What makes a strong Shopify store name in Australia?
Your Shopify store name is permanent in one critical place: your myshopify.com subdomain. When you create a Shopify store as “coastalco.myshopify.com”, that subdomain follows you forever - it cannot be changed even if you rebrand entirely. This makes the naming decision more consequential than most Australian founders realise when they rush through Shopify’s onboarding.
The .com.au vs .com decision is more nuanced for Australian Shopify stores than for any other market. If your customers are predominantly Australian, .com.au builds local trust - Australian shoppers instinctively trust it as a signal of a locally operating business. If you are building for international reach from day one, .com is the better primary domain. Many successful Australian Shopify brands hold both, redirecting one to the other. NameCraftr checks .com, .com.au, and .au availability in real time for every suggestion.
The eligibility requirement for .com.au adds a step. To register a .com.au domain, you need an ABN and your domain name must closely correspond to your registered business name. This means your brand name, your business name registered with ASIC, and your domain need to align. Founders who choose a brand name and then try to register the matching .com.au sometimes find the eligibility check blocks them because their ASIC business name does not match closely enough. Verify this before you commit to any name.
The Australian Shopify market skews heavily toward fashion, homewares, beauty, and wellness - categories where brand aesthetics matter as much as product quality. Strong Australian Shopify brands in these categories tend toward clean, evocative names that work in lifestyle photography and on packaging: Frank Body, Who Gives A Crap, Thankyou. Descriptive category names age badly and constrain your product range.
How to use the Shopify business name generator
Not selling specifically through Shopify? The ecommerce store name generator covers online stores generally, and the product name generator is built for naming an individual product line rather than the store itself. Want more general options first? Try the full business name generator.
Go to name.craftr.com and describe your store with specificity. “Sustainable Australian activewear for women aged 25-40 who care about local manufacturing” generates better suggestions than “activewear brand”. The more context you give the generator, the more relevant and available names it surfaces. It’s a free shopify business name generator, so there’s no cost to run as many rounds as you need before settling on a name.
NameCraftr checks .com, .com.au, and .au availability simultaneously for every suggestion, or run any shortlisted name through the standalone domain name checker once you’ve narrowed it down. You can see at a glance which names are available across all three extensions - a useful signal that the name is genuinely unclaimed in the Australian market.
Before finalising your name:
- Check your top five finalists at asic.gov.au to confirm no existing business name conflicts. ASIC will reject a business name registration that is identical or near-identical to an existing registration.
- Check each finalist’s trademark safety with the trademark name generator, then search IP Australia at ipaustralia.gov.au under the relevant class for your products. Class 35 covers retail; Class 25 covers clothing and fashion; Class 3 covers cosmetics.
- Verify .com.au eligibility: your brand name must closely correspond to a business name you can register with ASIC.
After the generator: launching your Australian Shopify store
Register your business name with ASIC before claiming your .com.au domain. ASIC business name registration costs $44 for one year or $102 for three years. This step unlocks .com.au eligibility and is a legal requirement if you are trading under any name other than your own legal name.
Register your ABN through the Australian Business Register if you do not already have one. ABN registration is free and online through abr.gov.au. You need an ABN to register a business name with ASIC and to register a .com.au domain.
Create your Shopify store using your finalised name. Enter the exact name you want when Shopify prompts you during signup - this sets your permanent myshopify.com subdomain. Then connect your .com.au or .com as the primary custom domain under Settings > Domains.
Apply for a trade mark with IP Australia once your store is operational. A standard application costs $330 per class. Trade mark rights date from the filing date, not the approval date - file before your store gets significant public attention, not after.
Claim Instagram and TikTok handles the same day you launch. Australian Shopify brands in fashion, beauty, and homewares drive the majority of their traffic through visual social platforms. Consistent handle naming across your domain and social presence matters from day one.
Common Australian Shopify naming mistakes
Rushing the Shopify signup with a placeholder name. The myshopify.com subdomain is permanent. Founders who create a “test” or “placeholder” store and then try to rename it discover they cannot. Always finalise your brand name before you create the Shopify store - not during the process.
Not checking .com.au eligibility before committing to a brand name. You can register a .com or open a Shopify store with almost any name. But .com.au has a strict eligibility requirement tied to your ASIC business name. Founders who skip this check and then build brand assets around a name they cannot register as .com.au face an expensive choice: settle for a less trusted extension or change the name.
Choosing a name that only works in Australia. If you have any intention of selling internationally - through Shopify Markets, Amazon Global, or direct export - a name that signals exclusively Australian origin can limit your reach. Purely Australian references (“Barossa”, “Bondi”, “Outback”) work for brands built on Australian provenance, but can feel niche in international markets.
Not registering .com alongside .com.au. Australian customers searching locally will reach your .com.au. International customers, wholesale buyers, and overseas press will look for .com. Squatters actively register .com versions of growing Australian brands. Register both on the same day.
Ignoring the phone test. Australian Shopify brands grow substantially through word of mouth, influencer recommendations, and podcast mentions. If your store name requires spelling out every time it is mentioned verbally, you are losing conversions at every spoken referral. Say the name without spelling it - if the listener cannot write it correctly on the first attempt, revise it.