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My father has been in the home fashions business for his entire life, and he has owned his store in New Hampshire since 1984. Although he has a 3,000 square foot store, custom window treatments, which take up about 20% of the store, generate about 80% of the business.

On occasion, I would hear my father complain about companies that would advertise their window treatment “stores” in the Yellow Pages, when in fact, they operated out of a van. While nothing can really replace the comfort of going into a store, working with a knowledgeable sales clerk and purchasing a product, the people who run their van-stores are onto something. They have little to no inventory, they outsource what they can’t do, and they have no physical overhead except van maintenance.

This is a great business model that should be applied to domain names in the form of a PPS (pay per sale) store. Many domain investors have few connections with product manufacturers. Likewise, most product manufacturers have few connections with domain owners. What we need is for a middle man development company to be created to form relationships with product manufacturers and domain owners to create custom stores where the domain owner only has to change his DNS. No templates to mess with, no customer service call center to train, no more work than a standard PPC page. If the domain owner wants to enhance is site(s), the templates should have the ability to add content to make them more unique to build brand loyalty and encourage customers to return. This is similar to what Joe Davison was talking about in the “Niche-Specific Stores” section of his July post

I think this is one way in which PPC aggregators will evolve into PPS aggregators. Current web advertisers will be happy when they are paying on a net sale basis rather than on a per click basis. Domain owners will be compensated nicely because the value of a customer would drastically increase.   The PPS aggregators would be happy to receiving a % of all sales. I believe this is much more beneficial to all parties.

There are some domain owners/investors who already do something similar, and I think they have a great business model.   The idea behind this post is for something that can be applied to everyone who owns a domain name on a large scale rather than a few companies who are well ahead of the game.

Below are a few unregistered domain names I believe have good potential. Although I am not charging anything for researching these names, I am requesting that the person who registers each makes a donation to a non-profit organization.

AircraftCharterRental.com
AlcoholPermitConsultants.com
ClippingBureaus.com
BridalCouturier.com
FilingConsultants.com
FloodControlEquipment.com
HistoricalOrganizations.com
MailReceivingService.com

You don’t need to tell me how much was donated, but I would love to know which charity was helped, so please drop me a line after!

A few non-profits I recommend (with the link to make a donation):

Dana Farber Cancer Institute
ALS Association
The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure for Breast Cancer
Simon Wiesenthal Center
Meir Panim
American Cancer Society
Turning Point (Domestic Violence Organization)

Charities Previously Helped By Generous Readers of My Blog:

The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
Simon Wiesenthal Center
Dana Farber Cancer Institute
ALS Association
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

Yesterday I blogged about the USPS’ new anti-scam campaign directing people to FakeChecks.org. The whole point of my post wasn’t to criticize the Postal Service – I think the campaign is smart and the message is good. However, I believe there is a good chance many viewers will end up on the wrong website, not owned by the USPS.

A perfect example can be found on the KETV 3 website, a Santa Barbara news station. Directly from their website:

“According to the US Postal Service, scam victims lose $3,500 on average and are often responsible to repay banks for the money lost. The Post Service met with officials and residents to issue warnings and give tips on how you can avoid being scammed. The US Postal Service and Postal Inspection Service have set up a website at www.fakechecks.com so you can report fraudulent activity.”

Whether we like it or not, many people automatically assume a domain name is a .com no matter what the extension is. This confusion could potentially lead people to the wrong website, as can be seen by this inadvertant news article.

Below are a few unregistered domain names I believe have good potential. Although I am not charging anything for researching these names, I am requesting that the person who registers each makes a donation to a non-profit organization.

CookingInstructor.com
CookingInstructors.com
CookingDictionaries.com
ScienceInstructors.com
RealEstateDictionaries.com
InvestingTeachers.com
InvestingDictionaries.com
TaxDictionaries.com
HomelessHousingShelter.com
HomelessHousingShelters.com

You don’t need to tell me how much was donated, but I would love to know which charity was helped, so please drop me a line after!

A few non-profits I recommend (with the link to make a donation):

Dana Farber Cancer Institute
ALS Association
The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure for Breast Cancer
Simon Wiesenthal Center
Meir Panim
American Cancer Society
Turning Point (Domestic Violence Organization)

Charities Previously Helped By Generous Readers of My Blog:
Simon Wiesenthal Center
Dana Farber Cancer Institute
ALS Association
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

I just saw a television commercial sponsored by the United States Postal Service, and although I am not surprised by the lack of forward thinking, I am shaking my head that the USPS just doesn’t get it.    

The advertisement (during primetime MLB playoffs) begins with a disheveled looking man walking onto a bus and choosing a seat next to a woman.    He begins by informing her that she just won a random lottery sponsored by a clearly fictitious organization.    To claim the multi-million dollar prize, all she needs to do is write the man a check to cover some random fees.    Essentially, the man is playing the part of an in-person Nigerian scammer commonly seen online.

