and I think VS is going to totally rebrand to pink. There are enough VS and VS Pink stores in Canada that I should be able to get considerably more for the .ca domain. If not, I will just hold and wait for the next Canadian Company that wants an absolutely amazing .ca domain.

I think in general the 10% figure is thrown out and to me that would be the bottom.

There are definitely cases where it could be much higher than 10%, and it depends on a lot of things.

One way to think of it is, think of Canada as another state like California in population, where .ca is highly recognized and trusted, and maybe most importantly there is high internet penetration, high rate on online shopping and use, good income levels, and an internet savvy population. As a market for an online venture, Canada is pretty top of the line, majority English speaking, and right next door to the US which makes logistics easier for US companies and imports/exports. If you are a big enough company maybe the .com is enough, but as well you probably want to protect that brand in a .ca if you have significant operations in Canada, or plan to.

Often though it is hard to compare .com vs .ca prices, because the .com has been owned forever by a company, or it sold 10 years ago so the price is outdated.

Voice.com sold recently for $30 million, does that make Voice.ca worth $3 million US?

I have an example in past year where I was offered 2k range by a broker for a .ca, then did some research. Broker then asked what price do you want, and I just replied I'd rather deal with the decision maker and not a broker in this case. Later I saw the .com version of the same domain sold for mid xx,xxx range also in past year. Given I know the company operates in US and Canada, I would not be asking %10 of the .com price (mid x,xxx). In this case I'd probably be looking for at least $20k, so that would be around 40% of the .com sale. Maybe even a little more, as the name has a couple more potential uses.

domains said:

Broker then asked what price do you want, and I just replied I'd rather deal with the decision maker and not a broker in this case.

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This is more of a general comment, in the spirit of sharing a different POV, and I wasn't the broker in the scenario above, but since you brought this up...

As a professional buyer broker, and as a general rule of thumb, I would not recommend doing what you did. If the buyer broker was not behaving professionally, sure, send them packing. Good riddance. But if they were behaving responsibly, and coming to you with a qualified buyer lead, I would recommend continuing to try to hash out a deal with the buyer broker. Their client hired them for a reason, and probably doesn't want to engage directly with the domain owner for a variety of reasons. You dismissing the buyer broker could kill your chance of selling that domain to that buyer, and could even negatively impact future sales from your portfolio.

A buyer broker who does this work full-time is also a potential source of lots of repeat business, especially if you have a large portfolio. A buyer broker may also have a lot of influence over which domains a client shortlists to try to buy. Example, client shortlists a bunch of .ca domains, and asks the buyer broker for their opinion on each, which ones are acquire-able and which might be harder to buy, and buyer broker looks at each domain and says, well, this domain X is owned by a domainer who is difficult to deal with, 'doesn't play well with others', so you should scratch that domain off your list. Bang: potential sale is gone.

I sometimes think domainers underestimate the influence good buyer brokers have over the domain selection their clients make, and the deals that are made, and the deals that never even get tabled.

My two cents. Have a great Canada Day everyone!

The 10% rule is definitely what first comes to mind for me, and that's how the owner of rate.ca priced his domain when it sold for 75K, but the 10% is just a consideration for me...or perhaps a minimum pricing method to consider.

I in fact sold a .ca domain for 57.4% of the .com price just a week ago, and both sales occurred months apart from each other. They were both relatively small sales in the 4 figure range though, which I guess makes it easier to beat the 10% rule...? Either way, I'm pretty sure I could have even got more than what the .com sold for, but I only paid $20 for the domain via TBR 3 months prior and didn't want another sale to slip through the cracks by negotiating too hard over a relatively small amount. I've had some bad luck lately with "done deals" getting cancelled, and this guy kept telling me "final offer" so I reluctantly accepted the offer before it expired.

As for the seller of rate, he had this as part of his logic: "I set the price at about 10% of the Rate.com selling price, because the population of Canada is about 10% of the American population."

Here's is a link to the full story for those who may have missed it: https://flippa.com/blog/success-story-domain-names-for-the-win/


And thanks for sharing your pov [notify]MaiTaiMan[/notify]. Very interesting things you've mentioned... and it makes me question whether I should make my entire portfolio public to browse lol... but I don't.... and most members here don't either (or not that I know of). I can only speak for myself, but I guess I like to retain a certain amount of anonymity and don't want to show all my cards at once.... and there's always potential CDRP claims we want to avoid... even if my domains are essentially all generic dictionary words/phrases and acronyms. I've always considered making my portfolio public though, and maybe will one day.

With that said, do you as a buyer broker ever recommend your client file a CDRP if the seller is being too difficult or a jerk? I know there are a lot of variables here, but lets say in the context where your client has a TM that predates the domain registration yet, but the domain is a generic dictionary word like "orange.ca." Would you ever encourage or help facilitate a CDRP, or do you focus solely on buying the domain on behalf of your client?

Oh, and one more question if you don't mind... Were you the broker mentioned in the story about rate.ca? lol
It crossed my mind as I read it again today.

Esdiel said:

With that said, do you as a buyer broker ever recommend your client file a CDRP if the seller is being too difficult or a jerk? I know there are a lot of variables here, but lets say in the context where your client has a TM that predates the domain registration yet, but the domain is a generic dictionary word like "orange.ca." Would you ever encourage or help facilitate a CDRP, or do you focus solely on buying the domain on behalf of your client?

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I never make legal recommendations, although I might suggest a client get qualified legal advice about their legal options. If my clients ask me about pursuing a domain via legal channels, I refer them to a domain name lawyer to get a legal opinion. The moment a domain scenario starts to look like a legal situation, I bow out and shelve the project. I will, and have, fired clients who behave deceptively or aren't transparent about their intentions. I only work on good faith negotiations; I refuse to be hired to gather 'evidence' or harass domain owners. Integrity and ethics are paramount to me because I am in this for the long haul. I actually get a lot of referrals from domain lawyers who have explained to their client that the only way to get the domain is via negotiated acquisition.

Esdiel said:

Were you the broker mentioned in the story about rate.ca?

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Nope.

As [notify]Esdiel[/notify] pointed out, the 10% rule might be a starting point, but there are a lot of variables.

1. was the .com sale recent? Needs to be adjusted for time value of money / inflation, etc...

2. is the term a trendy term? was the .com sale at the peak or valley of a trend?

3. was the .com sale a steal or a hefty end-user-price? Obviously if it was a steal of a deal, then the .CA could be a significantly higher percentage in value.

4. is the .com already canadian specific, like a geo or canadian spelling or canadian term like tuque? Then maybe the .CA is equal or even greater in value than the .com

5. Is it a foreign business moving into the Canadian market? Protecting an existing brand is potentially worth more than starting a new one just for the Canadian market.

6. The available resources of both the buyer and the seller will influence the negotiations.

And probably a bunch of additional factors I can't think of right now.

Every scenario is unique. So I'd call it the 10% "starting point" versus 10% "rule".

Thanks for all the comments I’ve yet to have a .ca sale where I can actually compare with the .com. In all of the cases the .com was a private sale.

I’m in a position now with two domains where I know the owner is the same as .com and it was publicly reported so it will be interesting to see where it goes.