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Why You Should Consider .SHOP

August 25, 2020

Fun, Industry Insight, New TLDs, Uncategorized

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The .SHOP domain extension sells itself. There are currently 670,000+ .SHOP registrations worldwide, and more than 51,000 active online shops hosted on this top-level-domain (TLD). Recently, .SHOP saw a surge in registrations, as existing businesses moved online, and people started new ventures in a shifting COVID-19 economy.

Here, we’ll take a look at how people are using .SHOP domains — including some COVID-19 success stories — and why .SHOP is a strong choice for resellers and website owners.

Why use .SHOP for your online store name?

.SHOP is one of those new domain extensions that just makes sense. It’s purpose and benefits seem clear. But it comes with a few upsides that aren’t immediately obvious:

You’ll help your brand stand out in a cluttered ecommerce space. Building a brand in an online landscape that gets more competitive every day is challenging, and small efforts add up. Your .SHOP domain could catch a potential customer’s eye in the sea of .COM/CA/local-TLD search results. And it emphasizes that you sell what they’re looking for.

Relatedly, you’ll be including an SEO keyword right in your URL.

.SHOP is playful and still has a novelty factor that can make your website stand out in the minds of visitors. Your site might even be the first .SHOP they’ve stumbled upon!

It’s short and easy to pronounce, which makes for a catchy, memorable website name. This is super important for word-of-mouth referrals and advertising.

“Shop” is a word commonly understood by non-English speakers, which makes it an excellent choice for global companies.

Why include .SHOP in your new domain extensions offering?

When curating a TLD lineup, it’s important to be selective and choose options that will resonate with your customers. You’ve got an opportunity to surprise them with a .COM alternative they didn’t even know existed! .SHOP is a great TLD to offer because:

In many cases, you’re enabling your customer to turn their brand into their URL — just think how many stores include “shop” in their name.

.SHOP is competitively priced (and currently on sale!) as an affordable .COM alternative.

It’s easy to market because its purpose is clear.

There’s a huge potential market and room for growth as more businesses, entrepreneurs, and hobbyists hop online.

It has global appeal and will perform well in different markets.

How are .SHOP domain names being used for ecommerce?

Between March and June of 2020, new .SHOP registrations with shopping carts more than doubled among Tucows domain registrants.

Tucows’ new .SHOP registrations with a shopping cart (Q1 2019 – Q2 2020)

But .SHOP has seen steady growth since its launch in 2016. It’s used by entrepreneurs, mom-and-pops, SMBs, and large corporations for a variety of ecommerce purposes.

Serving local customers via online stores during COVID-19

During these difficult times, many people are making an extra effort to support their community by shopping local. An online presence that lets customers purchase and order products from home is now a must-have for independent businesses who once relied on brick and mortar traffic.

In the interest of supporting local, we wanted to highlight a couple Canadian small businesses that have built their online presence on a .SHOP domain:

Vancouver-based mysistersclosetvancouver.shop is a social enterprise business that sells used clothes in support of Battered Women’s Support Services. They used their website to bring their offline inventory online and to safely accept used clothing donations during the COVID crisis.

Also in response to COVID, Kitchener-based baker, Chantelle Villeneuve. moved her business online with bonapatreat.shop to allow for delivery, pickup, and online sales. She’s since reopened the physical shop, but continues to serve customers with her new online presence.

Separating your ecommerce function from your corporate website

Businesses with established company websites are choosing .SHOP domains as a dedicated space for online sales while continuing to use their existing domain for corporate or product information.

Take for example, Arrowine, a Virginian wine retailer that has long promoted their brick and mortar store using arrowine.com. When COVID-19 hit, they registered arrowine.shop for online ordering, with contactless pick-up in the store’s parking lot.

He may not have a “corporate” website, but Fritz Meinecke, a German youtuber with 941, 000 subscribers, launched his online merch shop using fritzmeinecke.shop — a move that speaks to the domain extension’s global appeal.

Which leads us to our next point…

Cross-border ecommerce

Many businesses who start out operating locally will turn to a more global domain choice like .SHOP once they shift their focus to include other markets.

Netherlands-based Superfood guru actually made the switch from .NL to .SHOP after their SEO agency advised them to use ‘.shop’ for their Dutch domain name and ‘.shop/en’ for the English one.

Etsy, Amazon, and other marketplaces

Businesses who sell products on platforms such as Etsy and Amazon are benefiting from using a crisp, clean .SHOP domain to point to their marketplace page. Once they set up their own online store, these .SHOP users can simply direct their domain to their new site. This ensures that they don’t lose customers when they make the switch.

