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How To Come Up With A Dropshipping Store Name

By Andrey Y.

Tips on coming up with a dropshipping store name

So, you want to launch a dropshipping business to start making money online. That’s great, but do you already know how to name it? In this article, we’re going to talk about how to come up with a good dropshipping store name and why it matters.

Why your dropshipping store’s name matters

What’s in a name?

That’s what might cross your mind when choosing one for your online store.

It can’t be a big deal when you’ve got a much bigger fish to fry, can it?

Indeed, at first glance, naming your dropshipping store seems to be too petty to take it seriously.

You have things like social media promotion, customer service and a lot of other tasks on your plate. Your success lies in taking care of them, doesn’t it?

Well, yeah…but here’s the deal. You can’t make bricks without straw.

I doubt that Nike would be as fortunate as it is if it’d been named “Sport clothing company 23” or something. The name is a part of Nike’s success.

Dropshipping is a competitive business field. To win the competition, you need to stand out from the others.

In other words, you should create your brand identity. And your store name plays a significant part in this task.

Therefore, you need to make a point of choosing the right one. And the next tips are going to let you pull this off.

5 tips on how to come up with a brand name

1. Make it short and memorable

Pepsi, Starbucks, Apple, Google, Reebok…

All these companies have short and catchy names. Once you’ve heard them, they stick in your memory for a long time.

So, if you think up something of that sort for your dropshipping store, you’ll make a great dent in creating your brand identity.

Your advertisement will definitely catch customer’s eye, and they won’t misspell your store’s name while looking for it on the Internet.

There are several ways you could employ to come up with a short and memorable name.

  • Pick something ordinary

You can follow the example of Steve Jobs. He picked “Apple” as a name for his company just because he was on a fruitarian diet at the moment. A similar strategy was chosen by Jeff Bezos: he simply named his online store after the Amazon river.

The point is to choose an ordinary but catchy word and put it to use.

  • Distort a regular word

Another way to make up a name for your dropshipping store is to distort a normal word. For instance, a famous freelance platform Fiverr just added one more “r” to “Fiver” to get it done. Google got its name by twisting the word “googol”. And Cisco was made by removing “San Fran” from “San Francisco”.

  • Use abbreviations

To create a brand name, one can use abbreviations or acronyms. For example, BMW stands for “Bayerische Motoren Werke”, or “Bavarian Motor Works”. Simple, right? Often company founders name their businesses after their own surnames. This way, Mars and Murrie came up with M&M’s.

You can also combine several words in one to create a memorable name for your online store. Probably, the most famous example of using this tactic is Adidas company. Its founder, Adolf Dassler, whose nickname was Adi, just mixed his first and second names to create the title.

Actually, this practice is widespread in business. IBM’s title is just the first letters of “International Business Machines”, Intel is short for “integrated electronics” and so on.

  • Use Alterations

If you want your dropshipping store’s name to contain more than one word, you can use alliteration to make it catchy. For example, Paramount Pictures, Coca-Cola, Best Buy, American Airlines, etc.

  • Use the names of mythological characters, creatures, and places

For inspiration, one can use a dictionary of mythology. There are thousands of names, so it’s a great way to come up with store name ideas! And many business owners named their brands after gods, heroes, legendary places, etc. For example, Pegasus Expedite Company was named after the mythological winged horse.

So, you’ve got enough options to employ to come up with your business name. However, you should keep in mind that using more than two words for your business name isn’t the best idea. Ideally, you need only one that strikes a chord.

2. Make sure your dropshipping store’s name is unique

Standing out from your competitors is vital in dropshipping.

If your online store has a name that is similar to your rival’s one, customers could easily mix you up. This way, you may lose tons of clients.

Not the best prospects, right?

Let alone the fact that you might face some legal consequences if you unwittingly pick some copyrighted name.

Thus, you need to carry out some market research before making up your mind about your dropshipping store’s name. You should make sure that it’s unique.

3. Don’t curse, please

Have you heard about BiC company?

Highly likely, you have. You must have come across the pencils and razors made by this French firm.

