How to choose the name of the online store

    The saying "what you call a ship - that’s how it will float" sometimes you want to neglect, it seems, well, not often relevant. For the name of the online store is 100% relevant.

    Marketing agencies take a lot of money to create the “right” name. And there is a reason! It is enough to look at the criteria that the name must satisfy: getting into target audience, product compliance, difficulty in remembering, eloquence / associativity, uniqueness, stop list.

    You should not wave your hand and assume that for IM (hereinafter the Internet Store) all this is not necessary. Bad is the soldier who does not want to become a general. If you want to open them to have enough for bread and butter, it’s better not even start. But if the plans are ambitious, then the creation of a name should be approached as seriously as the choice of an engine. This is the future brand!

    Find out what lies behind these criteria, and why money is paid for it. At the end of the post I will give some tips on how to better come up with names.

    I would like to clarify in advance that the words “name” and “name” mean the domain name and the name of the store.

    Hit in Central Asia

    Gender, age, social affiliation of Central Asia. And the price factor.

    Price factor

    The name must correspond to the price level of the store. That is, the margin, or the price segment of the product, if it is a luxury product.

    Almost all online stores are focused on the middle class. And a small part for high-income people. You could even say that no store is targeting low-income people. BUT! and it’s big, all the same, all customers are divided into 3 categories based on the store’s pricing policy: “low price” (although cheaper), average price (do not chase a low price), high price (do not care about the price, main service and quality)

    If we talk about the brand ... well, let's not get this far. If we are talking about positioning our store in a certain price category, then the name should convey to the customer a sense of price. It’s not worth arguing, here is a simple example:

    Names for watch stores “Noblesse” and “Second”. Needless to say, where are elite watches sold at high prices, and where are the cheaper ones? “Noblesse” - majestic, pathos, expensive. “Second” is nothing special, the simple name speaks for itself.

    What characteristics should the Names have for different price categories?

    The name for the discount store (goods with a low margin) can / should be simple, playful, comic, everyday.

    The name for a store with a high margin or selling expensive goods, the name should be pretentious, rich, pompous, shocking (but not vip, elit, premium)

    Neutral names are suitable for mid-price stores. By the way, it is also used for stores that focus on everyone, or rather do not distinguish customers by income levels.

    All the same, I want to say a little about branding. The future of online commerce will come to that.

    IMs have some psychological advantage over offline stores. There is such a category of customers that is afraid of expensive stores, afraid to communicate with consultants (this cannot be avoided in expensive, good stores). There are more of these, mainly among clients with average and above average earnings. For them, MI is the most optimal option, because minimizes live contact and eliminates an uncomfortable feeling. Good specialists know this, and they can object to me that for IM one can safely choose some pathos name, at the same time grab conceited clients with small incomes.

    But the name is a brand! The brand should always be positioned, if your store is with high prices or expensive goods, then the design and positioning should be appropriate, attract your own target audience. Conversely, a store focusing on low prices should emphasize this in its advertising. When the turnover of such companies is large, then the allocation of the target audience from the general mass through brand perception plays an important role. It is the perception of the brand that begins to play a role here, too, without the corresponding name.

    Wait an example. Electronics store with low prices Rozetka. A comic title that claims to be simplicity and has the tendency to gain a foothold in the minds of the audience as “low prices.” The company's marketers reinforce associations with the name of the relevant advertising (left banner),Example 2 and logo.

    The gender factor is

    very clear here. For women - a gentle, beautiful name, you can even be sexy and flirty. For men - strict, courageous, reliable (associated with reliability)

    Age factor

    Among the clients of IM, I personally would single out three age audiences. Teenagers (under 21 years old), youth (from 21 to 30) and middle age (from 30 to 45).

    It is also worth considering that the Internet is an environment for young and active people. The average age of the “Internet user” is 27-30 years. But still quite a lot of users are older than this age and they use online stores.

