Which Shop Name Is Best?

Viola wants to start an Etsy Shop and has an exceptionally good angle for her products. She deals in vintage items, but not just general ones that any other seller might have. Hers revolve around Riverboats. Now she needs to come up with a shop name.

So far her favorite name is ViolasVintage because it has her name in it, the sound is appealing (making it easier to remember), and it describes that she sells vintage items.

Let’s analyze her options. What would you say is the purpose of a shop name?

Wouldn’t a good one be relatively easy to remember, pronounce, and spell, so shoppers can find the seller again?

Wouldn’t it be helpful if in some way it brought a picture to customers’ minds, so they would have at least a hint of what is sold?

A shopper likes to put an Etsy Store in a category in her mind. She mentally says, “If I need such and such, I’ll go here.” In fact, she is filing the store’s name in her mind by connecting it to the products sold. A smart shopkeeper would help the customer along in her mental filing process by making the name already provide that connection to the items for sale. This is smart marketing!

Okay, so what about ViolasVintage? If you are a prospective customer, would her name help you to know what she sells? Vintage covers a huge spectrum—she could be selling vintage anything. Also, there are a lot of sellers on Etsy who deal in vintage items. Viola’s advantage is that she deals in Riverboat-themed items only. An interesting little niche market!

Somehow she needs the word Riverboat in her name, don’t you agree? That would enable her to stand out from all the other Etsy vintage sellers and help her customer put the shop name into a specific mental category.

So perhaps she could name the shop VintageRiverboatGoods or VintageRiverboatStyle. That’s better, but there is another factor to consider.

When shoppers look at Etsy listings, the truth is our picture and words must “grab” them pretty much instantly, or we won’t get their click. What bearing does this have on the shop name?

Have you noticed that because of a shortage of space, only the first few characters of a shop name show up in Gallery view? (Most shoppers use Gallery view so the pictures are larger.) According to Etsy’s site engineers, assuming the price takes 6 digits or less, if your shop name is up to 12 characters long, the whole name will usually show up. If your shop name is more than 12 characters, it will be truncated so usually only 9 characters show, and an ellipsis ( … ) will be added.

So if Viola’s shop name is VintageRiverboatGoods or VintageRiverboatStyle, what will show at first glance in Gallery view is “VintageRi…” That isn’t achieving what Viola wants. The most important word is Riverboat. So what if she changed the word order? What if she named her shop RiverboatVintageGoods or RiverboatVintageStyle, or the even simpler (and easier to remember) RiverboatGoods? Then what would show at first glance in her listings would be “Riverboat…” Yes that would work!

Imagine you are looking through the listings and spot an intriguing antique lamp and you notice the shop name is “Riverboat…” Wouldn’t that pique your interest? And what if the first words of the listing title were “Right off the boat…”? (Usually 18 characters of a listing title show in Gallery view.)

Now all 3 things that you see are sparking your curiosity. You see the antique lamp, the words “Right off the boat…” and the shop name, “Riverboat…” Assuming the photograph of the lamp is bright and clear, then all 3 parts of the listing are working together to engage your curiosity. This is a shopkeeper who uses every part of her listing to get that all-important click!

So which shop name is best? What do you think?

Bonnie

I answer all comments asap, and those who comment are eligible to enter all contests/giveaways!

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