Home > Parts > Pat's TECH TIPS BLOG > Choosing an Email Name or an Ecommerce Store Name

This may be a little off topic, but I just finished an interview that will be published in a few weeks were I was asked about problems in E-Commerce (Web Stores).

It brought out several issues we have faced in our business and what I see that others do, so I thought you would enjoy the subject.Lets deal with email addresses and tie it in with an E-Commerce site.

When choosing an email, you want to keep it simple and short. Ask yourself if you're going to have to spell out your address every time you give it and if its easy to understand with a poor cell connection. We are in the business of manufacturing parts for the spray polyureathane foam industry and provide a good 1 stop shopping experience. We opened SPF Depot, we thought this was easy, but it turns out that a small percentage don't realize that SPF is an industry term and we do get hits for suntan lotion.

At times I have had to spell it out as Sam Paul Frank D E P O T and I can hear them repeat and writing SAMPAULFRANK... We have some people say De Pot ? as in get off the pot, my bran muffin and Starbucks just kicked in. Sure, we all go to Home De Pot to buy plants.

With that said, [email protected] is easy for the majority. Then we get asked "is it all in capitals or lower case?" It makes no difference at all. I just list it this way so its easy to see. Email and web addresses can be enter in all caps, all lower case - it doesn't mater. But, it is fun at times to say that we capitalize every other letter.

Using your company name is a great way to make it easy, unless your company name is Spray Foam Insulation and Coatings Systems of Southern "My State". Would you want to have to type that out on your cell 20 times a day? Then you add to that your names to your email address: JohannahandBriannah_Little@sprayfoaminsulationandcoatingssystemsofsouthernmystate.com Spell that out 20 times a day and see how many emails you never see because they misspelled it or left a letter out. Avoid hyphenated names, underscores, misspelled names and using an actual number (2-xpray_Pro's).

In case you have been living in a cave, we live in a time with people suffering from attention deficit. People live on 3 word tweets and 4 letter abbreviations due to not being able to focus much further than a simple Tweet. In fact, they prefer to tweet over sending an email or just picking up the phone. Look at largest businesses out there MAC, iPhone, GMAC, ATT, even McDonalds is now McD's. They use short names and abbreviations for a reason. Try to keep it simple, short and easy to understand. For E-Commerce sites lets just look at names. Having a big company name as the one I just mentioned is not uncommon, but you need to chop it down some for the web site and your email address.

A huge problem is some do not pay attention to the name they choose and huge corporations have made bad choices on names. Chevrolet came out with the Chevy Nova years ago and when they tried to market it in Mexico, they noticed the sales where poor.

Nobody realized that NOVA in Spanish is No Go and the sales reflected the name they chose for their No Go car.Now lets look at really dumb names. A cell company - Who Represents with a web address whorepresents.com. In case you don't know what to buy for that special woman. A specialty store that makes pens - Pen Island with a web address of penisland.com.

Great place if you're a real jerk. Speed of Art - web address is speedofart.com Never had one of those. The worst name of all Master Bait and Tackle web address is masterbaitonline.com. Of course the company Big Ass Fans has done very well.Think about your company name, but think harder on your email address and web store address before you invest big dollars and discover a problem. You'll give those out every day and you'll type it out 20+ times a day. Ask yourself if you want to type that on your cell several times a day. Don't forget to check out trademark infringements by trying to use a like company name or a logo. 3N of China lost big time for using the close copy of the 3M logo and colors.

You can even try to Google the name you pick and see what pops up.Pick a good name - I hope you have it for many years.