The domain extension of new gTLD .SHOP was made available from 26th September this week. Reports say that the new gTLD is looking like a great investment for the Japanese GMO Registry after it paid $41.5 million at an auction for the rights to operate it.
.SHOP was the most paid for new gTLD until Nu Dot Co paid $135 million to operate .WEB.
The Registry said that 39,801 .SHOP domain names were registered in the first 30 minutes which grew to 45,427 by the end of two hours. There are now over 54,000 .SHOP domain names according to nTLDstats.com after more than 1,000 names were registered by trademark holders during Sunrise and around 5,000 during the Early Access Period.
The .SHOP extension is aimed at online and offline shops and is easily identified by Internet users as a place to shop. .SHOP markets itself as a powerful marketing tool which can be used to distinguish corporate websites from their online shops.
Hiro Tsukahara, CEO, GMO Registry said :
This is a historical day for .SHOP and we are thrilled with the results but it is just the very beginning.
Going forward we aim to contribute to the success of both online and offline businesses and to support and encourage innovation and development in ecommerce.