You’re Not Going To Believe This One: Buy.com To Change Its Name to Rakuten.com

[the_poet]

http://www.thedomains.com/2013/01/1...ne-buy-com-to-change-its-name-to-rakuten-com/

:lol:

 

[4pm]

even on still days, some folk just piss into the wind !

..i think they are smart

they made a mistake when they bought it. now they just realized that globally recognized brand is much better as a primary domain name than any generic (even the best from domainers point of view) keyword..

would you replace your microsoft.com with software.com if you were MS? ..if you are a domainer i bet you would.. and that would be poor decision for your brand in the long run

imho
*

 

[wot]

＂Rakuten, Inc. (楽天株式会社 Rakuten Kabushiki-kaisha?) (JASDAQ: 4755) is a Japanese electronic commerce and internet company based in Tokyo, Japan. Among its numerous online properties, its flagship business-to-business-to-consumer e-commerce site Rakuten Ichiba, is the largest e-commerce site in Japan and among the world’s largest by sales. Its global presence has been reinforced through buying online retailers Buy.com (US), Priceminister (France), Ikeda (now Rakuten Brasil), Tradoria (now Rakuten Deutschland) and Play.com (UK), and investments in Ozon.ru and AHA Life. Whereas other marketplaces may compete directly with sellers, Rakuten sets out to empower merchants deliver "Omotenashi", a Japanese attitude to customer service and hospitality, intended to help sellers create lasting relationships with buyers.＂

I think they know what they are doing!

 

[johname]

If your the Japanese version of Amazon you can buy buy.com and change the name. They bought it to eventally further their own brand.

 

[4pm]

[rakuten] 550,000 globally 368,000 Japan
[buy] 135,000 globally 1,300 Japan

..just an observation

*

 

[4pm]

probably the best illustration for domainers attitude when it comes to branding vs EMD is DomainNameSales.com - a great service with top industry people behind it and all..

but still no brand, no identity - i'm not saying the domain is bad, it surely supplies a lot of type-ins and searches, ranks high etc.. good - redirect the traffic, put a landing page on it, whatever.. and get yourself a brand - any good 4L/5L/6L would be better for separating from the crowd of "domain sales" domains than ugly longtail monster like that..

was it "Domain Name Sale(s)" or "Domains Name Sale(s)" or "Domain Names Sale(s)" where i parked my names last Friday?.. oh well, lets search it up on Google.. wow here's "Domain Name Selling" too, who the hell am i dealing with after all, is it a real company "Domain Name Sales Inc." or what? do they want me to type in 15 letter + .com every time i want to check my CPC? ..bookmarking is so boring thing from the past..


sending my respects to Sedo, Aftermarket, Bodis, Voodoo and Rakuten - i will never have a problem remembering their names/urls


..seems i went off topic here but i just hate "domainnamesales.com" domain as much as i like the service
*

 

[Blake]

If you listen really close right now you can hear the sound of keystrokes.... typo generators turning on and domains being registered haha.

Crazy stuff

Blake

 

[biggie]

never went to buy.com, so makes no diff to me

 

[Ms Domainer]

*

The world does not revolve around the U.S. We tend to be egocentric, looking at everything through the lens of English language and American culture.

The rest of the world has its own way of viewing business and culture.

Rakuten is probably trademarkable in the U.S., whereas Buy.com is probably not, at least for selling products. I can certainly understand why a company would want to be able to brand and trademark its business.

Are they giving up the domain Buy.com? If not, I don't see the problem--it can always redirect to the new site.

If they sell it off, that would be a MAJOR mistake, but what do I know?



*

 

[the_poet]

Wonder why they didn't rebrand to rtydksfj.com :D

 

[Tia Wood]

All I can say is: EW! And the new logo is ugly and makes the site look like RakutenBuy.com. Fire the web developer and brand manager!

 

[www.AmCy.org]

No wonder the Japanese economy has been moving like a snail for more than a decade.

:o :bah: :O

 

[4pm]

If they are looking to expand to USA/Europe with Buy.com, would the name Rakuten/Buy.com work as a brand? They should have just left it as Buy.com, IMHO.

when Google, Amazon, Ebay etc want to expand into any part of the world where they do not yet have a market share they always go with their brand not with any generic names..

the result is they all have global brands instead of a bunch of generic sites..
Rakuten has just decided which is better for them too

*

 

[enlytend]

LOL. I remember when my affiliate news from LinkShare started showing up as "Rakuten LinkShare;" I couldn't for the life of me understand why any company would weight down a well-established and very successful brand name with a vanity plate.

Rakuten bought Linkshare

when Google, Amazon, Ebay etc want to expand into any part of the world where they do not yet have a market share they always go with their brand not with any generic names..

the result is they all have global brands instead of a bunch of generic sites..
Rakuten has just decided which is better for them too

:bingo:

Brands are big. But agreed - it will take some getting used to for English-speaking customers who aren't familiar with Rakuten.