Services for ecommerce businesses

Choosing a .SHOP domain is also a great way to signal to your audience that your product is targeted to ecommerce businesses. We have seen webshop builders, like obodo.shop, and other ecommerce services developed on .SHOP domain names.

Presenting your customer with new domain extensions that make sense

Website owners have a confounding number of domain extensions to choose from. If you can point them to a TLD that serves their brand and reflects their purpose or niche, it’s a win for both of you. This can take the form of great content that highlights TLDs specific to their industry, or a smart name search tool that will deliver fresh, marketable domain ideas.

We think .SHOP is an intuitive fit for anyone looking to grow an online business. And pssst…if offering great prices on domains is your priority, check out our full TLD lineup or log in to view out our full list of domain extensions on sale.

This post was sponsored by .SHOP.

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What Is a TLD?

August 18, 2020

Industry Insight, New TLDs

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Views: 564
A top-level domain (or TLD), refers to the letters to the right of the dot in a domain name. For example, our website, enom.com, uses a .COM TLD. Most of us are familiar with classic TLDs like .COM or .ORG, as well our native country-code TLD (.CA, .US, .UK, etc.). But there are actually over 1000 different TLDs, most of which are open to anyone for registration.

If that piqued your curiosity, check out our TLD list. And if you’re on the hunt for a unique domain name for your new business or latest online project, we highly recommend checking out Hover’s curated TLD lineup.

In this post, we’ll take a quick look at the different types of TLDs and how they work.

What are the different types of TLDs?

There are a couple of different ways people categorize TLDs, but they are most often broken down into three groups:

Legacy or classic top-level domains (gTLDs)

The “classic” or “legacy” TLDs have been around since the 1980s, and were created to serve a very specific purpose:

.COM — Commercial
.NET — Network technologies
.ORG — Organization
.EDU — Education
.GOV — U.S. Government
.MIL — U.S. Military
.INT— Intergovernmental organizations

Today, we’re used to seeing some of these extensions used for all sorts of websites. For example, you don’t have to be running a commercial enterprise to register a .COM domain. Others, however, like .GOV, are still very much restricted to certain purposes.

These top-level domains are often referred to as “generic” TLDs, or gTLDs for short.

Today, the operation of these TLDs is subject to the policies and regulations of an intergovernmental organization called ICANN (more on that below).

Country-code TLDs (ccTLDs)

As their name would imply, country-code TLDs are allocated to a nation or state—or, in the case of .EU, a group of states. Each ccTLD has its own policies based on local regulations. The result is that some ccTLDs—not all—can be more complicated to register than standard gTLDs.

Some ccTLDs are restricted for use by residents, citizens, or companies with a presence in the region they represent, but many are open for registration globally.

Fun fact: all two-letter top-level domains are country-code TLDs, even those that have been widely appropriated for a totally different purpose:
- .CO, often used as a stand-in for .COM, is actually the ccTLD for Columbia.
- .IO, popular among developers because it’s a shorthand for “input/output,” is, in fact, the ccTLD for the British Indian Ocean Territory.
New gTLDs

The first “new” top-level domains (including .INFO) were introduced in 2004, but the largest wave of launches began in 2013. Since then, they’ve continued to trickle in. Today there are more than 1000 “new” gTLDs. Like the legacy gTLDs, all new TLDs are 3+ characters in length, are regulated by ICANN (more on this below), and are not—unlike ccTLDs—representative of a specific nation or state. Hence, we can call this group new gTLDs.

But unlike legacy gTLDs, the new gTLDs are a huge and widely-varying group, so it’s helpful to break them down further:

Restricted new TLDs

Some of the new gTLDs are reserved for a specific purpose: .LAW, for example, can only be registered by verified members of the legal community.

Brand TLDs

Companies can actually apply to use their corporate name as the TLD for their website. Real life examples include .BMW, operated by the German automotive company, and .BARCLAYS, operated by the British financial services and investment bank.

GeoTLDs

These TLDs indicate a specific geographical location, like .NYC, .LONDON, or .AMSTERDAM. They are distinct from ccTLDs in that they are more than two letters, and they are not officially allocated to a specific nation or state—they simply target a particular region. Some geoTLD registries do restrict registrations to local residents, but many do not.

