Jets.com was a great bargain at only $375,000
October 1, 2009 by David
Filed under Domain Sales & Prices, Domains & Websites, Making Money, Traffic & Revenue, Website News
To someone who may not be experienced with domain name values the internet domain name Jets.com recently selling for 375k must seem like a ton of money. If it was purchased to try and take advantage of the New York Jets football team as was once commonly believed (until the actual buyer became known) and maybe to run some sports advertising on it and make a few bucks from running PPC ads (and taking a chance on a big trademark lawsuit or WIPO case), then I agree that 375k is a lot to pay.
However, the name was purchased by an end-user firm who rents jets and other airplanes according to what I see on the website today. Since jets both rent and sell for big and small fortunes the price was incredbly low. I believe just one sale or a few 25-hour rentals of a corporate jet would probably recover the domain purchase price in profit or commissions. After the first few transactions take place from the website traffic (and its typeins) it will be all gravy for a lifetime for the lucky owner and and 100% profit with every future airplane transaction. So the price was in actuality a tremendous bargain.
The new jets.com web site offers these prices: U.S. 2009 Pricing: 25 HOURS CARD MEMBERSHIP. Aircraft Price. Hawker 400 XP $114,500; Hawker 800 $125,000; Hawker 1000 $149,000; Gulfstream III $189,000; Citation X $189,000; Challenger 601/604 $199,000; Gulfstream IV $279,000.
This is what Yahoo! Answers says about the costs of jets: “Best Answer – Chosen by Voters: (buying and owning a jet) is very expensive considering all the FAA rules on rebuilding engines every so many hours whether they need it or not and a pilot is gonna cost you in excess of $100,000.00 per year and then you have the hangar charges which are like $3,000 a month, and then jet fuel which was $3.79 a gallon and then the insurance is expensive . There is an old saying at my rolls royce dealership – if you need to ask the price or the gas mileage you can’t afford it and I have found over the years how true !!!!! Byy the way cheap starter jets can be bought used for like $300,000.00 and up whereas the new ones like a 4 seater are probably going to run 1.5 million dollars or higher to start.”
The person who purchased the domain owns a jet charter service. They are not selling jets online. The people who can actually afford to charter a private jet usually make 12 million and above per year.
How much of that perceived traffic will actually turn into paying customers? Not many. How many flights would they have to sell to break even? Since they do not own planes either; it would probably take more than just one flight to do it. Great purchase yes. Great sale yes. Right price absolutely for both sides. Do your homework my friend!
I stand corrected. After looking only briefly at the new jets.com web site I assumed the high prices quoted on the page were for purchases or long term leases. However, it appears they are only for short 25-hour rentals, making the cost seem even more than I thought. It looks like just a couple 25 hour rentals would cost more than the domain purchase price. I corrected the article. Thanks for the feedback.
Again,
Since the company does not own the planes they have to pay for them. They have to pay the pilots, the docking fees, the gas, the crew, food, booze, etc. Ya they could sell 25 hours worth of flights that equal 115k however I would say maybe 10% of that is theirs. They will make their money back, but they wont make it back in two months. This is common business practice. You have to be a complete fool to think this is all profit…If the airline business is so profitable how come the majority of commercial airlines are in the tank? Like I said before you have to do your homework on this business before you make these points.