discuss .Com versus .CA

[dtagr]

For example, if the owner of SIMPLY.COM offered to give it to SYMPLI.CA for FREE early on in their startup phase, you could bet they'd jump at it and that's what the company would be named. No need to spell it out to people for email or for radio ads, as everyone knows how it's spelled, while there can be a lot of problems with these phonetic hipster sites that sound like real words but are spelled differently.

But SIMPLY.COM is a high 6-figure domain (or more) and not many companies can afford it, so they go to the next lower tier, and the next lower tier and the next.... looking for something they can afford.

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I would find SIMPLY.COM to be dull and unexciting. Remember when Sage was "Simply Accounting"?Simply.com sounds perfectly dull for accounting.

 

[DomainRecap]

I would find SIMPLY.COM to be dull and unexciting. Remember when Sage was "Simply Accounting"?Simply.com sounds perfectly dull for accounting.

From a purely marketing point of view, the actual word is always more valuable since it is easily recognizable and there is never any question of spelling.

I hear this all the time, and I'm sure you've heard radio ads that go like ""Go to to AFTER.COM (phonetically), that's A-P-H-T-E-R-R.com...." or similar. That's death to any audio advertising, and it's the same with emails - "Yes, it's [email protected]... imagine doing that 100 times each day?

And the actual word or proper phonetic holds a lot of panache too, as one company I worked at would get all kinds of ooohs and aaaahs from business partners when I would spell my email out with a 2-letter .COM - and respect from people in the biz does mean something.

Personally, if you had the choice of SIMPLY.COM and SYMPLI.COM for FREE, you'd have to be crazy to choose the misspelled pronounceable, no matter how unhip you think it is. It's money in the bank when you actually go to use it.

Just look at domain news - a lot of the startups that are getting swallowed up by big players have a premium .COM, and usually a short, single word.

 

[dtagr]

From a purely marketing point of view, the actual word is always more valuable since it is easily recognizable and there is never any question of spelling.

I hear this all the time, and I'm sure you've heard radio ads that go like ""Go to to AFTER.COM (phonetically), that's A-P-H-T-E-R-R.com...." or similar. That's death to any audio advertising, and it's the same with emails - "Yes, it's [email protected]... imagine doing that 100 times each day?

And the actual word or proper phonetic holds a lot of panache too, as one company I worked at would get all kinds of ooohs and aaaahs from business partners when I would spell my email out with a 2-letter .COM - and respect from people in the biz does mean something.

Personally, if you had the choice of SIMPLY.COM and SYMPLI.COM for FREE, you'd have to be crazy to choose the misspelled pronounceable, no matter how unhip you think it is. It's money in the bank when you actually go to use it.

Just look at domain news - a lot of the startups that are getting swallowed up by big players have a premium .COM, and usually a short, single word.

For sure companies with premium .com's are worth snatching up if only for that reason, there's still no better ROI this side of Vancouver real estate, but I'm talking about .ca's.

SYMPLI.CA would be a lower price - but a quicker sale. The number of individuals or businesses that can afford to buy the actual dictionary word is limited and even then Disney preferred "chrgd.ca". Also the term SYMPLI is an "empty vessel", it can mean anything to anyone. SIMPLY is limited because of the definition of the word, but it would clearly command a higher price.

Don't misunderstand - I'm not implying that one is better than the other, but one will likely sell quicker than the other.

I get your point about the radio test, that's a challenge for sure, but most of these companies prefer Facebook ads and Instagram influencers, where the potential customer "sees" the domain name in text form and pronunciation becomes less of an issue.

 

[DomainRecap]

For sure companies with premium .com's are worth snatching up if only for that reason, there's still no better ROI this side of Vancouver real estate

That is not what I meant - these companies start small, then when they are large enough, they "hit the big time" with a premium .COM, announcing their presence to other larger entities, who often take notice. Prestige matters and one way you can achieve that is by upgrading to a premium online name.

Large companies are obviously not buying them for $3.1 billion just to get a $200K .COM name, but they do seem to go hand in hand. It's like a free press release that says "We've Arrived!".

And no matter what kind of FB ads you use or kiddie influencers you have peddling your goods, proper phonetics and word pronunciation matters. It's not just radio, and like I said, there are all kinds of problems, like email.

I have called companies where the guy gives me his email and the guy on the other end of the phone sounds like he's ready to quit (or die) when saying (probably for the 100th time that day), something like "it's Joe at EASY.COM, that's E-A-Z-I-E dot COM...."

Seriously, I bet if you ran a poll and verbally asked 100 people to spell SIMPLY.COM or EASY.COM, they would all spell the word as it sounds, with any dissenters being illiterates (or CIBC employees).

And it's not that a premium domain has to be a word spelled correctly, as there are lots of non-word pronounceables that the vast majority of people would spell correctly, like GOOGLE or TWITTER or SPOTIFY or YANDEX or even LULULEMON, which is why they were chosen. These are not words, but the way they are spelled makes sense from phonetic point of view.

Not that something like SYMPLI.COM can't work if you have enough money to promote it, just that SIMPLY.COM is preferable, and I really don't get your "the meaning limits it" because there isn't one job or task I wouldn't want done more simply - and the SYMPLI company is NOT defining itself as "an empty vessel" - come on, really?

Look at their mission statement, and it's clear that SIMPLE, SIMPLY and SIMPLICITY is the root meaning of their clothing brand:

Jan was inspired to create a collection that focused on simplicity and an honest fit. Her mission was to address the needs of every woman regardless of age, shape, size, or style. Therein lay the vision for Sympli, a brand embodying comfort, effortless care...