And the rest

Most new TLDs are open to anyone and allow for some playful website names and smart branding. For example, if you’re selling a product or service online, you might opt for a .SHOP, .STORE, or .SHOPPING domain. If you’re an arts worker, top-level domains like .DESIGN, .ART, or .STUDIO might be of interest.

There are a ton of options. And some of them are incredibly niche. There’s a .HORSE TLD!

How Enom categorizes TLDs

As you now know, many people classify TLDs based on how long they’ve been around (legacy vs. new TLDs), and whether they’re allocated to a specific nation or state or operated by an independent registry (ccTLDS vs. all others).

At Enom, we like to classify them according to how a website owner is likely to evaluate them: based on their purpose. We place all TLDs into two distinct categories:

GeoTLDs: chosen because they speak to a specific geographic market. In our eyes, this includes both ccTLDs like .CA and new TLDs like .BERLIN.

Generic TLDs: chosen because they reflect the industry or purpose of the customer’s website (like .BLOG) or because they are truly generic (like .ONLINE).

So who manages these various different top-level domains?

All TLDs are operated by registries. In the case of ccTLDs, where the TLD is allocated to a particular nation or state, the registry is often some sort of government entity. And, quite often, the government entity will partner with an independent TLD registry who can supply them with the technical backend infrastructure, effectively operating the ccTLD on their behalf.

For all other TLDs, the registry is a company. They might operate a single TLD, or they might operate 50+.

Operating a generic TLD (gTLD)

Any registry that operates a gTLD (any TLD that isn’t a two-letter country code) is regulated by an international non-profit called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

ICANN does a lot. They develop policies “for coordination of some of the Internet’s core technical elements, including the domain-name system.” This includes:
- - reviewing applications to establish top-level-domains
  - coordinating discussions where potential new TLDs cause conflict
  - setting policies that dictate how domain registries must operate their TLDs
  - setting policies that govern how domain registrars (like Enom!) can offer services to domain owners (registrants).
If you want to do a deep dive into this, check out our post on the registry > registrar > registrant hierarchy.

Operating a ccTLD

Country-code TLDs are a bit more complicated. Unlike generic TLDs, the only rules that the ccTLD registries need to follow are the ones they create for themselves.

For example, all gTLD domain names are operated by accredited registries, but sold through accredited registrars. ICANN policy makes it so. But some ccTLD registries actually sell domain registrations directly to the public. No registrar needed. Learn more

Want a creative TLD for your website or for your customers?

Enom sells a huge selection of TLDs through a network of resellers that includes some big-name website builders and hosting companies. You can check out our TLD lineup or log in to view our TLDs that are on sale.

If you’re looking for the perfect domain for your own website, we highly recommend our sister company, Hover. They’ve got a great selection of TLDs, a clean, user-friendly platform, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a friendlier support team.
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How to Win by Treating Your Customers as Members

August 13, 2020

Featured, Fun, Industry Insight

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Views: 1578
Guest author: Jeffrey Sass, CMO, .CLUB Domains

There is a reason American Express made the phrase “Membership has its privileges” famous. The brand had the right idea to focus on the benefits of membership to attract and retain customers. We are tribal by nature. It is in our DNA to want to belong to a community — to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. It is why clubs of all kinds have been around for thousands of years. It is why we choose to live in neighborhoods, communities and cities.

Being part of a community has never been easier or more powerful than it is today thanks to the Internet, and more specifically, thanks to the millions of websites on the so-called worldwide web. When you choose a domain name, hosting plan, and set up your own online presence, whether for business or personal use, you are joining one of the largest clubs ever – the club of website owners. And as a website owner, you are in a very unique and powerful position to attract visitors and customers, and create your own online community around your interests, your passions, your products, or services.

There is a growing trend for eCommerce businesses to focus on memberships and subscriptions. According to a February 2018 report by McKinsey & Company, “The subscription e-commerce market has grown by more than 100 percent a year over the past five years. The largest such retailers generated more than $2.6 billion in sales in 2016, up from a mere $57 million in 2011.”

And that trend continues. It makes perfect sense for eCommerce businesses and online sites of all types to treat their visitors and customers as members. Every eCommerce platform and most content-driven websites encourage visitors to establish an account and log in when they visit. If people are going to give you their name and email address, they are effectively joining your club. Your visitors and customers are members of your club, so treat them as such. Offer them the “privileges” that Amex espouses. Make them feel special for joining your community. There are a number of ways this can be done, and here are a few simple ones:
- Share exclusive content that only members receive.
- If you sell something, offer members special deals, and early access to new products or services. Occasionally include some added-value items in their orders for free as a member benefit.
- Make sure your support team makes every interaction with a member memorable, putting the member’s needs first.
- Encourage members to provide feedback and testimonials, and reward them for doing so — and LISTEN to them and let them know their feedback is appreciated.
- Shine a light on your members in your Social Media marketing (as appropriate).
In general, just imagine how you would want to be treated as a member of a club, and treat your visitors and customers the same way. Just as you enjoy feeling wanted and appreciated, so will your visitors and customers when they feel like they are a member of your “club.”