It is a clever advertisement (and ongoing campaign) playing on the fact that these scams are much more obvious in person than online, and people need to beware when they receive suspicious emails.    I dig the message.    I think it is very important for non-web savvy people to know about these scams, know how to spot them, and know what to do when they come across one.

HOWEVER, the commercial ends with a large graphic directing people to visit FakeChecks.org for more information.    GUESS WHAT!    FakeChecks.COM is owned by someone else.    How many people do you think will accidentally directly navigate to the .com in error – especially considering some web browsers automatically enter the .com extension?    The USPS should never have used a .org domain name where the .com is taken.    If they needed to have that specific .org, they should have bought the .com for whatever it cost.    They then should have forwarded the .com traffic to the .org so they didn’t lose any eyes. The advertising campaign probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.    Why would they chance sending confused consumers to the wrong domain name, especially considering the message.        

This reminds me of the time Dick Cheney quoted something from FactCheck.org and accidentally directed people to FactCheck.com, owned by none other than Frank Schilling.

This has to be one of the most ironic, idiotic campaigns I’ve seen in a long time. The USPS just doesn’t get it!    

Just to be a bit more clear, I am not advocating that the USPS shouldn’t have used a .org.    I think the .org suits this campaign quite well.   I think they might have been  wise to choose another domain name where the .com was available, as people will inevitably enter the wrong extension.   In my opinion, many consumers are trained to goto the “.com” extension.   Why take a chance that some consumers will do this and end up on a site not controlled by the USPS.  

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article about a topic that most people in the domain investment business have been worried about for quite some time – domain theft. The WSJ article discusses the ease in which thieves can take possession of someone else’s domain name, and the detrimental effect it can have on a business that is reliant on the domain name as an ecommerce outlet or the email addresses associated with the domain name.

When a domain name is stolen, the thief usually tries to sell the name quickly, profiting even before the legitimate domain owner knows the name is out of his possession. Payment is usually requested through a company like Western Union, as it can be more difficult to track the thief. Once the domain name is sold, the new owner may try to sell it for a profit, believing he received a good deal, or he may begin to develop a website around the domain name. It isn’t until the domain name servers are changed that the legitimate owner would notice something was fishy, as his website wouldn’t resolve and email would suddenly stop working. The situation turns into a bad problem because two people feel that they are the legitimate owner, and determining the actual ownership becomes problematic.

Registrars don’t typically help unless there is a court order, as they would probably rather turn a blind eye than become involved in a potentially litigious situation. This makes it difficult for the legitimate owner, and it becomes more complicated when the registrar and/or new owner is located in a different country. Retrieving a stolen domain name can be a complicated task, and it may be best to enlist the assistance of an attorney like John Berryhill (quoted in the article) or Brett Lewis.

Some tips I would offer to ensure your domain name doesn’t get stolen include:
1.) Make sure your registrar password is made up of letters, numbers, and characters to make it difficult to hack.

2.) Keep the email address on the Whois record current

3.) Frequently log in to your email account on the Whois record, and/or forward all emails to a regularly read email account in case you receive a notice from the registrar.

4.) Do not click on links in emails as they may be phishing attempts to gain access to your various accounts.

5.) Do not log into your registrar accounts or email accounts from computers that aren’t secure, as keylogging software could track everything you type.

6.) Make sure your domain registration is up to date. It’s always better to pay far in advance.

7.) If you have an auto-payment plan in place to pay your registration annually, make sure your credit card information is up to date so it doesn’t get rejected, causing the re-registration to fail.

As I stated in a previous blog post, here are some tips to help prevent you from buying a stolen domain name:

1.) Do a Whois history check
-Did anything recently change?
-Does something seem strange in the Whois history like a different email address just added?
-Length of domain name ownership is a good way to tell if someone has all rights to the name

2.) Call the listed owner
-If the email address just changed, the owner will tell you the name isn’t for sale
-Conversation is frequently avoided by scammers

3.) Call/email the former owner
-They will tell you if they sold it (or if it was stolen)

4.) Search the forums/Google for any information that may raise red flags
-Stolen domain name posts
-Spam references on Google

5.) Do a WIPO/UDRP search
-May not be a anti-theft tool, but just make sure the history is clean

6.) Always pay with Escrow
–Escrow.com, Sedo, Moniker or Afternic offer this service

7.) Never pay with money order or cashier’s check
-Difficult to track
-Many scams involve counterfeit checks/money orders

8.) Only buy from the listed registrant
-Don’t attempt to buy from the technical contact if it’s different from the registrant
-Technical contact doesn’t necessarily own the name, but may just manage the domain name

9.) TRUST YOUR GUT!
-If an offer is too good to be true, it probably is
-If the terms the seller is requesting seem strange, question them