Your new domain name will be registered within 2 minutes of receiving your payment; except Canadian domains which are registered manually and take 8 hours.  Once registered, no one else will be able to purchase the domain that you have chosen.

Once the domain has been successfully registered, you will receive an e-mail informing you of that fact.  Your new registered domain will not be active on the Internet until it has been published, which usually takes about 24 hours.