.STORE Domains Spotlight: Memorable & Branded Domains for Ecommerce Businesses

Category: Branding & Design, Operations & Customer Service, Resources & Tools
Last Updated: August 20, 2024

Note: This is a sponsored post in collaboration with .store Domains.

Did you know that over 65% of domain name availability checks fail?

Due to the lack of short, desired names in some of the most popular domain extensions, many business owners resort to clunky domain names that either have misspellings, unnecessary characters or are too long. This not only affects the brand image of the business but also affects the credibility of the business. For example, www.peach-online.com could be anything from a store to a blog to a tech product called “Peach”. The hyphen only makes it seem less click-worthy.

Online sellers now have a powerful alternative in .store—a domain name extension created specifically for ecommerce and retail. Whether it’s on a search engine, a banner ad, or even print, when potential customers see a .store domain name they know the site is selling something.

With retail moving online, finding a strong domain name has become more important than before. Consider building your store on a .store domain—it’s innovative and it instantly associates your site with retail & ecommerce.

What .store Domains Does

.store is a new domain extension that enables entrepreneurs, business owners, and online store merchants to acquire web addresses ending with the .store domain extension.

If you’re unfamiliar with what domain names and extensions are, they simply are the components that make up web addresses which internet users type into their browsers to access websites online. They’re essentially a cloak for the IP addresses that computers use to access different pages on the internet because those are usually long strings of numbers which are difficult for the average person to remember. IP addresses are thus cloaked with domain names and extensions to make finding and identifying webpages easier for internet users.

For example:

Web Address: www.emirates.store
Domain Name: emirates
Domain Name Extension: .store

Take, for example, the statistic we mentioned at the start of this article: Over 65% of domain name availability checks fail. This means that nearly 7 out of 10 times you go to a domain name provider to register a web address for your website, store, blog, etc. the domain name won’t be available! This is because so many other people have already registered domain names on popular top-level domains, so it’s starting to become slim pickings.

.store domain extensions help website owners take the frustration out of domain name availability checks by providing a solution: Use the .store domain name extension instead of .com, .net or .org so there’s a greater chance that the domain name you’re looking for is available!

Who .store Domains is For

Not only are .store domains an ideal choice for people who are looking for their domain name of choice to be available, but they’re also a perfect fit for businesses of all sizes, across all industries, to create an easily identifiable and memorable online presence for their store.

.store domain extensions are ideal for:

Upcoming ecommerce websites
Retailers looking to create websites for their brands
Businesses looking to differentiate between a corporate site and a merchandise site
Influencers and entertainers selling merchandise

People Looking for a Great, & Available Domain Name

There’s more that goes into choosing a domain name that meets the eye, and if you’re looking for the perfect domain name that’s also available, you’ll likely be zoning in on the following criteria:

Short Domains: With new top-level domains like .store, you’re much more likely to get a short domain name devoid of unnecessary characters. Not only is this ideal for you and your audience, but Google also prefers shorter domains. Generally, if there are two identical websites, Google’s algorithm would be more likely to rank the website with a shorter domain name higher.
Keyword-Rich Domains: New top-level domain name extensions help make your domain name keyword-rich. For example, a web address like www.texascameras.store gives the impression that the business is a camera store based out of Texas.
Meaningful Domains: New top-level domain name extensions add an additional layer of meaning to the domain name which can help to build a story within the mind of the visitor, making the domain name more memorable.
SEO-Focused Domains: New domain extensions make it possible to get on-topic backlinks which are great for SEO. For instance, it’s more contextual to get a backlink on www.firehd.store for the anchor text “Fire HD store” than to get the original deep-link to the Fire HD page on Amazon. Over time, this gives a green signal to Google about the relevance of the page for the keywords “Fire HD store” and it starts showing up in the organic search results for those keywords.

Since the .store domain ecosystem is not as crowded as older domain extensions, it provides the potential for website owners to achieve these domain name criteria. It’s much more difficult to achieve all (or sometimes, any!) of these criteria when sticking to top-level domain name extensions, but it’s less difficult when registering a .store domain.

People Looking for New, Modern & Memorable Domains

Now, more than ever is the time to step away from common top-level domains and invest in branded and memorable domain extensions that have been made available to website owners to fulfill specific purposes.

