Fashion retailer Republic further emphasised the importance of online positioning during the last quarter by spending over $200,000 (£127,000) on a single domain name, it was revealed this week.
This investment secured the Republic.com website for the UK firm, which has previously trading online via its .co.uk site, and it also bought the .eu address in the three-month period ending September 30th 2011.
Previously owned by a domain trader, republic.com cost well above the average median price for a domain name of £1,223 but was must cheaper then the £1.59 million paid in the second quarter for gambling.com.
Republic hired Sedo, the domain marketplace & monetisation provider, to broker the deals for Republic.com and Republic.eu site on its behalf.
Jo Molineux, Head of Multichannel at Republic, said: “We are aware that our consumers are digital natives, so we want to do everything we can to increase our web traffic, which is why we are thrilled to have a comprehensive domain name strategy.
“Acquiring these two key top level domains will be critical to the success and contribute directly to increased sales. With Sedo‘s help, purchasing the domains themselves was relatively quick and easy.”
Online trading is expected to contribute a hefty chunk of retail spend over the forthcoming Christmas period and so making a site as accessible and visible as possible has become increasingly important to the industry.
Another retailer who invested in a domain during Q3 was modish fashion brand Pretty Green, which spent £1,850 on a co.uk address, whilst the most expensive site name acquired over the three months was Germany-based aktien.de which sold for a record £316,800.
Sedo, domain marketplace & monetisation provider and broker of the Republic deals, has conducted research which shows .de domain are becoming increasingly popular as international retailers look to exploit the German economy which has remained relatively resilient compared to its European neighbours.
Whilst .com still dominates the market with a 49 per cent share in terms of sold domain names .de is a clear second with a 21 per cent share.
The next biggest country specific domain name is .co.uk with six per cent of the market but Sedo Director of UK Operations Hugh Dalrymple-Smith claims that it is the sale of UK specific sites which saw the most growth over Q3.
“It is encouraging to see the domain market continue to grow steadily, but it is with the .co.uk domains where we have witnessed the most growth.
“The .co.uk domain sales have seen an 11 per cent Q2 to Q4 rise in number of sales and a 36 per cent rise year-on-year. The highest value public sale in the UK market alone was career.co.uk at £17,510.”
