Purchased for $5k, Soap.Club Launches

I was alerted to the launch of Soap.Club, and there’s an interesting story behind the business that I want to share with you.

Soap.Club was purchased via Sedo for $5,000, as reported by Shane Cultra this past Tuesday. The domain name had been owned by the .Club Registry, and they agreed to sell it via Sedo. Although, Soap.Club was not bought through the registry’s StartUp.club program, they intend to promote the website like a StartUp member.

The domain name was bought by Norm Farrar. According to Farrar, he thought of the idea when he was in Hawaii and tried natural soap for the first time. He did some market research about natural soap and consumer buying habits, and he felt that a business could be built around it. Farrar reached out to the .Club registry to acquire Soap.Club, and they were able to reach a deal.

Farrar shared additional information about Soap.Club and the business behind the website:

“Our mission is to build a convenient monthly membership plan around 100% natural, organic handmade soap. We found over 70 recipes using lavender, sandalwood, Kona coffee and other natural essential oils and fragrances. The site is not just about selling soap. It’s about everything soap. We supply information and showcase the best soaps from around the world. We are providing recipes, soap supplies, information about the different soap making processes, including a member’s forum.

We were faced with a major obstacle. How to compete with the big box stores? Soap.Club was the answer. Although we did not buy the domain through Startup.Club, they have agreed to support us with our marketing and have been a great help positioning us for success. The domain says it all.  “

I reached out to Colin Campbell, CEO of the .Club registry, and here’s what he had to say about Soap.club:

“With the rise in popularity of product clubs like DollarShaveClub, Birch Box and the fact these companies are trying to get traffic by making it to the front page of google (as proven by shaving.club, coffee.club, credit.club), I think we are going to see a lot more companies like soap.club beginning to pop up. It takes something special to compete with big box stores, Amazon, and the Wallgreens of the world so the products have to be amazing. Lets see if Soap.club can get to the front page for “soap club”.

Although the Soap.Club shop is not yet set up to take orders, it looks like it’s going to have a business model similar to that of Coffee.Club, a website founded by Bill McClure as part of the StartUp.Club program. I am a customer of Coffee.Club, and will see how Farrar does with this business model.

I personally prefer liquid bath soap over a bar soap, but I’d be willing to give a bar soap a shot.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
  1. Sorry but I have to rant about this one. Why the hell would they start this company on Soap.Club when SoapClub.com is a live working website with the exact same concept.

    Instant failure before they even sell their first bar of soap. One of the worst business decisions I have read about in a long long time.

    • I don’t think the name would preclude them from starting a similar business (not a legal opinion, obviously).

      I would be more concerned about whether people want to buy soap in this manner. I don’t know the market, but it seems like the founder did market research.

  2. “Lets see if Soap.club can get to the front page for “soap club”.”

    I think the .club guys understand nothing about search volume and its impact on business. There are 113 exact searches per month for the phrase “soap club”. That phrase holds basically no value in search engine rankings.

    When nobody searches for a term then companies, affiliate marketers, etc… are not doing SEO work to compete for that term so a one eyed mute giraffe could rank a site in a few weeks on the front page. That is how Credit.club was able to get a first page ranking for “credit club”, because the phrase holds no search engine value.

  3. This is an extremely niche industry, only give as a gift, to buy soap in this manner, you would be better off using your money as a body scrub.

  4. SoapClub.com is no threat to Soap.club. Notice the order in which I wrote that. 🙂

    You’re still only seeing the early beginnings of .Club starting to lather up to bubbling success which I suspect is on the horizon imo. (Okay, sorry about the soap-related puns there – Not!) 🙂 And I don’t even like most of the new TLD’s much or at all, just a few.

    Perhaps some people who post need to be a little less impatient about overnight spectacles and take a slightly longer view here, just as I also was a bit of an early naysayer myself.

    How many other TLD’s do you know of that have the celebrity endorsement factor that puts them in the public consciousness, and which appears only likely to increase as more famous people use it? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

    I would not be surprised one bit if “Soap.club” turns out to work just fine and be a successful ongoing business.

    • The GTLDs will be a success to some extent but not fully. There will always be .com because there will always be single word domains that companies build their business around. For instance it was reported that Storage.com sold so if it was in a new GTLD what would you pair the word Storage up with right of the dot. .Web? .Shop? .Whatever? Nothing is really truly generic as .com so .com will always exist. This is the only reason the new GTLDs won’t be a runaway success. They will have some success at some point but not full acceptance.

      The one extension that people keep knocking is .net but I think this oldie but goodie is going to surprise lots of people.

    • Didn’t even see your post till an email about Don’s below popped into my inbox just now. We *more or less* agree here. .Com is much more than “generic,” however. It would take too long to elaborate here, as I’ve done elsewhere already and need to do so again soon over at TheDomains. Re the new gTLDs I would simply say that I believe some are the winners, the gems, and I believe they will be successful enough, while most are mostly junk. But even some of the junk is useful to some people, to some degree, in small doses. .Club is one of the winners and gems as far as I’m concerned, the #1 now in fact, and I also think .money is good but priced for self-destruction. There are perhaps a few others I feel are “ok” or better, and .web would certainly be a nice one to have around if and when it ever gets released. .US is still a sleeping giant that people have refused to awaken, so while you think people are in for surprises re .net, which I also feel is a solid TLD, I believe .US would finally reach the place it should have years ago if the people that should merely lifted a single finger to do what also should have been done years ago to foster that. Already .US interest in private has been picking up in recent years, however, and I’ve certainly sold a few for significant amounts from completely unsolicited offers and inquiries, even very aggressive offers and inquiries.

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