Trade Show Update

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.