 

[kleszcz]

The acquisition of company is their strategy and they change the brand to "rakuten + name". New branding is always awful but they are success in business so far. "Rakuten" is stronger than "Buy" in Japan. They are making a brand. Good decision.

 

[Domainace]

Honda came with no name change, and they didn't pass the radio test (handa or honda?)
Toyota didn't change their name, but that's an easy one.
Mitsubishi didn't change their name, and that doesn't exactly roll off an American's tongue.
Orbitz, of course, also fails the radio test.

I don't see where Rakuten is any more difficult that many web 2.0 names. It might be mangled in the way Hyundai is, but that hasn't hurt Hyundai.

After a brand has passed a certain size, such as Rakuten has, I don't see any reason to adopt a generic. The generic is for the company that's trying to catch up. Rakuten has heaps of money for brand promotion. A generic, such as buy.com, makes more sense for a company that wants to catch up at a lower cost.

To date, though, I can't think of a single giant company that used a generic to get there. I know that's sacrilege to some domainers, but I think there are limits to how far a generic domain can take you.

@JB I just saw your new post. I haven't seen Walmart change their name overseas. They buy chains, such as Asda in Europe, or Seiyu in Japan, and don't immediately switch over to Walmart. That's because they are buying established brands in those markets. Mcdonald's also doesn't change their name as far as I know. They may adapt to local pronunciation, but that's about it.

I don't think that buy.com was well established enough for Rakuten to stay with it. Was there a lot of customer loyalty to that name?

 

[Ronald Regging]

The Japanese government keeps the Yen strong in order to appease the older generation (similar to our Baby Boomers), who have worked hard their entire lives and want to have strong buying power. However, this has caused something like 30 years of stagflation and the industries are drying up, because the strong Yen makes it impossible for them to compete in a global market. This is the reason that China constantly debases it's own currency in order to boost exports all over the world. So, it makes perfect sense for Rakuten to spread it's operations and buy up companies in other countries. They can then operate in those markets and currencies and remain competitive while running all of the business operations from Japan.

However, Rakuten already had a solid international customer base, this way just makes it cheaper and quicker for those customers, which reinforces customer loyalty. This helps to strengthen their brand tremendously and then with the extra traffic from buy.com, they are probably hoping to pick up new customers and widen their product offerings through new shop vendors and partnerships, etc...

It seems like a good move to me. Had they kept the Buy.com domain, it would have most likely only served to dilute their brand with an already established international customer base in exchange for nothing... Buy.com was a dying/dead brand.. I can't remember the last time I've ever been there or even heard mention of it. But, now, they get all the traffic, plus all of the brand exposure and the vendor partnerships, etc...

 

[Makis.TV]

rakupten what?

 

[fm1234]

LOL. I remember when my affiliate news from LinkShare started showing up as "Rakuten LinkShare;" I couldn't for the life of me understand why any company would weight down a well-established and very successful brand name with a vanity plate. I guess that was just small potatoes to rebranding Buy.com


Frank

 

[nfcarcade]

....If someone on here said, "I just sold my buy.com to replace it with fjrjrndndnnd.com they would probably have to make a new screen name and pretend it wasn't them upon return. Lol.

What vofkrnfmekodokx.com was taken? I think the .net is still available.

 

[domainhacks-931385]

lol @ rakutenbuy.com being taken by an obvious domain squatter

rakutenbuy.com Premium $94342.00

 

[DnEbook]

even on still days, some folk just piss into the wind !

they should have purchased reshopped/com from me

 

[www.AmCy.org]

[rakuten] 550,000 globally 368,000 Japan
[buy] 135,000 globally 1,300 Japan

..just an observation

*

If they are looking to expand to USA/Europe with Buy.com, would the name Rakuten/Buy.com work as a brand? They should have just left it as Buy.com, IMHO.

 

[DnEbook]

I just feel the name does not 'voice' well , most would know how to spell 'buy'

 

[Green Magic]

"Rakuten, Inc. (楽天株式会社 Rakuten Kabushiki-kaisha?) (JASDAQ: 4755) is a Japanese electronic commerce and internet company based in Tokyo, Japan. Among its numerous online properties, its flagship business-to-business-to-consumer e-commerce site Rakuten Ichiba, is the largest e-commerce site in Japan and among the world’s largest by sales. Its global presence has been reinforced through buying online retailers Buy.com (US), Priceminister (France), Ikeda (now Rakuten Brasil), Tradoria (now Rakuten Deutschland) and Play.com (UK), and investments in Ozon.ru and AHA Life. Whereas other marketplaces may compete directly with sellers, Rakuten sets out to empower merchants deliver "Omotenashi", a Japanese attitude to customer service and hospitality, intended to help sellers create lasting relationships with buyers."

I think they know what they are doing!

couldn't agree more. the Play.com one is probably not a great example right now, but the rest is spot on