discuss .shop revisited. Am I wrong ?

[steven55]

Hello,

When exploring .shop domains, I came to a conclusion:

That certain keywords like mirror, cosmetics, or any
other specific items that are popularly sold from Amazon etc. would not make sense to be sold from a <item>.shop site.

e.g Consmetics.shop, Scissor.shop, shampoo.shop etc

The reason being, people would be hesitant to go to a .shop site when there are established Ecommerce
stores like amazon that are already selling these items with attractive prices and conditions!

So end users will shy away from domains like mirror.shop, knives.shop,
or any other specific <item>.shop.

What is your opinion ?

May be broad categories like Kitchen.shop or Garden.shop are better.
But still they would have to work hard to get visitors.

I also found that quite a many high priced .shop domains on Namebio are still not operative as proper sites!

It's one thing to get a .shop domain and a different thing to start a ECommerce shop that
can compete with existing Monster ECommerce players !
A .shop does not help to counter the competition aspect anyway..

In conclusion: .shop will not readily help in all "sell able" keywords. (only a few perhaps)

What do you think ?

Thanks

 

[Gube]

It's one thing to get a .shop domain and a different thing to start a ECommerce shop that
can compete with existing Monster ECommerce players !

Have you seen Shopify's story yet? (They don't heavily promote .shop -no longer/not currently- but they empower some of the smallest to some of the biggest stores, and many started from scratch)

 

[steven55]

Have you seen Shopify's story yet? (They don't heavily promote .shop -no longer/not currently- but they empower some of the smallest to some of the biggest stores, and many started from scratch)

Thanks.
But, I am evaluating just the .shop extension. Nothing to do with the software that could be used to start the ECommerce site. That is a different aspect..
Whether the ".shop" domain extension on it's own will help in giving the store any big advantage, be it SEO or any other ?

 

[Future Sensors]

Interesting thought @steven55

Sure, the broader defined Kitchen.shop and Garden.shop are better names than the individual product names within the same .shop TLD. However, this can be said for .com and other TLDs as well.

Good one-worders in the .shop TLD still have the automatic "authority" factor when people are looking for a specific product. So, while you might not be able to acquire Kitchen.shop, I'd definitely start a specialized shop at Tableware.shop.

 

[steven55]

Interesting thought @steven55

Sure, the broader defined Kitchen.shop and Garden.shop are better names than the individual product names within the same .shop TLD. However, this can be said for .com and other TLDs as well.

Good one-worders in the .shop TLD still have the automatic "authority" factor when people are looking for a specific product. So, while you might not be able to acquire Kitchen.shop, I'd definitely start a specialized shop at Tableware.shop.

Tableware.shop is still a sort of category. Not specific item like knives, scissors, shampoos, etc.
So yes.

For .com, the added advantages are:
-type-in traffic
-Faster SEO
-People awareness of .com extension
-Low renewal fees.

My point is the extra $25 renewal fee per year, what does it offer ?
Will you as a End user buy Scissor.shop for your Ecommerce or you would use a brandable name like say
Cuttx.shop.
I feel you might go for a brandable name..

This is more for specific items.
For categories I do agree that .shop extn. is good and does provide the requisite authority.

 

[Future Sensors]

I'd take the dictionary word .shop then. But this is kind of a debate all the time.

I do like .com. If you're able to acquire the more expensive .com variant, then do this. It will cost you a lot of money for the acquisition.

 

[steven55]

I'd take the dictionary word .shop then. But this is kind of a debate all the time.

Thanks.
You mean, you would go for Scissor.shop.
OK fine. That's what I wish to know, what you are drawn towards as a End user ?
I think, each one could have a different opinion..

 

[Future Sensors]

Thanks.
You mean, you would go for Scissor.shop.
OK fine. That's what I wish to know, what you are drawn towards as a End user ?

Scissor.shop is a special case, because of single/plural for that term (same goes for the word in .com). But in general, when .com is not available and you don't have the funds to acquire it, the .shop TLD will be a perfect alternative (ccTLDs as well). You may not be able to outrank the .com variant, but still it could be a great name for starting a business or upgrading an existing name.

 

[steven55]

You may not be able to outrank the .com variant, but still it could be a great name for starting a business or upgrading an existing name.

Ok, that will be good for the extension if its seen that way!

Also would you buy a plural for a word like Scissor if singular is gone ?

 

[Future Sensors]

Ok, that will be good for the extension if its seen that way!

Also would you buy a plural for a word like Scissor if singular is gone ?

As an investor, I sometimes do this, even when I know it's not 100% correct, or just to be the leader with all possible variations. The first result for missssspelled words is often a product page on Alibaba, it's a good indication. But these are not the names I would proudly or firmly suggest to potential end-users, and make up only a few percent of my portfolio in total. An example is Barbershear dot com. Actually I had an Amazon affiliate site on this domain a long time ago and it worked very well. Professional barber shears are expensive and I got 7% on every sale. The domain name and content combined were good for sales. The story for Scissors.shop will be better, as it is the correct spelling, and the market is larger. Yes, good name, I'd certainly recommend.

 

[steven55]

An example is Barbershear dot com. Actually I had an Amazon affiliate site on this domain a long time ago and it worked very well. Professional barber shears are expensive and I got 7% on every sale. The domain name and content combined were good for sales.

Thanks.
Just curious, why did you stop the affiliate site ?
Was the Keyword in domain helping SEO to get traffic ?

 

[CraigD]

The reason being, people would be hesitant to go to a .shop site when there are established Ecommerce
stores like amazon that are already selling these items with attractive prices and conditions!

Even when using an established Ecommerce store, it still pays to have a credible online address, be it (NAME)shop.com or (NAME).shop

It certainly cannot hurt, and at the very least can be utilised to point search engine traffic to your store front on an Ecommerce giant.

 

[Future Sensors]

Thanks.
Just curious, why did you stop the affiliate site ?
Was the Keyword in domain helping SEO to get traffic ?

Yes, the keyword rich domain helped a lot getting good rankings and instant authority for some of the high-end barber shears (long tail). I had about 750 Amazon affiliate websites in all consumer and industrial markets, each running on a dedicated domain name and with cross references between them. All sites ran on the same Amazon affiliate account per country. Sales on sites with dirt cheap products helped me to achieve higher Amazon tiers for the whole account (qauntity based), and get higher commissions and bonuses on expensive products on other sites. So, a site with "cheap rubber bands" and a lot of sales (I really hated the subject) was beneficial in the larger scheme: getting high commissions on generators, professional tools and equipment, jewelry, etc. on other sites.

Around 2010, I decided to focus on domain names only, because it was more efficient. I ditched a lot of mediocre .com, .net and .org domains and started investing in better .com names.

 

[steven55]

I had about 750 Amazon affiliate websites in all consumer and industrial markets, each running on a dedicated domain name and with cross references between them

Thanks a lot for sharing!

Wow, 750 sites, that's really too high..
Were, most of them getting good traffic on regular basis?
At say even 10$ per domain, its $7500 per year of domain cost itself.
Did Google(for SEO) or Amazon have objections in cross linking these sites ?

From your experience, Is Amazon affiliate still good or you feel the commissions are too low compared to
the effort/cost etc that goes into building and maintaining such a site.?

Its always nice to know from people like you who have tried this before..

 

[Future Sensors]

I'm afraid I won't be able to answer all Amazon specific followup questions here in this thread, as it's not related to the .shop TLD topic any longer

 

[steven55]

OK, no problem. Thanks anyway.