Modern domains like .TECH for technology, .FUN for fun and entertainment, and .store for retail and ecommerce are becoming much more widely accepted and accessible with online mom-and-pop shops, brick-and-mortar turned ecommerce stores, and even Fortune 500 companies adopting them for their own online presence.

This availability of new domain extensions has opened up a monumental opportunity for modern retailers and ecommerce players to choose a domain name that contributes towards building a strong online brand and since it’s been working so well for other online stores, it could work for yours, too!

Why Use .Store Domains

If the primary goal of your website is to sell products, nothing is more memorable or branded than a .store domain.

Since “store” is a globally recognized word associated with retail, diverse businesses have adopted the .store domain for their sites. Over 240,000+ businesses including leading enterprises, influencers, and innovative small and medium-sized businesses are building their online businesses on .store domains, including the likes of:

Emirates: A leading airline, Emirates.store
Dude Perfect: YouTubers with 40M+ subscribers, DudePerfect.store
Khalid: Grammy award-winning artist, Khalid.store
TopCoat: Leading surface sealant brand, TopCoat.store
Century Media: Heavy metal record label owned by Sony Music, CenturyMedia.store

.store is available at 225+ registrar partners such as Namecheap, Hover, GoDaddy, and Domain.com. Plus, merchants of all leading ecommerce store builders such as Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace can get their .store domains from their control panel.

Getting the right domain name is important for any business—no matter what it is or where you register it, your domain name defines these four aspects of your business:

Authenticity: With most people looking up businesses online, having the right domain name—and a functional site along with it—is critical in lending authenticity to your business.
Branding: Being the first brand touchpoint, your domain name tells people what your business is about.
Visibility: Having a domain name that conveys your product or niche exposes your brand to more audiences as the domain name gets indexed by the search engines. As your SEO strengthens, so does your placement within search pages which, in turn, leads to more eyeballs.
Mobility: This is especially important for businesses on marketplaces or social media. Having a domain name either with its own site or one that redirects to the marketplace or social media insulates the business from losing its brand identity and its audiences if the marketplace or social media platform were to crash. Be it a redirect, a website, a mobile site, or even print, a domain name lets users find you no matter where they encounter you.

And don’t just let these fours aspects of your business be defined by your domain name itself—let your actual domain name extension do the talking, too! A .store domain name extension will help to maintain the authenticity, branding, visibility, and mobility of your online store from your audience’s perspective.

How to Use .store Domain Names to Promote Your Store

Domain names are largely underutilized as a marketing tool for businesses. Here are some ways in which you can make the most of domain names to add more effectiveness to your marketing efforts.

Product Reviews, Backlinks & SEO Juice

Contextual domain redirects are an annoyance for ecommerce businesses, especially when it comes to product reviews on other blogs and social media. For example, if you want customers to review a product you sell but the link to the product page looks like this:

https://www.amazon.com/product/B07B725M81/ref=s9u_ri_gw_i5?ie=UTF8&fpl=fresh&pd_rd_i=B07B725M81&pd_rd_r=3e5de0dc-ad0d-11e8-89e5-d3f364e718bd&pd_rd_w=cZbIK&pd_rd_wg=jfDI4&pf_rd_s=&pf_rd_r&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=a2d79bc4-36f0-49c4-96ee-f7d75fc12c45&pf_rd_i=desktop

You can choose a domain such as www.yourdomain.store or www.yourdomain.store/product to redirect to your product page (on your website or Amazon, Etsy, etc.) and share that domain with the product reviewers instead. This keeps things clean, tidy, and more shareable.

Offline Marketing vs. Online Marketing

One of the biggest challenges that domains solve is seamlessly connecting your offline marketing with your online presence. For example, if you’ve invested in promoting a specific product category in local newspapers or through a pamphlet, you can include a short, memorable domain address for that category page within you promotion instead of just providing a link to your website’s homepage. This way, your audience can find you more easily online from the marketing material they see offline.

For example, if NBC wanted to promote their page for Jimmy Fallon’s official show merchandise, the actual link would look like this:
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Instead, NBC can include a domain redirect such as www.nbc.store/jimmy which is memorable, pronounceable and will more effectively drive traffic from offline to online.

