An Australian financial products aggregator has purchased the domain name creditcard.net for $138,000 in one of the most expensive sales in recent history, as it attempts to boost business by moving into the American market.
The purchase comes weeks after a local building and construction company purchased the investmentproperty.com.au domain for more than $100,000 in a public auction following a bidding war with another business.
Pixel Capital founding director Roland Bleyer – who also runs SEO and web marketing firm Pixel Brands – told SmartCompany this morning the domain will be used to further the company’s push into America.
“I’ve always been interested in the US market. We’ve been here for about six years now but I started off as a web developer in Los Angeles so I have some history over there,” Bleyer says.
“We’ve had some minor activity there but we thought we need to have a decent name. It’s been a lot of effort because we’ve been chasing that domain name for about two years.”
The Pixel Capital business covers the creditcard.com.au and creditworld.com.au domains under the Credit Card Network brand.
Bleyer says the two are some of the most popular financial aggregation products in the country, processing up to 5000 applications per month and recording 250,000 unique visitors.
“We’re a financial affiliate and one of the biggest in terms of percentages. If you look across the country there might only be 32,000 applications per month,” he says.
Bleyer says he believes the sale is the highest price paid for a domain during the month of September and the second highest .net sale behind cars.net, which sold for $US170,000 earlier this year.
Despite the price tag Bleyer says the investment will be worth it.
“The American market is our big target and it’s worth it even with the $138,000 price tag,”
he says.
“The big players over there are netting about $60,000 a day, so it’s a pretty big investment.
“If you have success you can make money. But obviously the market is so big and huge banks are there, so it’s going to be a little difficult.”
The sale highlights the growing popularity of key domain names, which are becoming more expensive.
Earlier this month investmentproperty.com.au sold for $125,000 following a number of other high profile name sales including hardware.com.au and electricity.com.au.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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