How important is having both singular/plural for a brand?

[max99x]

Interested to hear your thoughts..

When it comes to starting a brand and you say decide to call your brand RedWidget.com ..and the RedWidgets.com plural is used by another brand all ready... would you still consider using it ?

 

[getmein]

Obviously it's going to depend on the actual name and in the event of there being 2 different owners, whether a user can quickly work out they are in the wrong place (if you both do the same thing then it's obviously a problem). I think to try and get a full set of names (plurals, different extensions) of a meaningful name, nowadays, is going to be tough - and ultimately for the vast majority of businesses it's only one component of their success. So I'd say while it's nice to have all the bases covered, if the name works, I don't think it's fatal not to have all the variants.

 

[Edwin]

I think it also depends on how much energy, time and money is going to go into the project. If it's just a casual, part-time thing then you probably don't need to over-think it. If it's going to be a core project that is going to be your main/sole focus (with investment to match) then it's a lot more important to tie up the potential sources of "confusion" up front.

But you have to also think about what's attracting you to the "red widget" naming convention in the first place. If "red" is not normally an attribute of "widget" then is the notion of "red widget" as a brand only attractive because "red widgets" has made a brand for themselves out of the expression?

If so, I'd try and find something else entirely rather than risk piggy-backing on "their" brand success.

 

[Adam H]

If its an online venture only aimed at search and PPC traffic then I "might" not care about protecting the brand as much, more of a churn and burn strategy, but if its an effort to turn it into a real business or a project with potential then without a doubt not being able to protect it properly with various Tld's, plurals and singular names would put me off completely.

Its only going to come back and cost you a small fortune later on either through lost sales to a competitor through mistaken identity, rebranding or trying to purchase the other domain at a point where the domain owner knows he can capitalise.

 

[Bailey]

I've never 'ever' managed a sale that has included both 'Singular and Plural' The bottom-line is there's only one that works IMHO either for development or from a Selling perspective. - Your insight into what your buying-into (as a domain property) should tell you what is right -However, As a protective investment, I've quite often thought it worthwhile. Domain Buyers (mostly end users) However, never seem to even view it or are interested at taking ownership

 

[figleaf007]

One of my jobs was to develop an ecommerce brand from scratch, which I did and grew to a £1m+ turnover site. Not once did I think that not having or promoting the plural was an issue. Do amazon need amazons, ebay need ebays etc?

 

[Adam H]

One of my jobs was to develop an ecommerce brand from scratch, which I did and grew to a £1m+ turnover site. Not once did I think that not having or promoting the plural was an issue. Do amazon need amazons, ebay need ebays etc?

I think there is a clear common sense ethos as to whether a "brand" needs a plural/singular....or whether a domain/business which wants to corner its own market . What i got from the OP's post was it was a domain which sounds equally plausible from both singular and plural instances....not whether every brand warrants it, especially those with distinguishable branding such as amazon and ebay.

Most likely product or service related as an example, forums are a reasonable call for both instances with somethingforum.com and somethingforums.com , giving someone else the opportunity to be the natural type in next to you would be silly especially in a saturated niche which has the potential for offline chatter to confuse the two.

Every instance is different , but it would be silly to dismiss it completely for the sake of a reg fee.

 

[max99x]

One of my jobs was to develop an ecommerce brand from scratch, which I did and grew to a £1m+ turnover site. Not once did I think that not having or promoting the plural was an issue. Do amazon need amazons, ebay need ebays etc?

Yeah its for domains which are equally memorable as a plural, obviously some domains wouldn't work like ebay needing the plural but for some instances it does.