The sale of Bagels.com for $500,000 dollars is an epic saga of pure perseverance peppered by astute luck.
Brokered by Sedo, the domain Bagels.com remained unused for decades, until an energetic Sedo broker stepped up to the plate, his mind focused on a mission to sell the premium domain.
Mark Ghoriafi, the busy Briton broker behind this transaction, shared with us some fun details about the sale.
“I was having pizza by the pool on a private beach in Florida where I spend time working remotely for Sedo, when my lovely wife asked for a different item from the menu, a bagel,” says Mark, gesticulating about the trigger incident.
“The bagel would have cost $1 in New York, mate, if it weren’t topped with cream cheese and salmon, chives and a hint of garlic infused buffalo butter. It was $9.75 plus tax. At that moment, I thought that delicious bagels bring in a lot of money to the establishment serving them!” adds Mark, smiling.
Mark spent the rest of the afternoon reaching out to the owner of Bagels.com, a domain name registered in 2002 but never used as a selling platform for bagels: A few PPC ads here and there generated minimal revenue for its owner via Sedo.
Thirty six long hours later, while Mark spent time on the beach perfecting his tan, an email arrived from the owner of Bagels.com: “Let’s do it.”
Mark Ghoriafi was excited. He spent the rest of the weekend researching buyers from all the big bagel places: New York, Chicago, even taco-crazy East LA.
He’d order more bagels with a variety of toppings, keeping himself energized with bagel goodness, when his WhatsApp blew up with messages: It was a prospective buyer.
Mark did not have to convince the buyer about the value of Bagels.com, the buyer was well-aware of the value of a single word .com representing a food staple in the US. It was just that they were not aware of the domain’s availability to acquire.
Thanks to Mark’s dynamic, charismatic, and enthusiastic approach to the Bagels.com domain availability, the sale completed with very little additional effort—the exception being Mark’s required bonus for closing the deal so swiftly.
“Mate, I’d love to close the deal right now on Sedo.com, but please keep in mind the provision of a year’s worth of top notch bagels for my wife is not negotiable!” said Mark. The buyer agreed.
That same day, whilst having a large pepperoni pizza at the beach, Mark kissed his wife and thanked her for her invitation to have bagels instead.
Moral of the story: If you want to close great deals, always listen to the wife. Or your mum.
