Choosing the Name You Trade Under

Most sellers choose a name in about four minutes, usually while a signup form is open and waiting. It is the one decision that is genuinely awkward to reverse, because every regular you have, every link anyone has saved and every mention anywhere else is attached to it.

Before you settle, check the plain things. Is it available on the places you might want later as well as the one you are signing up to now, because being one name here and something else there costs you more than it sounds. Can it be spelled by somebody who has only heard it. Can it be typed without explanation. Anything that needs a hyphen, a number instead of a letter, or a repeated character will be got wrong constantly, and a buyer who gets it wrong finds somebody else or, worse, finds the fake account.

Keep it separate from your real one. Not a shortened version of it, not your first name with something added, and not a handle you have used elsewhere for ten years, because people search and search engines remember. This is the single most common thing sellers regret and it is the hardest to unpick afterwards.

Do not tie it too tightly to one product. A name built entirely around the one thing you sell today reads as a limit the day you want to sell something else, and that day comes sooner than most people expect.

Say it out loud before you commit. Names that look clever written down are sometimes unfortunate spoken, and you will be reading this one back to people for a long time.

Then use it everywhere, identically, and stop reconsidering it. A slightly imperfect name used consistently for two years is worth vastly more than a perfect one you changed twice.