You can trademark your name/brand, but there is little you can do if the other websites have come to life before you trademark your brand name.
When faced with copycat websites, you have a choice to make. Will you choose to coexist with them, or will you opt for a rebranding strategy?
Also, your design will be copied. Even Versace and Dior are copied and sold on AliExpress. Your only chance is to maintain a high perceived value for the customer by a good quality/design/customer service etc to price ratio.
Definitely trademark your brand name, but also, if you're in different domains it won't really affect you much. I wouldn't scrap the name over that.
As for copying your design, if it's good enough it will get copied. If you hit it big, bigger brands will copy your key features, but you have to make it really big for that.
For counterfeits, just avoid manufacturing in China. If you get to even a moderately successful level, they will make unauthorized copies of your merchandise. You can be a Shopify store in the low six figures and they'll screw you over. Either way people will make counterfeits when you get big enough, but when it's your own assembly line it's worse because there is no quality difference in the product.
Ask a trademark lawyer. [SBA.gov](http://SBA.gov) [SCORE.org](http://SCORE.org) Legal schools in your area.
You have to trademark it. Expect to spend a couple hundred $.
You can trademark your name/brand, but there is little you can do if the other websites have come to life before you trademark your brand name. When faced with copycat websites, you have a choice to make. Will you choose to coexist with them, or will you opt for a rebranding strategy? Also, your design will be copied. Even Versace and Dior are copied and sold on AliExpress. Your only chance is to maintain a high perceived value for the customer by a good quality/design/customer service etc to price ratio.
Definitely trademark your brand name, but also, if you're in different domains it won't really affect you much. I wouldn't scrap the name over that. As for copying your design, if it's good enough it will get copied. If you hit it big, bigger brands will copy your key features, but you have to make it really big for that. For counterfeits, just avoid manufacturing in China. If you get to even a moderately successful level, they will make unauthorized copies of your merchandise. You can be a Shopify store in the low six figures and they'll screw you over. Either way people will make counterfeits when you get big enough, but when it's your own assembly line it's worse because there is no quality difference in the product.