Three German domain players join .shop

Three former IONOS group employees are now working with GMO Registry.

Three domain industry vets from Germany have joined GMO Registry to promote and manage the .shop top level domain name.

Christian Voss, formerly CMO of Sedo, Michael Piotrowski, formerly Head of Marketing at InterNetX, and Claus Barche, formerly Head of Sales at InterNetX, have all joined the company as consultants.

GMO outbid other registries to acquire .shop for a whopping $41.5 million in 2016. It’s now the second largest top level domain name by registrations with nearly four million domains under management. As with many of the top-selling new top level domains, .shop has grown primarily through discount promotions.

It seems the challenge for this group won’t be increasing domains under management so much as getting more usage. This will be critical for the long-term sustainability of the domain.

.Shop’s primary competition is probably .store, which has just under two million domains under management and also uses heavy discounting to attract new registrants.