And, if you are looking for a domain name that truly expresses the community of your website or business, a domain ending in .CLUB may be a great choice. You’d be joining the countless other creative businesses and individuals that have chosen .CLUB for their online home. Take for example, Firstleaf.club, a company that has built a large community around wine by offering a customized wine club experience.

Unlike most wine clubs where every member is sent the same selection of wines, Firstleaf chooses your wines based on your personalized profile, and lets you rate the wines you receive. Then they customize future orders just for you, based on your likes and dislikes. As a result, Firstleaf has consistently been rated among the top wine clubs and has been featured in articles in Forbes, Huffington Post, Newsweek, Entertainment Tonight, NBC News, and many more. Clearly, the personalized treatment they give their members is leading to great success.

So, as you think about growing your online community and retaining and re-engaging your customers, think about them as members of your club. You don’t have to be as big as American Express to show your customers and fans that, indeed, membership has its privileges.

Is. CLUB a good fit for you or your customers?

.CLUB has many uses outside of eCommerce, and its potential for subscription-based retailers is really intriguing. Plus, you can now get .CLUB on promotion for just $6. If you’re interested in exploring some other creative domain options, check Enom’s our full TLD lineup.
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A Great Domain for Freelancers and Entrepreneurs? Try .ME

June 22, 2020

Featured, Fun, Industry Insight

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Views: 1902

Today, personal websites function as a calling card that can help your customers showcase an online portfolio, house their resume or blog, and find creative ways to establish their personal brand.

.ME is a great option for entrepreneurs, hobbyists, and professionals looking to do any of the above. And as more and more of these potential customers hop online, adding .ME to your lineup is a no-brainer.

Why you should add .ME to your TLD lineup

.ME is easy to market

.ME simply makes sense for “about me” pages, online portfolios, freelance business websites, and professional profile pages. Plus, the .ME registry provides tons of resources for those looking to build a personal brand — content that you can draw from in your marketing efforts.

.ME has big market potential

Having a stand-out online presence is becoming increasingly critical for freelancers and professionals looking to showcase their work or grow their businesses. .ME gives you a great option to offer this growing segment. There are no restrictions for the TLD, and “Me” is a word commonly understood by non-English speakers, which gives it a broad, global appeal.

It’s competitively priced (and currently on sale!)

.ME is competitively priced against popular legacy TLDs (.COM, . NET, .BIZ and .ORG), and right now, you can take advantage of $10 promo pricing.

.ME is a solid .COM alternative

Some people are able to snag theirfirstandlastname.com, but the vast majority of us don’t have a terribly unique moniker. .ME provides a short, fresh alternative when your customer’s .COM is taken.

.ME domains are memorable

We all want our websites to stand out and stick in the minds of our visitors. .ME has a novelty factor that causes people to take note. Plus, most of us would agree that websites that feel personal are often more memorable. What’s more personal that .ME?

.ME shows solid customer stickiness

.ME has a high renewal rate. The majority of .ME registrants hold their registration for many years. Customer stickiness can be further improved by combining the domain purchase with value-added services, like SSL and Email.

Marketing .ME domains to your customers

Getting creative with .ME domain names

Website owners can use their .ME to create a space that says “this is who am I and what I want people to know about me.” Some .ME registrants demonstrate the value of simply using their name alone, like medical illustrator, chinamimichaels.me. Others opt for a playful approach that takes advantage of keywords, like UK blogger, thelondoner.me.

In both cases, .ME supports the site owner’s goal of telling their story and presenting their work in a professional, yet unique and individual way.

But .ME is also employed in more surprising ways by big names like PayPal. Check out their creative use of paypal.me to simplify transactions for their users.

.ME resources you can use

The .ME team actively helps new freelancers, recent grads and small businesses to get online and stay connected to the world. Transitioning from a full-time job or directly from the classroom to a freelance career can be stressful, and often these customers spend a lot of time researching their next steps.

