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Eatnow Founder Launches Online Booking Portal for Beauty and Wellness Businesses


A booking engine for beauty salons and other related businesses has launched in Melbourne and Sydney.

Serial entrepreneur Matt Dyer has moved onto his next business venture called Bookwell, a booking engine where customers can make appointments for hair dying, manicures, massages and many other services, through their convenient online portal.

Matt Dyer came to the attention of the start-up world when he founded Eatnow and quickly grew the business to become a serious player in the field with competitors such as Menulog and Delivery Hero. In early 2015, Eatnow merged with Menulog in what was seen to be a strategic move to protect market share from international competitors.

Then just a few short months after the merger, Menulog and Eatnow were acquired by the UK giant, Just Eat Group for a staggering AUD $865 million, and a great windfall for all shareholders.

Now with that success under his belt Dyer is taking his skills and experience in online portals to a different category, with the creation of Bookwell.com.au

The beauty and wellness market in Australia has been ripe for digital innovation for quite some time, as though many salons have taken to social media with a lot of enthusiasm, the booking process itself has remained unchanged.

Bookwell lets people book in with hairdressers, makeup and nail artists, beauticians, tattoo artists and massage therapists from one platform. It helps them pick their preferred salon or service by filtering them by location, desired treatment and customer reviews. The beauty and wellness professionals also get tools to help them manage their customer acquisition.

In hindsight, Bookwell seems like a match made in heaven. The target demographic for most of these businesses is predominantly female and there is huge market penetration for smart phones within that target market. Uptake on the consumer side will be huge, and if the business owners themselves manage to integrate the bookings into their existing systems, it should be a wild success.

In 2012, Dyer sold a majority share of Eatnow to Catch Of The Day, a Packer backed online retail group.

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