    The average age, it would seem, is average! You can not emphasize this fact in the title. However, it is necessary to refrain from loud and defiant names. “Serednyachki” - people over 30 years old, in most cases prefer harmony and tranquility. Accordingly, the names should be the same.

    Youth is the largest and most active audience. In the audience go their lexical innovations and rules, their slangs, which can play a role. Of course, it’s important not to go too far in using slang. The size of the audience can play a disservice too: users between the ages of 22 and 30 have too many different preferences, therefore additional research of the audience and imposition of factors are required (more on this below)

    Teenagers are also a favorable environment with their tastes. But much easier than youth. Take defiant names from the lexical use of audience representatives. Do not lose in 90% of cases.

    Social factor

    If deployed: belonging to any social groups on various grounds: religion, sub-cultures, lifestyle, hobbies, etc.

    I won’t dig deeply. Let's take sub-cultures and directions

    Rock attributes , Equipment for extreme sports , an emo store . Caught shops for the Goths, and for Arab women in Moscow.

    Differences and features of social groups should put fingerprints on store names.

    A direct hit with a name in Central Asia makes the store closer to the audience. “At home” among others, especially for social groups.

    Product Matching

    The most important criterion! if not the most important.

    It is divided into two factors:

    Correspondence to the nature of the goods. The

    nature of the name must correspond to the nature of the goods. Perfumes - tenderness, underwear - sexuality, electronics - electronics :), flowers - beauty, sex shops ... well, in general, you understand. Any word that you will use in the name must convey the emotions characteristic of the product.

    It would be ridiculous to look courageous names with goods from lingerie stores.

    Eloquence of the name.

    Associativity of the name with the key descriptive characteristics of the goods.

    It can be divided into two different approaches:

    1. The use of synonyms for the name of the product category. Why synonyms, and not direct names, read the “stop list”. This approach allows you to tell the audience about the proposed product based on the Name and without resorting to slogans. As in contextual advertising - use keywords in the headlines and ad texts. It is usually used in conjunction with another word or prefix. For example, “bt-parfum”. Above all, using a keyword in a Title helps in seo optimization.

    2. Use in the Name of associative words. As mentioned above, words should characterize the emotions caused by the product, and the approach is based on a combination of the nature of the words and their associativity with the product.
    I do not want to rack my brains for an example, I'll take mine. I came up with a new name for my store. It should be combined with perfumes and cosmetics - tenderness and beauty. It occurred to captivate, fragrance, some female names, foreign translations of Russian words: aroma, temptation, tenderness, smell, etc.

    Name complexity

    Or among the people: “how easy it is to remember the name”.

    Simplicity The name directly affects how often customers will return to you. I would supplement the spelling and lexical literacy of the Name. Sometimes mutants come across :)

    The complexity of the Name also affects seo-optimization. The problem is that it will be difficult to guess the wrong or unsuccessful word even through a search engine - it will not tell you. We'll have to sort through all possible word variants in the texts on the site or in the tags. Decent haemorrhoids.

    But again, the opportunity / attempt to find a clumsy Name by searching does not cancel the fact that the Store Name will be remembered at all, but if they remember, it is not the fact that they made a mistake, they will start looking.

    beautyk is a terrible name, isn't it? They asked me: “what's the name?” I counted ten possible spellings. And rightly so: “Beautique”. Although the right option the first time few will guess to dial.

    Uniqueness

    Look for a name that is not on the market: associations, similarities - everything can matter. The name should be unique and not similar to any other, in any eye.

    Uniqueness is also the originality of the name, creativity. How subtle, but still clear The name reflects the essence of your proposal. The more unique, the more difficult it is to fake or clone unfair competitors.

    Multivariance

    The multivariance of the spelling of the name contributes to the emergence of clones. Here, as they say, it’s a sin not to use unfair competitors.

