Domain Pain – Part 2 of a 4 Part series in which we asked #nzentrepreneur readers to share their challenges and lessons in the important process of choosing and securing their business domain names.

When Paul McKernan wanted to expand his business to the UK and USA by adding .com as a domain name, he was met with an extortionate cost.

McKernan founded his business Drip Socks in 2023. They make waterproof socks for outdoor and sports enthusiasts to allow them fun in the rain and wet conditions without getting drenched feet.

The product has a waterproof membrane between fabric layers which helps keep your feet dry.

“The idea was born of frustration, living in a country that has changeable weather but epic things to do, and where a rainy morning often turns into a stunning afternoon,” says McKernan.

“Enduring a day with wet feet frankly sucks and I found that even when wearing waterproof shoes and sometimes even waterproof pants, my feet were still getting wet and it seemed ridiculous.”

When starting out and building the company’s online presence, McKernan saw dripsocks.co.nz was available as a domain name so happily set it up.

Originally he thought he would be a New Zealand specific business but soon after launching he began receiving significant overseas interest, so he decided to add another domain that wasn’t New Zealand focused.

While Drip Socks may seem like a unique brand name that wouldn’t pose problems with securing a domain name, McKernan soon discovered otherwise.

“Having dripsocks.com aligned perfectly with the name of the brand and would be compatible with advertising to potential customers anywhere in the world.

“So I decided to add dripsocks.com as a domain to use, but this name had already been purchased by someone else.”

The person who owned the .com domain had put a hefty price tag of $3,995 on it if McKernan, or anyone else, wanted to buy it.

“If I could have my time again I would have made a different decision.” – Paul McKernan

McKernan couldn’t believe it and wasn’t prepared to fork out that kind of money for a domain name.

“[It’s] an unreasonable amount to pay, in my opinion, as a self-funded startup with other expenses to cover.”

Still wanting a .com domain, he came up with a work-around and instead, McKernan decided to secure and use drip-socks.com to make sure he would still have a global domain and presence online.

However, after using this website for a while he ran into a few issues and realised it wasn’t ideal.

“The frustration is now that my merchandise and branding has drip-socks.com on it, and I’m finding myself and my advertisers and reviewers using the word ‘dash’ all the time, which I really dislike.

“If I could have my time again I would have made a different decision.”

McKernan says a key thing he would do differently is not have the website on the product packaging. He says the website is currently all over the packaging for advertising purposes and for ease of contact, in case people want to swap a product they’ve bought.

His big piece of advice when looking into a business domain name is to look ahead to the future and think of the big picture if you’re wanting to appeal to a larger market.

“Originally thinking New Zealand would be my only market to operate in meant that I didn’t look at .com domains until it was too late and I had to settle for the next best thing.”

“From the outset, it’s worth looking at purchasing a ‘bundle’ of .co.nz, .nz and .com domains at the time of registration,” he says.

“Lesson learned.”

Story by Stephanie Ockhuysen


Read Domain Pain Part 1 or Domain Pain Part 3 of this series


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