The .ME blog is full of resources and advice on personal branding and how to launch a freelance career. Whether it’s tips on choosing the right domain or which elements to include in a freelance portfolio, the .ME blog is full of content that can be used to help support your customers.

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Bandzoogle: website builder for musicians

June 1, 2020

Featured, Fun, Industry Insight, Resellers

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Views: 1808

Stacey Bedford, CEO of Bandzoogle

The Enom team has enough musically inclined members to form at least two in-house rock bands, so we’re geeking out pretty hard about highlighting Bandzoogle on our blog. The Montreal-based SaaS company calls itself the easiest all-in-one professional website platform for musicians and bands. They target a unique vertical, one that their team is hugely passionate about, and they really know their customers: their platform is very much created for musicians, by musicians.

Here, Bandzoogle CEO, Stacey Bedford, provides some insight into how and why they’ve been so successful in supporting their customers and steadily growing the company.

What features are you most proud of? Which do the musicians that use your platform rave about?

Bandzoogle’s Technical Support Manager, Adam, is also a music producer.

Commission-free direct-to-fan sales tools. Bandzoogle provides musicians with the eCommerce tools necessary to sell anything you can imagine: digital goods like albums, singles, EPs, song sheets, tickets, download codes or videos; physical goods like merch, CDs, or vinyl; and services like music lessons. You can even sell recurring subscriptions by tier and set up a crowdfunding campaign or preorders.

Bandzoogle does not take a cut of any sales, and we have a SaaS model. This is just one component of the tools we offer as an all-in-one platform. Regardless of our robust toolset, our members absolutely adore our customer support team. They’re your band’s roadie, your web tech. Our response time and quality of support is the best on the planet. Best of all, most of our team members are musicians.

How are you supporting your artists during COVID-19?

Within the first month of the pandemic, our team launched commission-free live streaming ticket sales, event ticket refunds, a tip jar feature, transaction history exports and filtering, and a comprehensive guide to musician resources during a pandemic. Every week, our team meets to discuss what has changed in the last week and how we can help. We have quickly adapted our processes to stay on top of artists’ needs.

To what does Bandzoogle attribute your success?

There are a few things I can note here as being key to our success. As you can see, we are constantly building new features and designs that are relevant to artists today. But more than that, we always put our staff and members’ needs first. We have grown into a sizable company but we’ve never strayed from our core values.

At Bandzoogle, our members can expect a very high level of service and an honest partner. It is a streamlined set of pro features, but you’re dealing with a small family vibe.

Lastly, we’re fully bootstrapped— we’ve never taken external funding, and we’ve always made decisions on our own terms, without putting a focus on turning profits. Doing the right thing by our members has resulted in great success.

How do you build an artist community and connect with your customers?

We do a lot of proactive outreach with our customers. This includes webinars, free website reviews (even for non-members), member meetups in different cities, and you’ll also see some of us at different music tech events. We are a small team with a big reach. Part of that reach includes teaming up with other music verticals that hold the same strong values, like CD Baby, Bandsintown, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and ASCAP.

Meaningful relationships with ethical music businesses are important to our business model; as a business, you won’t get very far if you don’t venture off the island. Building bridges is important to grow your artist community and connect with your customers.

What have been your major milestones as a company?

An otherwise remote team, the Bandzoogle staff gets together for annual retreats.

Our members’ success is our success: last month, our members hit 62 million dollars in commission-free sales. In May, we also grew to 50,000 paid active users, with additional thousands of active trial members on any given day. Another huge milestone was growing our executive team. We have a fairly flat organizational chart, but we promoted Colin Mitchell to CTO and Dave Cool to VP of Strategic partnerships. We are leading this incredible group of individuals and for me, it’s a huge win to be able to foster so much professional growth within our small team of 29.

Are there any .COM alternatives that you guys like or that resonate with musicians?

As bricks and mortar stores become less pertinent, .COM TLDs have become a scarce resource. You’ll see many artists soon find out that long-winded .COMs leave too much room for user error, and alternative TLDs can be less costly and easier to remember.

Because of this, we see many artists branching out and using .ROCKS, .BAND, and some old, trusted, but still available, .ORG and .NET options for their band. Bandzoogle plans include many TLD options across all 3 plans, from $9.95 to $14.95 per month.

Are there any exciting plans for the future you’d like to share?

I can tell you that the world is changing rapidly, and, for any business, finding a way to monetize globally is paramount today. We’ll see so many advancements in the tools available to both businesses and artists over the next year, it’ll be a different landscape. Businesses that are adaptable will do well, but it’s about to be a wild ride.

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