A vintage seller dying to sell on icraft!

[iCraft Admin]

Thanks for the suggestions, Fairy Cardmaker!  
I like "OldWordCharm".

No, I don't think we need word "vintage" or "antiques" in the domain name. It can be more generic and inclusive.

Yes, "vintage" can be also confused with vintage wine. There was an interesting discussion about "Antique vs. Vintage. Definition and differences?" on Ebay. 

I keep thinking of places where you find old forgotten treasures, like attics, old chests and lost suitcases. Unfortunately, forgottentreasures.com is taken...

[Fairy Cardmaker]

So... turn "forgottentreasures" around and make it "foundtreasures" or "treasuresfound"
hmmm "treasurefountain"?  "treasuretrunk"?  (Makes me think of Mr. Dress Up's tickle trunk - fond smiles!)
I like "treasuresfound" best of this group or else "treasurefind" because it sounds more active than passive.  (ooops, just saw that one is taken.)

[iCraft Admin]

So true... I like how you think
I like "treasuretrunk" best. It has a nice ring to it. 

[Erin Brennan]

I've been MIA for a little, but WOW. There are some awesome name ideas going on here!

I personally love OldWorldCharm the best. I have absolutely no basis behind this but I just don't really like names that have the word treasures in it. Again, I have no reason why...just not something that catches my eye too much. lol

What about something completely different from the typical discriptions of vintage and antique items? What about using the focus of how old the items are instead? Some ideas I have rolling around my head:

Onlytimewilltell
Walkthroughtime
Pastperfection
Piecesfromthepast

Just thought I'd share

[iCraft Admin]

Glad to see you back, Erin! You started quite a discussion here, so I was hoping to see you back. 

Yes, a lot of great suggestions!
OldWorldCharm & Pastperfection (which I also love) are taken. However, we could still try to get those domains.
I guess we just need to pick top 3 and see which ones we'll be able to purchase.

Btw, after sending email to our members on May 12th, we've got about 10 emails from those who also sell vintage. Unfortunately, not all of them are interested in participating in the site design. Most just want to be notified when the new site is ready. 
So we still have an issue of getting a few sellers to join this discussion...

[Fairy Cardmaker]

WonderfullyAged?
Agedwithlove?

Fun and possibly catchy: ThisOldThing

[iCraft Admin]

Yes, ThisOldThing.com is catchy! but taken. Available for sale for $9,500 
ThatOldThing.com is taken too.

I lost my voice last week and was thinking of word "Rusty", that it could also work for the domain that we are looking for.

RustyCreations.com (taken, but available for sale for $3,260)
RustyMill.com 
RustyCharm.com 
RustyGrace.com
RustyFinds.com
GoodNRusty.com

or
OldNewAgain.com
OldToNew.com
OldAndGold.com
LikeItOld.com
...though these might sound like a dating sites for seniors. Ha ha 
 

[Bomb La Bon Bon]

Veni Vidi Vintage

It might be too long, but sounds catchy

You came you saw... vintage

Cheers

[Fairy Cardmaker]

Playing off of Bomb La Bon Bon's idea...

VintageViewfinder ?

[iCraft Admin]

We should probably setup a poll for choosing top 5 or top 3 names. We have a lot of ideas already.
Here are a few more...

VintageFinds.com
VintageFix.com
RetroFix.com
ValueVintage.com
GoodOldStuff.com
GoodNRetro.com
RetroPlace.com
VintageAddict.com
VintageCatch.com
theAttick.com
Attick.com

[GalleriaLinda]

I am so excited about this thread with such good ideas!!! Jumping in a little late but better late than never, I say.

I just spent 45 minutes writing a reply with some comments and I lost them - my thumb brushed something now it is all gone.

I have to go to work now and  I will try to reconstruct my thoughts later today about domain name selections, etc....

Count me in!

Linda
iCraftGifts.com/gallerialinda

[iCraft Admin]

Glad to hear you are in, Linda! 
Sorry about lost post! Need to add autosave to forum.

[GalleriaLinda]

Here is most of my post that was lost! As I mentioned above, I am very excited about this project and about the enthusiasm!

I agree with Erin that getting this onto the Etsy forum, hopefully by a few different people, would be amazing. They talk about and critique other venues all the time. I no longer have shops there so cannot help with that, but it would be awesome.

