Last weekend I was catching up on the previous week’s mail delivery that hit our inbox.
Of course, summer brings in a number of mailers — vacation offers, pest control, tree trimming, lawn care services, pool service, to name a few.
In between all this junk mail though I found a much anticipated, latest edition of the Community Impact news brief for the Northwest Austin area.
From business openings and closings to real estate news to specific neighborhood stories and issues highlighted, I enjoy reading and catching up on all the news reading Community Impact.
But what caught my about the latest edition was discovering an Austin-based storage company’s advertisement on page 11.
My eyes darted to the upper-right hand corner of the add as their web address caught my eye.
Most ads have long drop the use of prepending “www.” in front of their web address. After all, it’s only 30 some odd years after the first web domain has been registered.
But with everything in life comes change. Change shook up the domain name industry a few years back when it introduced nearly 1400+ new top level domains (new TLDs) to the general public — with hundreds, if not thousands, more scheduled to be released in the coming years.
With the intro of keyword phrases to the right of the dot for web addresses, it appears a number of early-adopting businesses have re-introduced the use of prepending “www.” to new TLDs as to alert their customers of their web presence.
In the case above, Valet Storage appears to be a forward-thinking storage business harnessing the power of technology to move the needle from self-service to full-service storage.
Visiting their simple, yet modern and responsive website, Valet Storage offers customers the opportunity to simply pack up their belongings, and schedule a pickup or drop-off of their items.
As their ad says, “…You pack, we pick up, we store, and bring items back to you when you need them!”
In what’s considered to be a traditional industry that’s far from sexy, the storage industry is by far one fo the most lucrative and profitable industries for one to be in this day and time of excessive consumerism.
With Austin netting approximately 100-125 people transplanting here daily, Valet Storage is likely to do well, at least that’s the hope.
Although I’m a big proponent of owning the matching .com when considering or using a new TLD, it appears ValetStorage.com is registered, but resolves to a GoDaddy parked page.
I strongly recommend Valet Storage attempting to purchase and secure the matching .com at the first possible chance, seeing there exists yet another Valet Storage based in Sacramento, California and using ValetStorage.net.
Although I did check the availability of SelfServiceStorage.com and FullServiceStorage.com (both registered, and one developed as a business), I personally like “Valet Storage” as a brand indicating a full service storage offering.
One might call it a concierge storage service, which it may be, but “concierge” can be a bit challenging to remember and spell for the common person. Plus, it’s quite a bit longer than the less complicated spelling and pronunciation of “valet”.
And of course, if I checked the domain availability of the .com, you know I certainly checked the availability of the matching .storage domains: SelfService.Storage and FullService.Storage.
Believe it or not, both domains were available for registration at the time of publication.
But don’t get too excited, too fast now. Unfortunately, it appears the .storage domain extension shoulders a hefty registration and renewal fee of $900. ?
Talk about sticker shock! I would say no one in their right mind would a domain using such an extension — but then there’s Valet.Storage rockin’ there domain as well as close to 500+ entities (nearly 400 are parked domains — see image).
Pricing for new TLDs has been quite problematic, especially when considering the same or similar domain name could be registered and renewed using a legacy extension for a fraction of the .storage cost.
The .storage extension is certainly not one that is domain investor friendly, and likely the same for small businesses, especially “mom and pop” storage companies.
But there is always a group of persons and companies that wind up the exception to the rule for any given area of life.
I hat tip Valet Storage for their courageous move to brand their web presence via a .storage domain. Time will certainly tell whether or not it was a good investment on their behalf — as it will for new TLDs in general.
Although minimal registration, I hope to discover many more companies using .storage domains. Again, time will tell us a story, whether good, bad, or ugly.
That’s all for now!
As a domain investor and business consultant, Alvin actively participates in daily domain auctions. Outside of auctions, he passionately shares his views, opinions, and vision for how businesses should and should not use domain names to generate greater customer growth and revenue.
