In July 2019, I brokered the sale of Pay.com.au between two long standing clients (and friends) of mine. To this day, it is still a record price for a 3 Letter domain in Australia.
However, in chatting with the buyer since then, he tells me that they got offered a substantially higher price to part with it – but they declined as they had plans to turn this into a business with huge possibilities. And it wasn’t just one prospective buyer they had offers from either!
The buyer has an excellent track record with start-ups, so I can understand why they declined.
Fast Forward
I’ve kept my eyes on the site, but up until recently, it has just been a “coming soon” lander.
But now, the site is in “beta”, and it is starting to look good.
In chatting with the buyer this morning, he tells me they hope to be fully functional by June. He also confirmed that they have had a lot of interest from both institutional investors and SME’s.
Moral of the story
If you are a good operator, this is what a premium domain name can do for any business.
Gravitas and credibility!
Would love to read a case study what they did with the domain name and how they got their institutional investors etc. Would help to show people how someone takes a domain name to the next level.
WOW. Amazing domain name fully developed. This is how you do it.
Tough time to launch a frequent flyer business. Great domain though.
It’s not just a frequent flyer business James. Far from it in fact. https://pay.com.au/how-it-works/
They have PointHacks.com.au (which according to Damien W did very well for them this past year).
There are opportunities in every adversity. 🙂
I think rewards.com.au might have been a better fit for their biz model, however pay.com.au still an excellent domain and their design/branding with it looks very sharp.
That’s a great name!
Pay.com.au is way better than Rewards.com.au
Pay.com.au is a very good domain. Just saw a prime time TV ad for MyPayNow.com.au. What a mouthful. Couldn’t get MyPay.com.au? And couldn’t get Pay.com.au that’s for sure.
Wonder if 2021 will be the year more corporates begin land banking generic .com.au names. Once they sell they are gone forever. And then new entrants are limited to options like MyPayNow.com.au
“Once they sell they are gone forever”. Generally true – with the obvious exception that most things have a price! And sometimes people or businesses then have no option but to pay a true market or potential market value.
How many times does it happen when you quote a fair price, and the potential buyer either knocks you or procrastinates? And then they come back in few weeks or months only to find the domain has been sold.
It’s true but it often takes several hundred thousand to $1m+ to convince an end user that somehow they should change their name and hand over a domain name to you.
A very recent example of an end user to end user sale was Champion.com.au. The USA brand after more than 23 years of failure to acquire the .com.au finally paid up and convinced the NSW law firm Stacks Champion to part with it in Jan-Feb 2020.
Attn boomer marketing directors: Perhaps it’s time to stop farting around. If you think you can’t afford the right domain name now, try buying it from another end user in 5-10 years time. What will it cost you then?