Picking the Perfect Brand Name for your New Ecommerce Website

So you’re launching a new ecommerce website – congratulations! Before long, you’ll be worrying about oh-so-serious things like your bottom line, product returns and customer complaints. However, for now, it’s time to have a little bit of fun. It’s time to pick the perfect brand name for your new site.

As a starting point, it’s imperative that the brand name fits your business, so it’s best to start with a little self-interrogation. Begin with these two questions:

1. What image should my name conjure?

If you’re going to sell children’s toys, something fun and simple will work. If you’re opening an eye-care service, then you want something trustworthy and sensible. You wouldn’t go to an optician called Little Chimperoos, right?

Are you going for zany or sensible? Professional or fun? Caring or carefree? Discreet or flamboyant? If you’re not sure, look at what you selling. Who is your target audience? It’s easy to skip over this stage quickly, but nothing could be more important.

2. What value do I offer customers?

Every business has to offer something of value. There are millions of ways to make people’s lives better – how will your ecommerce business do it? Will your products cheer people up, help smartphone batteries last longer or supply emergency, same-day travel kits?

The value you offer, whether it’s cheap travel or unique wedding venues, should be communicated in your brand name. If your business doesn’t deliver something of value, it might be worth revisiting your business plan and company mission.

Word nerd time!

Once you’ve answered these questions, start to list words that conjure the correct image and propose the value you offer. For example, if you’re selling last-minute holidays, then you would have value-inspired words like ‘last minute’, ‘eleventh hour’ or ‘zero hours’ and image-inspired words like ‘trek’, ‘voyage’ or ‘nomad’.

List as many words as you can. The thesaurus will be your best friend during this stage. You can choose from objects, places, animals – anything. Do you sell silly novelty gifts? Try adding ‘monkey’ to the list. Do you sell ultra-sturdy laptop cases? Try adding the word ‘tank’. And when you run out of words, try making some up too. If you’re selling watches, how about ‘tikk’ or ‘woch’?

With your word list complete, try out some combinations.

Would ‘NowNomad’ or ‘TrekToday’ work for our last-minute holiday site perhaps? Try shortening. Try swapping letters. Try words that rhyme. Try everything. List as many ideas as possible. Trust us, you’ll need them.

One by one, take a look at your ideas and ask:

• Is it memorable?

Real words, such as ‘PurpleHats’ are typically easier to remember than things you’ve made up, like ‘Hattler’s’.

• Is it unique?

A quick search on Google and you’ll soon know if you’ve stumbled across a pre-existing business. Unfortunately for us, ‘TrekToday’ is already taken – they provide daily news about Star Trek, obviously.

• Is the domain available?

You may already have a winning name in mind, but have you checked if the domain is also available? If you’re happy to go with a less popular domain extension, like .uk or .shop, then you probably won’t hit too many walls. The domain for the brand name you had in mind will more than likely be available. However, if you’re searching for a .co.uk or – even worse – a .com domain, then you’re going to churn through a lot of ideas before you find a gem!

• Top Tips: Try using a tool like Namechk when you’re checking for domains. It checks social media platforms for handles too, which is very helpful.

And if you can’t find an available domain name, what can you do?

While it may be tempting to use numbers and hyphens to create a domain, don’t. They add a potential banana skin for anybody to trying to find your website.

Another option is to play around with the spelling of words. But, if somebody heard your brand name on the radio, could they currently spell it? ‘KoolKidz’ might sound like a great brand name now, but when everybody is searching for ‘Cool Kids’ on Google, you’ll soon regret it.

You can try to buy a domain from an auction (which can be surprisingly expensive!), try different domain extensions or simply return to the research stage and try again.

Hopefully, by this stage, you’ve already found a cracking brand name. If it fits with your business’s mission and values, is memorable, unique and the domain is available, you might just have a winner!

Find your true brand

If you’re launching a new ecommerce website and need help with your branding, we can help. At Bing Digital, we offer a range of brand development services designed to take brands from zero to hero. Get in touch today to find out more.