Just look up “thecraftstar” or “craftstar” on the forum and you will see huge discussion and buzz about this new handmade venue (that kind of fizzled once they went live because the site was not working right and they were not prepared for the numbers of people accessing it and got a lot of BAD buzz AFTER they went live – worth a read to mitigate issues with going live with a new site if you start to have anticipated buzz on Etsy. Etsy buzz kicks up hundreds of interested parties for new venues and the new venue needs to be prepared with a clean, working site and technology-power-wise for the onslaught the initial few days of going live).

It would be so beneficial to somehow get a couple of the long-time Etsy vintage sellers who might be interested, to join the iCraft vintage development team. They know what they need, what they have been disheartened about on Etsy, categories they must have, and other issues with a “vintage only” website. I think it would be extremely valuable. Just a thought.

Here are some strategic comments about domain name selection – and I have not really selected on in my mind yet.

•   .com – I agree that a dot com is the best because international buyers and sellers recognize that. A few times when I have suggested iCraftGifts.com to other sellers, they were under the impression that it was just for Canadians and I had to let them know that it is international. It is all about perception.

•   SEO for domains – Google crawls the domain name first and is the best keyword SEO tool you have. Ideally, it should have specific keywords in it for this purpose. A good (bad) example is my own domain (lol) gallerialinda.com – it really should be GalleriaLindaHandmadeJewelry.com or something like that to take advantage of the keyword “handmade jewelry,” which is one of the top keywords for this category. This is just an example.

•   Keywords in Domain - For that reason, I think that using the word “Vintage” in the domain is valuable because people search that word. I love the word “Retro” but think about how you would search – vintage earrings or retro earrings?

•   Branding outside of keywords - If a creative domain name outside of the keywords is selected, like “RustyMill,” it can definitely be a brand specific to you in the long term, but who will search by that term (for a long time)? If someone searched for “vintage” then your “www.vintagexxxxxxx.com” site should show up. It is doable for a creative domain but you need a huge, consistent push in PR for years to eventually become a searched brand, because you don’t benefit from that domain crawl SEO.

•   Social – I also would suggest checking Facebook and Twitter for the selected names to see what is available and/or other businesses using that name.

When there is a “going live” date, I think we can kick up some anticipation buzz through our own blogs and soliciting vintage blogs from others for posts. I was asked to join this vintage directory – she is going live in June for the directory but has a vintage-specific blog – a good target for a post about this. http://vintagedirectory.blogspot.com – I know we can find other ones too.

Admin – give us the OK when we can blog and buzz about it.

Do you have a target month to go live? End of this year? Or Earlier? Or later?

[iCraft Admin]

Hi Linda,

Great points! 

Yes, we'll definitely go with .com domain.

Yes, having "vintage" in the domain helps a bit, probably mostly users who are searching for vintage. There were claims that Google doesn't give much weight anymore to keyword-specific domains, not like before.

Another concern we have with "vintage"-specific domain is that it might turn away people who sell antiques and collectables, and we definitely want to be more inclusive - bigger market!

Good point about social. Yes, will have to check that too.

We are really at the research stage right now. Before we can give any timelines for when the site will go live, we need to have requirements for what needs to be built. Without that we can't even estimate how long it will take.

Here is roughly what needs to happen.

1. Organize a small group of sellers (7-10 probably ok to start with), who sell variety of vintage & antique items - jewelry, clothing, collectables, furniture etc.
2. Decide on the domain name.
3. Setup forum under new domain and move conversation there. It's a good idea to establish site early on, as it will start collecting inbound links and get up in rankings faster, once it goes live officially.
4. Write up a list of Must-Have and Nice-to-Have Requirements
5. Do Keyword Research and come up with Product Categories
6. Create mockups of main site sections. Decide on look & feel and site layout.
7. Develop all Must-Have features. At this point only a small group of people would have access to pages under development.
8. Create buzz before site goes live
9. Release Beta site to public
10. Promote new site (social, link building, newsletters, paid ads etc)

In terms of generating buzz, we really only need people at this point who are interested in being on the ground floor of this new site. Obviously, the more feedback we get from the experienced sellers, who know what works and what doesn't', the better site we will build.

So if you guys have any connections in the vintage world, please let others know about this rather unique opportunity. 

[GalleriaLinda]

Thanks for sharing the do list. I knew it would be a while but excited to get it started!