    Multivariance arises due to such factors:

    features of transliteration of Russian words into English. “Casket” - larec, larets. The first domain is mine, the second is alien (in the com.ua domain zone), because I still haven’t put the store on the first one, I forgot to register the second one, here is the result. This is an example that popped up immediately. There are many such examples.
    grammar of foreign languages. An example in my post is 10 terrible mistakes , point one.
    hyphens. In the example above you will find confirmation.
    Use the ending “s” plural in English or the plural word in Russian. Gift, gifts.

    Language features

    When creating a domain name, it should be remembered that not many citizens of the post-Soviet space know English or some other foreign languages. But for some reason people often forget about it and use words difficult for our perception in the name.

    Boutique.ru, for example. I don’t know what the store owners were thinking. But I’m sure that they spend a good couple of hundred bucks on maintaining the “staff” of similar domains. Or competitors use the “staff”.

    The language question is problematic not only in spelling, sometimes search engines suggest the right option, but in remembering the name of the domain and store.

    By the way, remembering a domain can aggravate this fact. The manager answers the calls: “Boutique online store, hello.” And what do you think, then customers who remember the name will enter in the search? :)

    Another language feature related to the CIS countries is the use of transliteration words. Here it is important to remember not only how the word is spelled correctly in transliteration, but also how most of your potential customers spell the word. Difficulties can arise with the letters “w”, “u”, “w”, “i”. The latter, although it is known, but remember that many clients are new to transliteration. So, even simpler and more well-known analogues of our letters can cause difficulties for people.

    Stop list

    I advise you to refrain from using certain prefixes or words in the Name.

    1. The prefixes top, vip, elit, best, etc., indicating a certain superlative degree. Trite, stupid, obscured, annoying. My store is no exception, I know, but did not know 3 years ago)

    2. The prefix shop. Not so annoying, but already blurred. In addition, the prefix shop increases the spelling of the Name. Giftshop, gift-shop, shopgift (you do not laugh - there are a lot of idiots), giftsshop - this can easily be.

    3. A direct reference to the name of the product category. Gift, parfum, book, CD, DVD, etc. (including transliteration). There are of course exceptions, for example a bambook, but only a confirmatory rule.

    Intersections of factors
    or the prevalence of some factors over others.
    Some factors overlap in their influence on the name of the company \ domain name. I will explain with examples.

    Commodity factor intersects with Price . Especially true when the products themselves are expensive.

    Sometimes the price factor prevails over the commodity . For example, if you need to emphasize low margins, the example is the same - Rozetka.

    The product factor in some cases prevails over the Age factor . Perfumes, selective (elite), regardless of Central Asia, the product itself is “elite”, and can not be associated with youth, slang, comic, etc. names.

    You can continue for a long time, the main thing is to remember this rule and use it when creating a name.

    Tips

    There are several ways and tricks to choose a Name for the store and avoid problems in the future.

    1. Sometimes the name can be found among the product names. Not for nothing that someone already puzzled over the name of the product and used characteristic words for it. You can use them, but only if you use the general vocabulary words used in the name of the product.

    2. Register the Name in several domain zones. Even if the name is unique, it can be registered in several domain zones, which your competitors will not be slow to use.
    In Wanet, there is a UA domain zone provided for brand names. If the Store Name is unique and the future is ambitious, sooner or later it will be necessary to register TM. Otherwise, competitors can do this and take away your name. If TM is registered, registration of your Name will be prohibited in other zones.

    3. Frequent typos in domain spelling. For example, aromart.kiev.ua and aromat.kiev.ua. Two different shops. But the first ones registered their domain, because the second was once very popular, and many, including myself, sometimes make a mistake - “r” before “t”.

    4. Do not forget to register variant spellings of your domain.

    5. Use the names of deceased but well-known brands. For example, in Ukraine about 2 years ago, the brand L`Escale (Leskal) died. Sorry, busy.
    Remember!Domain name clones can be used for various purposes. It’s lucky if you simply have orders taken away, it’s unlucky if the domain is used to discredit your brand.

    If you have any additions to my article, I will be glad to hear.

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