1. The benefits of a cosmopolitan company in the European domain space
Cultural Minefields
The benefits of a cosmopolitan company in the European domain space

2. About us: Nidoma.com Market Leader in Spain and Italy
Specialising in .it and .es. Number of backordered .it and .es domains per annum almost doubled in two years.
Registration, Dropcatching, Marketplace, Brokerage
Majority of major ccTLDs introduced this month
Coming soon – dropcatching for .de, .uk

3. Big published .it and .es sales
Appartamenti.it – 121,000 EUR
assicurazioneauto.it – 55,000 EUR
outlet.it – 77,000 EUR
Like.it – 55,000 EUR
Portfolio of ca es domains – 670,000 EUR
???.it – 400,000 EUR

4. About me: Shaun Wilkinson
Experience of living in five different countries on three continents
Speak three languages fluently, three less fluently
Experience of domain and E-Commerce industries, working with Clients from all continents.

5. Global stats (end of Q1, 2016) 143.7m ccTLDs (68.9 m European ccTLDs)
2.6% growth over quarter for ccTLDs, compared to 1.8% in legacy TLDs.
registered 1.1% growth of European ccTLDs over quarter – continuing to reverse a decline.
Source: centr.org

6. Top 10 ccTLDs by registration (millions)
Seven of the top 10 are European ccTLDs

7. Registration habits in Europe – Q1 2016
Over half of domains registered are in the country TLD of the registrant – attachment to the ‘local’ TLD is undoubtedly there.
Venturing into other ccTLDs outside of one’s own relatively rare – opportunity?
New gTLDs have a very low take-up rate.
Domains registered in respective country
Proportion
National ccTLD
50,3%
Legacy TLDs
38,2%
Other ccTLDs
9,8%
New gTLDs
1,7%
Source:centr.org

8. What is ‘being cosmopolitan’?

9. Language - Communicating with both sides - Semantic knowledge
Business culture
– Understanding the mentality and how to approach people
- Knowing where the pitfalls are!
Workings of the domain business – Varying registry policies
.es – GEO domains

10. China – best example so far
The boom in domain investment from China is the best example so far of where cultural knowledge helps.
Access to that market hugely boosted by speaking the language and understanding what is good/bad in the ‘letters and numbers’ arena.

11. The language barrier
The more languages spoken fluently, the more access to various markets
Linguistic knowledge key to understanding value of domains containing non-English keywords
Example – domain hacks; knowledge of the language required to spot potential

12. Domain Hacks Obvious, but undervalued – want.it
.es – es is plural in Spanish: coche – coches – coch.es
Also – es means ‘it’ in German! Mach.es – Do it!
.io – means “I” in Italian. Faccio.io – I’ll do it!

13. ccTLD use – our TLD is the best
Countries have varying but very real attachments to their own TLDs:
How to exploit that when selling/buying?
Building brand identity through national pride in own ccTLD

14. Navigating the waters of bureaucracy
Having access to a multi-national team needs to more knowledge of the processes surrounding ccTLDs
Despite modernisation at a lot of Registries, still not uniformity of process in terms of buying, selling, transferring and dealing with expiring domains

15. TREND.IT – Using the law!

16. Main advantage - diversification
More knowledge of more ccTLDs is good for image, but more importantly increases revenue streams.
Self-perpetuating – the better you do in the different countries, the wider your pool of sellers and buyers.
Portfolio diversification - .coms taken, and much more expensive.

17. Image: look like citizens of the world!
Communication is the key to making an impression – the more places you can do that, the quicker you can grow your customer base!
Experience of knowing the foibles of your various markets can help expedite business – working hours, ways to address people, ‘directness’.
Access to and/or expertise in certain markets can give you a USP from unexpected sources.