This is a tradeshow update, but it’s not THE tradeshow update from Domain Fest that I plan to post tomorrow. My parents are in town for the New York International Gift Fair, which takes place a couple of times a year at the Javitz Center. How does this relate to domain names?
This afternoon while walking around the massive Javitz Center floor, I found a number of companies that sold unique dog-related products. I mentioned my Dog Walker website, and all of them said they would drop ship products for me. In addition, they could send me catalog quality photographs of their products to display on my website, and all but one would be willing to give me an opening order break (most companies require a large opening order to open an account).
Selling product (without touching it) is one other way to drive revenue, as I can sell dog bags, collars, leashes, and other things that dog walkers and owners would want. I will need to find an easy to implement e-commerce solution or contact one of the companies to see if they are able to assist with the shopping cart functionality. If that is expensive or time consuming to set-up, the incremental revenue probably wouldn’t be worth the effort.
Right now, I am looking through the show’s huge catalog, filled with a couple hundred pages of information. To me, the most valuable bit of information is contained on the category listing pages. There are hundreds of different categories of product lines listed, and I am using this list to search for potentially valuable .com category domain names.
Although most of the categories listed (like soap and bath) are well-known, the list is a way to get fresh domain ideas. It’s also a way to see how many companies have products in these categories. If you own a category-type domain name, I recommend that you try to go to one of the industry tradeshows where you can network with people in that industry or vertical. It’s a way to learn about the industry, meet contacts, and maybe even sell a domain name.
I was once an active Ebay domain seller. This was before I knew about domain forums, and I knew relatively little about other domain sales venues such as Snapnames. I did fairly well selling inexpensive domain names on Ebay, although I haven’t done so in quite some time. I want to share one example of when using Ebay to sell domain names can be very smart.
After considerable speculation and discussion, Steve Jobs introduced the new Apple iPad today in a press conference that received much fanfare. The iPad is a device that is a new category of computing systems that bridges the gap between the iPhone smartphone and the Macbook laptop.
On March 10, 2010 at New York City’s Marriott Marquis, the Learning Annex will be hosting its