China may rule e-commerce.
I was reading news the other day and was intrigued by a picture posted on Economist.com. It reveals a dragon rearing its head, which is not of the usual kind but a shopping cart.
The article says that “it is in China, not the West, where the future of e-commerce is being staked out.” Certainly, Chinese internet retailers have brought out many innovations in recent years, such as live commerce, where celebrity-driven programs livestream content to sell products.
If Chinese e-commerce operators will have a great impact on both China and the rest of the world, I suppose their domain preference will also influence others in the business world too. So, I decided to dive deeper and found “2020 Hurun Top 10 Ecommerce Enterprises in China” (2020胡润中国10强电商) published by the well-acclaimed Hurun Research Institute.
Then, I used Baidu to find the corporate domains used by them. The result is shown below.
Rank | Chinese | English | Domain |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 阿里巴巴 | Alibaba | Alibaba.com |
2 | 美团 | Meituan | Meituan.com |
3 | 京东 | Jing Dong | JD.com |
4 | 拼多多 | Pinduoduo | Pinduoduo.com |
5 | 滴滴出行 | Didi | DidiGlobal.com |
6 | 携程 | Ctrip | Ctrip.com |
7 | 唯品会 | Vipshop | VIP.com |
8 | 苏宁 | Suning | Suning.com |
9 | 车好多 | CARS (Che Hao Duo) | Guazi.com |
19 | 每日优鲜 | MissFresh | MissFresh.cn |
So, what is the implication for domain investment? Simply put, .com is the main stage and English-based domains are fine in China. Note that the top 9 companies on the list not only own .com domains but actually use them within China. China is like the USA in that .com domains are widely used within the country, rather than the country code domain.
Also, “short” is good. This is shown in the case of Jing Dong (owns JingDong.com but uses JD.com) and Vipshop (owns Vipshop.com but uses VIP.com). By the same token, we can guess that Pinduoduo may upgrade to the shorter PDD.com (after all, the company is already referred to as “PDD” in some news).
Note that most of the listed domains are brand-matching. What does it mean? For example, Jack Ma’s company is called Alibaba Group Holding, but most people remember it as “Alibaba.” Therefore, its brand is “Alibaba,” and so the brand-matching domain is Alibaba.com but not AlibabaGroup.com or AlibabaGroupHolding.com. Of course, the acronym version is also acceptable.
Didi is the ride-sharing giant that defeated Uber China and acquired it in 2016. However, its corporate domain is DidiGlobal.com but not the brand-matching Didi.com.
CARS (Che Hao Duo) is using its group domain Guazi.com. I speculate that the used car marketplace operator may, if they can, upgrade to Cars.com (developed, so unlikely), CheHaoDuo.com (apparently undeveloped), or simply CHD.com (not used yet).
MissFresh may want to talk to Canada-based Cook It at ChefCookit.com because the meal kit service provider owns MissFresh.com, which is not used currently.
In short, there are many opportunities to sell domains to corporate China. If you own a domain that lies in the upgrade path of a well-funded Chinese company, then your domain is very valuable. End user research is key. It has already helped me discover the great potential of PDD.com, Didi.com, CHD.com, and MissFresh.com.
Carl Bollinger says
America has been in trouble for 50 years thanks to the ruling elite of world’s pursuit of slave labor. Our leaders charged us to send jobs to slave labor countries, destroyed our educational system and doped up our youth. The so called white riot is nothing compared to what’s coming. George Bush Sr. was quoted as saying, “if Americans knew what we’re doing to their country there wouldn’t be an empty tree in Washington D.C.
Paul says
You sound like the nuts getting locked up Carl.
If you were at the Capital desecration, they have your phone IP and other videos..be careful Carl.
Anyways…Sound like good news for .com !! We may have to accept Chinese digital currency though.
Squarely says
Where is Jack Ma?
All companies are own by the Communist Party-they own your soul and it is all about greed, power and control.
Kassey Lee says
Correction: In “China is like the USA in that .com domains are widely used within the country, rather than the country code domain.”, I meant .com is popular in China, .cn is popular too. In fact, .cn has the largest number by registration.
Squarely says
Dudh! the main reason why cn is popular and the largest number by registration in China is because the Communist Party of China wants it that way!!-self motherland promotion.
joesaba2014 says
Please, we are blogging about domains and online business, investments, ecommerce, the largest world market for the next few years is in Asia, the preferred extension is .Com and if some businesses and companies want the extension of their country it is very possible That they will be retail local businesses online and their consumers accept more .cn and when they use Amazon or Alibaba to sell more, we buy their products.
I invest .Com much more profitable.