Offers & Discounts

A fantastic way to use domain names to entice your existing and new customers is to create a dedicated page for all of your active discounts and offers applicable to your store. For example, if your promotions page link is long and complicated (such as this link: https://trustarts.org/pct_home/support/membership/restaurant-discounts) it will be difficult for customers to manually type your discounts page into their browsers.

Customers could instead either bookmark it on their browser or they can visit your website homepage and then find the discounts page, however, to really make sure that your promotions page is always in the customer’s memory, you can use a suitable domain redirect such as www.memberdiscount.store

Not only is it a keyword-rich, intuitive domain name; it will also make your page rank higher in organic searches over time if it’s updated regularly with new and relevant information.

To help make your conversion-driven social media marketing more effective, you can use branded links in your social posts. Brand links are great opportunities for you to bring more visibility to your brand name and build link-trust. To understand this better, take a look at these links:

https://bitly.com/2JPhn
abls.store/ecommerce-blueprint

While both could lead to the same landing page, the second link tells users what to expect upon clicking on the link. Plus, the branded link aids in better brand recall and is more shareable. What’s more, branded links can also increase CTRs by up to 34%.

Pros & Cons of .store Domains

As we’ve discussed throughout this article, .store domains are the perfect fit for any retail or ecommerce brand. The reason why .store is suitable for the retail industry is because .store domains are recognizable, memorable, and help in building a strong brand positioning. What’s more, getting the perfect domain name is easy on .store domain extensions in comparison to those extensions that have been around for many years.

By using a .store domain name extension, your visitors can easily recognize what your website is about—plus you can use the domain in marketing materials to make it more shareable, clickable, or easy to remember for offline to online use.

The Advantages of .store Domains

Short: Empowers you to choose a short, powerful brand name
Memorable: Helps customers remember you as a store
Relevant: Describes what your site is about—retail & ecommerce!
Brandable: Creates a strong retail brand
SEO-Friendly: Is recognized by search engines

The Disadvantages of .store Domains

Niche: Ultimately, domains that aren’t .com, .net or .org may still be met with some hesitancy by some internet users, however, the attitude towards new top-level domains is changing and since more and more brands are using domains like .store to establish an online presence, visitors are becoming more used to alternatives.
Potential Unavailability: Although new domain extensions like .store aren’t as overcrowded as older domain extensions, there’s still no guarantee that the domain name that you want to register will be available.

What Merchants are Saying About .store

Interested in what business merchants who are actually using the .store domain have to say about why they chose it and their experience with it? Check out these testimonials:

We needed a simple yet brandable domain name for our official merchandise store. We chose .store because it aligned with our vision for this retail outlet as well as helped us create a clear visibility for it. .store is refreshing and gives us a unique way to brand and promote our storefront. —Emirates (Emirates.Store)

The Khalid store is a spectacular bridge that connects the star with his massive fan following. We wanted to give it a brandable name that is easily relatable by Khalid fans the world over. Khalid.Store was the most obvious choice and it has built a brand for itself very quickly. —Nate Murray, Merchline (official merchandiser for Khalid.Store)

When I started designing my first website, I was thrilled to find the .store domain available. It was a great way to show people who found my business that my main focus was to offer products. It helps people understand a bit about the core of my business right from the beginning! —Amy Guerrero, (MossPointsNorth.store)

Note: For more examples of businesses using the .store domain, check out some of the best .store websites here.

Where to Get .store Domains

Like any domain, you can purchase .store domain names either directly from the source at .store Domains or through your preferred domain registrar.

Here are some of the domain name providers you can source .store domains from:

The price for each domain varies based on the number of characters (three-letter words are more expensive than 4 letter words), meaning of the keywords used (“hello” would be more expensive than hllo or hulloh or hlleo), recall value of the domain name (laptop.store would be more expensive than all-laptopsbuyhere.store).

Search your domain name through any of the domain providers above to get an idea of the pricing for your desired domain on .store.

Conclusion

We hope this .store Domains review has highlighted some of the benefits and advantages of using the .store domain, especially within the retail ecommerce industry. There’s no need to create confusing, misspelled, or made-up domain names when using a new top-level domain like .store, so you can make sure your website stays memorable and on-brand so your audience is more likely to visit, share, promote your store!