Business name creation - help needed

Hello, i was wondering if a business name matters for an online business... my ability to think up names is really bad.

It really depends if you intend on turning a name into a brand. For example; an ebay id is no big deal if that is going to be your only trading avenue. However, if you are looking at developing an ebay id, along with your own website and other possible trading options, then you need to start considering how you are going to brand yourself, because a brand will link all of your trading entities together and is a valuable marketing tool.

That's not just your name neither, building a brand is a combination of name, logo and colours, as well as a sound track in some cases. When all these are combined to form your brand, you have something to use across all of your marketing material to create a uniform id for customers to associate with.

Tell us a little about what you want to do and sell, I'm sure there will be plenty of names bounced around for you to consider : )

Hi Wotonito916,

I couldn't agree more with Fudjj!

Your business name can say it all that is if you get the right name. This will often impact the traffic you drive to your store or site as well. Remember initially people will find out about you/your store through the searches they make, so your name has got to make a big enough impression to attract and convince them to click on that link.

All the best and cheers!:)

Hello, i was wondering if a business name matters for an online business... my ability to think up names is really bad.

Hi Wotonito916,

I came across an article exploring the 5 rules on creating a winning business name.

The rules are in essence very simple, yet following them can help you have that business name that 'draws business in itself'. :)

For the benefit of everyone, I will copy paste a quick list, and for details please visit the link I have provided.

1) A winning business name has to be memorable – but easy to spell.
2) A winning business name needs a visual element.
3) A winning business name has to have positive connotation.
4) A winning business name needs to include information about what your business does.
5) 5) A winning business name has to be fairly short.
Source: Link hidden: Login to view

Hopes this helps! :)

I am opening a victorian style jewelry store. How does the name "jewelryjourneyfrom the past" sound?

I am opening a victorian style jewelry store. How does the name "jewelryjourneyfrom the past" sound?

My opinion is that it's a little long winded, it's more of a theme than a name itself. I would suggest to try taking that theme and then matching a shorter name to it.

You have two key focus points in your theme, jewelry and history, maybe play with some words around those two points and see what you come up with.

The theme has a lot of romance attached to it, so just to give you an idea of words that I relate to the word "history" in that romantic tone for example are, memories, timeless, treasured and so on.

So just off the top of my head, something like "Treasured Memories" or "Timeless Treasures" comes to my mind from just those three words. Now you will most likely be thinking that those names don't even have the keyword "jewellery" in them, but that's OK. Not every business name has to tell the complete story. A name can set the theme, and then your branding can tell the story.

I would link a slogan along the lines of your idea for the name itself to tie the theme together. Taking the concept further, I would then theme the colour pallet I was going to use for the branding, and with that theme, I would personally choose a pastel pallet, most likely with soft hues of purple, red and perhaps a little of a striking metalic gold to highlight the value.

OK, now I'm getting way ahead, but I've done that to show you how important a simple business name can be. In essence, it establishes your brand and it gives you something to follow in developing that brand completely.

If you give it some thought, I'm sure you could come up with something much punchier, while staying true to your theme. When branding a business these days, you always have to bare in mind the online marketing aspect, and long drawn out names are not easy for people to remember, and therefore can be quite hard to market effectively.

Hi everyone,

My situation is that I am opening several stores for a range of different products, and I want to sell on eBay and Amazon as well, so I need an over-arching umbrella name for my business.
Now, this is not a name that I will brand too strongly, as the different store names have their own brand names and logos.

But my umbrella business name will appear on the credit card charges of customers, on PayPal receipts, and will probably appear as an eBay ID.
So while the branding is not so important, I still need it to look good and presentable.

For the descriptive element, I am set on "Online Emporium". I really like this one.
But I need a distinctive element in front, so "....... Online Emporium".

I'd like to have a nice Italian sounding word, like Portico Online Emporium.
But if the majority of my market will be average middle class Americans, would that appear weird or too foreign?
Would a more personable name be better?
Like:
Jordan's Online Emporium
Jordano's Online Emporium or
JA Online Emporium

I've had mixed opinions on whether the first (distinctive) word should be personable, like my first name, or more anonymous like "Portico" (or something else).

Your feedback would be really appreciated.

Thank you
Jordan

jordanamit81 wrote:Hi everyone,

My situation is that I am opening several stores for a range of different products, and I want to sell on eBay and Amazon as well, so I need an over-arching umbrella name for my business.
Now, this is not a name that I will brand too strongly, as the different store names have their own brand names and logos.

But my umbrella business name will appear on the credit card charges of customers, on PayPal receipts, and will probably appear as an eBay ID.
So while the branding is not so important, I still need it to look good and presentable.

For the descriptive element, I am set on "Online Emporium". I really like this one.
But I need a distinctive element in front, so "....... Online Emporium".

I'd like to have a nice Italian sounding word, like Portico Online Emporium.
But if the majority of my market will be average middle class Americans, would that appear weird or too foreign?
Would a more personable name be better?
Like:
Jordan's Online Emporium
Jordano's Online Emporium or
JA Online Emporium

I've had mixed opinions on whether the first (distinctive) word should be personable, like my first name, or more anonymous like "Portico" (or something else).

Your feedback would be really appreciated.

Thank you
Jordan

Hi Jordan,

As an umbrella business name, don't make the mistake of thinking it's not really that important. Even though you are branding each of your ventures individually, your umbrella name (whatever that may be) can be the most important brand you need to build.

What I would recommend to do is to use it across the board with all your ventures to tie everything in together. For example, if you called one of your ventures "AFTER DARK", then you could tie in all your other platforms by including the Portico Online Emporium in the branding. Something like, AFTER DARK, a division of Portico Online Emporium, and so on for all your other business names as well.

While individual branding is required, your umbrella brand will be your flagship name. That is the name you really want to have a strong brand built around and then all your individual ventures all feed back into that flagship brand. For example, even though your store's name might be AFTER DARK, you really want people to associate AFTER DARK with your umbrella name as well. You never want to isolate all of your ventures from each other, and using your umbrella name in all your branding will assist to tie a flagship brand together and give you good cross marketing opportunities.

So my advice, forget all the individual business names and branding for now, put them to one side. Work on a flagship brand, develop that first and that will give you a platform to develop individual brands from, that may well all be different, but will still have the common thread of the flagship brand running through each of them.

If you have ten individual business's, it's much easier for a customer to remember one name, than ten. If your flagship brand is strong, then that's the name you really want them to remember, because that will lead them to all of your ventures, not just one.

I would suggest that you build a website around your flagship brand (whatever you call it) and then you feature all of your individual stores from within that site. Your individual business's can have their own sites, but you want all of your net marketing linking to your flagship site, not to individual sites. Again, cross marketing, don't fracture your market, get them all in the same room as each other, no matter what they are all buying.

Good luck with it :)