As you probably know by now, .Club domain names will be available to hand register beginning today. There have been news releases from the .Club registry as well as emails from partner registrars announcing the availability of .Club domain names. I think one of the smarter marketing tactics they have undertaken is working with Luke Webster on the launch of a new website, Shaving.club, which will go live at some time today.
Many gTLD domain registries have a program like a Founders Club or Pioneers Program that puts “premium” domain names in the hands of developers at a minimal cost or for free. The registry ensures that one of their domain names is developed, and the registrant gets a domain name at a savings. I think .CO was bolstered by its Founders Program, especially when it came to premium names like T.CO and X.CO, which are widely used today. I think .Wiki will benefit if Wikipedia begins W.wiki, and I think we will see more of this in the coming months.
Luke Webster has found a profitable niche in the shaving business, and I encourage you to watch the informative interview he did on Domain Sherpa last year. In the interview, Webster said “We do about six figures in volume every month. And we are growing that. And we sell thousands of razors each month and we have an average order size of one hundred and twenty dollars an order. So, gives you an idea there.”
Clearly, a domain name like Shaving.club is well suited for what Webster is doing, although I am unsure of exactly how the business will operate on the website since it has not launched yet.. Promoting the .Club domain name will surely benefit the .Club registry as well.
In case you are wondering, ShavingClub.com is owned by someone and appears to be lightly developed. It’s registered under privacy at GoDaddy, so I can’t tell who owns this domain name.
Sidenote: .Club is an advertiser, although this is not a sponsored /paid / compensated article.
Not sure who has an issue either godaddy or .club, but they are accepting orders on blocked names, then shortly after emailing saying:
Error: Domain failed availability check: Domain cannot be registered because another domain was found in a restricted status
Going thru it, many are reserved, and held back, was buying one for defensive, but it is held back, they probably want more than the .com, so win win for me, but godaddy still took the order in general availability, but I am sure they will refund.
That’s not good… I’ll send your comment to my contact at .Club in case they are unaware.
Thank you for letting us know about this issue. We are working with GoDaddy to solve the problem.
Jonathan Frost
.Club Domains
The problem with .club (besides being a new gtld) is they have 6650+ of their reserved premium .club domain names at Sedo. Today is widespread general availability, and what’s going to be left? The ones I saw at Sedo ranged from 4 – 6 figures.
I heard rumors club paid $5M and then some for the rights to .club in auction, so the only way they can hope to recoup such costs is to hold back to cream of the crop, and take the roll of the registar, and the middle man, and retail out those domains. You can choose to play the game, or you can focus your energy elsewhere.
Elliot,
Thank you for the kind words. We are working through some SSL issues so most likely launching in the next 48 hrs.
We actually had the site live for the last month and did a decent amount of sales. We plan to push like crazy on this project and are excited about the launch.
I purchased several other .club gtlds. I also had some issues with the buying more today. =/
Great group of guys behind .club and I think for what I do there could not be a better .anything for this Shaving Club.
Regards,
Luke
I ran into the same issue as Ron with GoDaddy accepting my order, sending me an email saying congratulations, then sending an email 5 minutes later stating they had failed an availability check, and that the domain could not be registered. The same thing happened to me with a .company name I registered with GoDaddy a few weeks back. They refund the money, but it can be dissapointing when you register a name, and think you have got it, then receive an email stating registration failed due to an availability check failure. I enjoy GoDaddy’s services, and they are my registrar of choice, but hopefully this issue is addressed.