The popularity of peer-to-peer payment apps like Square Cash and Venmo have made it possible to pay consumers with just a username or "cashtag," and GoDaddy wants to let merchants do the same with their web domains.
GoDaddy, which has its roots in domain hosting, introduced a product this week called payable domains, enabling consumers to access checkout via a web address. At nearly the same time, GoDaddy partnered with Worldpay from FIS to support Commerce 360, an omnichannel product aimed at small businesses. GoDaddy has been incrementally adding payment products as other digital payment firms such as Block, Stripe and PayPal have also made moves to sell most of the technology a small business will need from a single provider.
The concept of a payable domain came from a simple premise: "Your web domain should help you get paid," said Kasturi Nina Mudulodu, vice president of product management at GoDaddy.
A GoDaddy small-business client accesses payable domains by purchasing a web URL, such as abc.com. The small business then receives a payable domain, "pay.abc.com," which would allow the business to receive payments online without necessarily having an e-commerce website, though it will still have the option to build and manage an e-commerce site.
The payable domain can be customized with art such as company logos and product images, is sharable over text, social media and QR codes. GoDaddy is not charging a fee for the payable domains, and the payment fee is 2.3% plus $0.30 per transaction.
"This comes under the umbrella of getting payments out of their normal box," Mudulodu said, speaking of the trend toward "invisible payments," or a checkout that's streamlined enough to be automatic. The question for GoDaddy is if it can develop a payments business in addition to web hosting.
GoDaddy and Worldpay's Commerce 360 enables small businesses to accept payments in a variety of channels. Merchants can use a curated website to sell at events, online and through social media platforms.
"There is a benefit of having the payment and the website creation under one roof," Mudulodu said. "The small business doesn't have to go to another company to set up a payment."
GoDaddy piloted the payable domain product during the past year, and found that merchants expect payment technology to be available from the same source that provides the rest of their e-commerce site.
"This allows GoDaddy to build direct relationships with these merchants, with GoDaddy at the center of their commerce solutions, and we expect it to boost the reach of GoDaddy's tech to small but growing businesses," said Prashant Nedungadi, vice president of commerce for partners at GoDaddy, in an email.
Worldpay is in the process of
"Our partnership with GoDaddy and the launch of the Commerce 360 solution enables small to medium size businesses to tap into a full omnichannel technology stream, built for today with the ability to adapt into the future," said Christina Wagner, senior vice president of Worldpay Global Small Business Solutions at FIS, in an email.
GoDaddy is attempting to evolve from a web hosting provider to a company that provides payments and other merchant services, either in competition with payment technology companies, payment processors and merchant acquiring banks — or as a partner that controls merchant and consumer enrollment.
GoDaddy has lots of company, as
And this week, Adyen embedded Tap to Pay into its online checkout flow for all markets. Click to Pay enables iPhones to accept payments without requiring point of sale hardware, greatly reading the need for dedicated checkout.
Stripe's integration with Shopify includes access to Shopify Payments, which enables merchants to accept card payments without third-party accounts.
"It's logical for a processor to connect with GoDaddy if the strategy is to penetrate the SMB space, since it's inefficient to attack that space without a partner that can deliver scale," said Thad Peterson, a strategic advisor at Aite-Novarica.
While GoDaddy was originally a web hosting provider with website design and connectivity, it has evolved to include the capability for their customers to develop their own online store, Peterson said.
"And with 21 million customers using GoDaddy, that's a huge opportunity for companies that offer payment services," Peterson said. "This also creates a competitive challenge for Stripe with its relationship with Shopify to provide payment services to their customers."
