18(a) Describe the mission/purpose of your proposed gTLD

Prototypical answer:

OVERVIEW

Ecommerce Inc. is applying to ICANN for the new gTLD, .ECOM.

ABOUT⁄STATISTICS

The overall goal of .ECOM is to provide businesses online with an easily identifiable, premium domain extension, which pledges to offer visitors an improved experience for electronic commerce or transactions of any kind.

With .ECOM, website visitors will be able to easily identify businesses and and websites that partake in, or are related to, electronic commerce. We believe that this will provide an additional boost of trust and credibility for domain owners, as well as their visitors.

Global demand for “online shopping” and Ecommerce related services has been continuously increasing in the last 15+ years. Through our own asset “Ecommerce.com”, we’re seeing a steady increase in traffic and interest level from organic searches for keywords surrounding “online shop”, “online shopping”, “ecommerce platform” and other related terms.

Further evidence of this trend can be found in Google’s own trend service, which shows keyword popularity relative to total searches on Google. It shows consistent, sustained interest in Ecommerce and its related search terms.

http:⁄⁄www.google.com⁄insights⁄search⁄#q=online%20shop&date=1%2F2004%2097m&cmpt=q

http:⁄⁄www.google.com⁄insights⁄search⁄#q=online%20shopping&date=1%2F2004%2097m&cmpt=q

http:⁄⁄www.google.com⁄insights⁄search⁄#q=ecommerce%20platform&date=1%2F2004%2097m&cmpt=q

(FIG 1, Google Trends Tool)

We have found the demographic of these visitors to have an age range of 20 - 50+ and a distribution that includes brick and mortar shops, SME or Fortune 500s and individuals.

Geographically speaking, the United States remains the number one market - user base-wise, followed by United Kingdom (the strongest market in electronic commerce) and Germany.

Strong Market Base For Business Online doing Ecommerce

* In 2009, there were 27.5 million businesses in the United States, according to Office of Advocacy estimates. (Source: Office of Advocacy estimates based on data from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau, and trends from the U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labour Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics.)

* US online retail sales grew 12.6% in 2010 to reach $176.2 billion. With an expected 10% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2010 to 2015, US Ecommerce is expected to reach $278.9 billion in 2015. (Source: Forrester - US ONLINE RETAIL FORECAST, 2010 TO 2015)

* Global Ecommerce sales will reach $963 billion by 2013, growing at an annual rate of 19.4%. (Source: Goldman Sachs in JP Morgan’s annual Nothing But Net: 2011 Internet Investment Guide on digital commerce)

* Many countries are contributing to the growth of Ecommerce. For example, the United Kingdom has the biggest Ecommerce market in the world when measured by the amount spent per capita, even higher than the USA. (Source: wikipedia - Electronic Commerce http:⁄⁄en.wikipedia.org⁄wiki⁄Electronic_commerce#Global_trends)

* Term recognition will also play a significant role in the desirability of .ECOM:

- The term “Ecommerce” is synonymous with online shopping and transacting in much the same way that “google” is synonymous with web searching and “kleenex” is synonymous with tissue.

- Ecommerce is a term that nearly everyone believes they understand, recognize and associate with.

Yet, there is no recognizable, premium TLD linking the term “Ecommerce” with business online, with good availability, that caters specifically to domain owners who run or intend to run their business online.

MISSION & PURPOSE

PUBLIC BENEFIT

We believe that the introduction and administration of the .ECOM top level domain is the next logical step to promoting the public and industry’s common interest in safe, accessible and ever growing online commerce. .ECOM will provide a platform from which business owners online and those interested in online Ecommerce and online business can offer easily identifiable, secure and relevant information, goods and services for consumption by the online public. For website visitors, it will be abundantly clear that a .ECOM site is either participating in Ecommerce or providing information related to Ecommerce thus building a shared trust and credibility between the .ECOM site owner and its visitors.





MISSION AND PURPOSE

We wish to provide a top-level domain name that provides an identifiable means that links the term “Ecommerce” with domain owners conducting transactions (of any kind) online. In addition, we would simply like to provide the worldwide Internet-using public with more choice in the domain name marketplace at competitive prices.

The ultimate goal of the .ECOM top-level domain is to establish itself as the recognized choice for registrants who want to market and promote themselves and their websites to, and reach, the Internet-using public, for business, political, personal, legal or any other purpose, through an association with Ecommerce; and, as the recognized top-level domain name for Internet consumers to look for to know which people, businesses, information sources or other online resource associate themselves with Ecommerce or are trying to communicate with people who do.

Similar gTLD applications: (0)