A Chinese company uses its phone number as its domain name.
I enjoy reading venture capital news. I also study some of the startups highlighted in the news to find out what domains these future business leaders are using and also what domains they may need to acquire. Seeing from the perspective of a domain investor, this information also allows me to identify potential domain buyers who can afford to pay for expensive domains.
A few days ago, I noticed a startup named Yun Cai Yuan (云菜园) in the news. Founded in 2015, Yun Cai Yuan provides a platform to connect farms directly with consumers online. In September 2019, the startup also expanded to offline by opening a chain of fresh food convenience stores – at the pace of 10 to 20 stores per month. It plans to reach 140 to 150 stores before the Chinese New Year.
Performance of the company has been outstanding, which is reflected in its ability to raise rounds of funding every year since 2016. In 2019 alone, Yun Cai Yuan received more than $5 million in Series A+ funding. So, the company can definitely afford to pay for expensive domains.
Yun Cai Yuan uses 4008268365.com as its corporate domain. What is special about this long 10-digit number? It just happens to be the telephone number customers can call to contact the company. Unfortunately, the company does not seem to own the domains matching its brand: Yuncaiyuan.com and YCY.com. The former is currently for sale and the latter has a message indicating it’s managed by a domain brokerage house.
Certainly, Yun Cai Yuan can afford to acquire the much needed Yuncaiyuan.com or YCY.com to become a major player.
BullS says
Don’t be surprised if we all register our SS# and put our profile in there,maybe this will avoid identity problems.
Kassey Lee says
We are moving towards a society where we just have one number to manage our entire life.
interstellardomain says
Many Chinese companies do not pay enough attention to domain names. Many companies prefer Tencent’s
WeChat public account and WeChat applet. Many people would rather spend a lot of money developing an app that is rarely used and would not realize buying a domain name that reflects the brand.
Kassey Lee says
Very true, and it’s the same in the west and the east: people like to live under the roof of strangers and depend on their kindness. Then, suddenly one day they find out they have been kicked out of the house and their business ruined.
Roman says
In New Zealand, Pizza Hut advertises their website as 0800838383.co.nz, which is also their toll free number.
Kassey Lee says
Good find, Roman. Some companies are still phone centric in their thinking.
Alan Brown says
But if you go to it, you are redirected to pizzahut.co.nz – that seems more like being phone-aware then being phone-centric
Kassey Lee says
You are right, Alan. Thanks.
Miahsub says
Domains sold privately are extremely expensive
Kassey Lee says
as well as domains sold publicly, such as Voice.com for $30m.
Kemal Goksu says
You said the company was founded in 2015, but this domain was registered on 16 January 2016: https://dofo.com/4008268365.com
I wonder what was the domain name they used when they first established, and why they changed it to this 10-digit number domain name.
China is an outlier country, they really care about numbers I think. 🙂
Thank you Kassey, for helping us understand the Chinese domain market.
Kassey Lee says
Hi Kemal, thanks for the kind word. The company was registered on 2015-06-02 but could be not operational for several months. Then the founders decided they needed a domain and registered a long numeric domain , which is quite easy. Less than 5% of Chinese companies still do not own a website. Most still depend on the kindness of strangers — or Alibaba, JD.com, Wechat for that matter.
Samson Iyanu says
This is like an ip address. So we are back to olding.
Kassey Lee says
Good point. Some people forget why DNS was invented: to make it easier to remember digital addresses. Otherwise, we would all be using the IP addresses directly today instead.