But, you may not know that the company’s founder Marcel Bich decided not to rack his brain much and named it after himself.

You might be wondering – where is the “h” letter?

Well, he made the decision to leave it out.

Why?

The reason is the English language.

He wanted to create an international company. And the last name of BiC’s founder didn’t sound well in English.

You could easily confuse it with a rude English word, although its spelling is a bit different.

Now, this looks reasonable, doesn’t it?

Dropshipping is an international business model. So, you need to make sure that your dropshipping store name doesn’t have an offensive or confusing meaning in foreign languages.

You don’t need to look into each existing language in the world. Take 8 or 10 the most spoken ones such as English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and so on.

It’s also important to make sure the end result cannot be read some other way.

For example, there’s nothing wrong with the words ‘bay’ and ‘therapist’. But when combined into a domain name, people may read it this way: TheRapistBay.com. See what I mean?

So, make sure to carefully analyze your dropshipping store’s name from every point of view.

4. Don’t forget about your domain name

Who doesn’t know eBay?

It’s hard to find a single person who is unaware of it. This company is famous worldwide and its name is short and memorable.

But…

Did you ever wonder why? How come its founders ended up with eBay?

I can tell you.

Actually, we could have Echo Bay instead. That was the name eBay’s owners came up with in the first place. As for me, it was good also.

However, the domain name “echobay.com” was occupied. So, they changed “Echo Bay” to “eBay” to take the domain name that matched the company’s title.

What you can learn from this story?

It’s important to choose a domain name that is the same or, at least, very close to your store’s actual one. Otherwise, this looks illogical and fishy to customers.

Besides, with a domain name similar to your brand name, you can expect your website to perform better in terms of search engine optimization. Sometimes people don’t even look at the URL of the site they visit. So, if a potential buyer remembers your brand name, he/she will probably search your site by this name. And if your domain name is completely different from it, they will never find you.

Moreover, when making a store name list, you can base your decision on SEO!

5. Try to make your dropshipping store’s name SEO-friendly

Getting traffic is crucial in dropshipping.

And SEO is a perfect tool to drive free organic traffic to your online store. If your website is SEO-friendly and your product pages are properly optimized, it’s going to pay off really soon.

But, if you manage to work your keywords into your store’s name, it will give you great advantages. It’s especially beneficial if you’re a newcomer to dropshipping.

However, it may be tricky to think up an SEO-friendly title. For example, ‘Tshirtsonline.com’ would make a great domain, but it’s already occupied.

In this case, it’s important to mention one thing. If your online store’s name turns out to be SEO-friendly but at the same time it sounds weird and off-putting, you’d better get along without the keywords for your title.

A lifehack to choose a name for your dropshipping store

Did any ideas on your store’s name come to your mind while reading these tips?

If not, there is a way to help you get the process off the ground.

You can use one of the business name generators to come up with a name for your dropshipping store.

Just think of some words related to your business. Then type them in the search field on the page of a generator you choose and click “Generate”.

You’ll see many options that you can use as your store’s name.

BNG - business name generator

The company name generators you could make use of are BNG and Name Mesh. Yet, you can find one on your own. There are plenty of them on the Internet.

However, while using name generators, you shouldn’t fully rely on them.

You need to pick the options that live up to the tips we’ve listed for you.

Building your brand identity is essential for your future success. Making up a dropshipping store name is the first step on your way to pull it off. Follow the tips we’ve listed for you and this task won’t be a big problem for you. If you’ve got some questions, feel free to leave them in the comment section below. We’re always ready to answer.

avatar
By Andrey Y.
Andrey has just joined AliDropship team. He’s exploring dropshipping business from the very beginning. And, he’s going to share with you the most essential things newcomers need to know.
3 Comments
Kia 5 years ago

Good stuff

Mustapha 5 years ago

I will like to use rainbow as my store name and rainbow.com as my domain name. Is it OK?

Andrey Y. 5 years ago

Hi, Mustapha!
Thank you for your question!
Your store name is short and quite catchy and memorable. So, if you like it, take it. But, firstly check whether it’s taken by someone else or not.

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