Black Friday and new gTLDs
HEXONET’s Canadian office is just a short drive from the United States border. Our neighbors south of the border are gearing up for a shopping frenzy called Black Friday. Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving Day and is often regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Major retailers have massive sales on this day and for many of them it is the most important shopping day of the year. In fact, the Black Friday to the following Monday is the single biggest shopping period annually in the United States. The Monday following Thanksgiving is also known as Cyber Monday, which is the single largest online shopping day every year.
Though the sales generated on Black Friday through to Cyber Monday in the United States are massive, they are actually dwarfed by China’s November 11, known as Singles’ Day, which has now become the largest shopping day worldwide. According to Wikipedia, Singles’ Day (Chinese: 光棍节 ) is a pop culture entertaining holiday (written as 11.11 on the Chinese calendar) for young Chinese to celebrate their bachelor life. Think of it as an anti-Valentines day.
The date is chosen for the connection between singles or bachelors and the number ’1′. Clever retailers have targeted this demographic and launch amazing sales promotions on Singles’ Day to turn it into the largest online shopping day of the year. It is estimated that Chinese shoppers spent approximately $5 billion on Singles’ Day! Even China’s largest online shopping site, Taobao described it in an another amusing way, “Two million bras sold in one hour, making a pile that would be three times higher than Mount Everest!”
These shopping day examples highlight the burgeoning online shopping phenomena around the world. Even a number of new gTLDs have been applied for to capitalize on the growing online sales:
.blackfriday
.shop (multiple applicants)
.shopping (multiple applicants)
.store (multiple applicants)
.商店 (means shop in Chinese)
.购物 (means shopping in Chinese)
.网店 (means webshop, e-shop in Chinese)
.セール (means sale in Japanese)
.ストア (means store in Japanese)
Already shopping and ecommerce related new gTLDs are among the top 10 most requested EOIs (Expression of Interest) being placed at HEXONET. Some of these TLDs are expected to be very popular in the coming years. The time to consider these types of domains is now. If you have any questions or feedback please contact HEXONET at our email address – [email protected].