Looks like .SHOP is close to opening up. Well on Sept 26, 2016. It is still a few months away but after six years a few months is getting pretty close.
I do not think .SHOP is going to change the world but for those with ecommerce or online sales sites, it could be a good domain to have.
I am pretty sure we will not be purchasing intownwebdesign.SHOP. I would like to own coffee.SHOP or toy.SHOP. Their might be a few big green coffee companies that are willing to pay more for it than we can.
.SHOP and your Brand
One way to set up or the online properties would be to have your yourcompanyname.COM at this site you have all of the content, blog, contact and other info. Then you could add yourcompanyname.SHOP for your online store. This way they would be two separate sites allowing you to move your .SHOP from one technology to another with out upsetting yourcompanyname.COM website technology
With that being said I am not sure how much different Shop.yourcompanyname.com is from yourcompanyname.shop.
It could be just that owning mydomain.SHOP is a good defensive move so that a competitor does not purchase it.
Back to Coffee.SHOP
I can see owning a genericword.SHOP and being a good thing. Say you sold parts for large electric generators or coffee grinders. Owning generator.shop or CoffeeGrinder.shop could be a valuable and trust worthy domain name.
The take away here is, if you do not sell online, .SHOP has no interest to you, if you have an established brand name, it might be worth buying yourcompanyname.SHOP, maybe to use or maybe to keep someone else from buying it. If you sell a particular item from many manufacturers or sell one type of item it could be a good idea to purchase TheItemYouSell.SHOP
What are your thoughts?
.SHOP Details
Price: $49/year
Registration Period: 1 Year
Sunrise: June 30, 2016 to August 29, 2016 (if you are a trademark owner you may pre register)
General Availability with Claim: September 1, 2016 to January 24, 2017
More information on Domain Name sales periods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landrush_period
Other Resources
- Wikipedia Page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.shop
- Name.com Prerelease https://www.name.com/domains/shop
- United Domains Prerelease https://www.uniteddomains.com/new-top-level-domain/shop-domain-registration/
Will you be purchasing any .SHOP domain names?
