Gap

cm1975 · Apr 11, 2013

Don't think this has been mentioned in AD yet ..... I've just noticed that gap.co.uk has changed hands in Jan 2013, but they are only now starting to redirect their traffic from their .eu domain.

That must easily be the top .UK sale of the year!?

Edwin · Apr 11, 2013

cm1975 said:
That must easily be the top .UK sale of the year!?

Why? It may have been "defensible" at DRS i.e. Gap the chain may not have been able to take gap.co.uk the domain, but the presence of Gap the chain made the name literally unsellable to anyone else.

In a market with only one potential buyer, the seller's hardly in a strong position!

cm1975 · Apr 11, 2013

The two reasons I would assume that it's pretty high on the list are -

1. The previous owner GAP IT had held onto the domain for a number of years and would assume it's not the first time that Gap Inc have approached them. If they've said no all this time, then there must have been a reason to sell. I'm assuming it was due to the size of the offer.

2. Gap Inc would not be the only possible buyer. Whilst they may be the largest and certainly the most likely to want it, there would have been other potential buyers. I'm not going to list a large number of companies from Duedil.com, but when I got off the train this morning, there was a dump truck with the GAP Group logo on it. Looking at Duedil, they had a £85m turnover in 2011/2.

iamrofe · Apr 12, 2013

Edwin said:
Why? It may have been "defensible" at DRS i.e. Gap the chain may not have been able to take gap.co.uk the domain, but the presence of Gap the chain made the name literally unsellable to anyone else.

In a market with only one potential buyer, the seller's hardly in a strong position!

Didn't have one potential buyer imo. A quick google, gap systems, gap software, gap careers...