It’s not often a premium domain name comes up for sale, but pharmacy.com is currently up for grabs, albeit for a little more than your daily lunch money! FairWinds partners is attempting to flog it off for over US$50 million!

If you’re interested, you’d better hurry, the deadline for notification to FairWinds of intent to bid is 7 September. The auction itself is on 30 September. Well, FairWinds say 31 September, but as the saying goes, “30 days has September, April, June and November…”

The news release announcing the sale is below:
FairWinds Partners, an Internet strategy consulting firm headquartered in Washington, D.C., has been hired as the exclusive broker for the sale of Pharmacy.com. FairWinds’ philosophy is to accept domain name placement projects exclusively when the name has substantial and clear commercial value. FairWinds uniquely assess qualitative and quantitative components of the name, raise awareness through consulting and advocacy, and then allow market forces to price the domain appropriately.

Industry experts’ and FairWinds’ valuations point to Pharmacy.com breaking the single sale record for online real estate. Other multimillion-dollar sales include Wine.com, Perfume.com, and Diamonds.com, but no names are nearly as applicable to commercial use as Pharmacy.com have ever come along. Business.com was recently acquired by R.H. Donnelly for a record $345 million, but with that investment came $15M EBITDA and a less intuitive Web address for “doing” business than Pharmacy.com.

Generic domain names enable market interaction through direct navigation, the practice where Internet users type the address of their anticipated destination directly into the browser’s address bar. These users convert to online sales at a rate of 2 to 1 opposed to search engine users, highlighting the value of simple and straightforward domain names. While not all generic domain names are as ideal for e-commerce storefronts, Internet users who type in Pharmacy.com do so looking to make a purchase.

“The owner of Pharmacy.com will have a competitive advantage to corner the online market for prescriptions, over the counter medications, personal care and hygiene products, and health and beauty products. The buyer may choose to focus on one or a combination of these markets,” said Josh Bourne, co-Founder of FairWinds Partners.

In 2007, the online retail world dealing in pharmaceuticals, health and beauty products stands to take in over $12 billion in sales. Because of its commercial relevance, Pharmacy.com is poised to become the industry leader or assist an established business with growing their online presence and market share.

“We opted to pursue a private sale for this high value asset. Pharmacy.com is not an auction item, but the foundation for a $1 billion dollar standalone business or driving similar new volume to an existing one. It will provide great leverage for the buyer, presumptively one of the largest online or traditional retailers in the United States,” stated Phil Lodico, co-Founder of FairWinds. “From Mark Cuban to Walgreen’s, over 100 potential buyers have been notified of the sale and how we are proceeding.”

FairWinds Partners, with an unconventional approach in a new age market, will help the future owner realize greater success online. According to Bourne, “in our domain placement practice, we view both the seller and buyer as a FairWinds client. Win-wins are crucial.”

See http://fairwindspartners.com/pharmacy.html for more information, including information on the timing of the sale and the news release.