Discuss your Epik Experience!

[dande]

I think Epik is building the best ever Domain Lander in the history of domaining, and it really needs to be talked about extensively. That's why I am creating this discussion thread. A lot of thought process really goes into the project. And I can see (for the first time) a landing page that is built from the stand point of domainers rather than for just the marketplace itself.

Everything you have ever dreamt of getting or seeing in a professional landing page can be found in the new Epik marketplace landing page design.

Some of my Favorites Features:

1. The ability to optimize your "domain for sale" landing page to actually rank on Google, displaying your sales pitch/domain description. I just did that with few of my generic domain names such as ASAP.TV, targeting certain keywords, and they are showing pretty well on Google. That's a huge plus in my marketing effort.

2. Being able to change background image is another huge one for me. If you are good with pictures and images, you will surely find this very useful. I did that with Nagasaki.org and the result was truly amazing, showing the city of Nagasaki right at the background.

There are too many positive features and I don't want to mention all of them, all alone

So I am leaving you guys to share and discuss what you loves most or dislike about the new Epik marketplace and the landing pages.

The only negative for me is the checkout process. There are too many terms and conditions buttons to tick before checking out. It will be nice if they can streamline those into one beautiful big button

They also need to place the checkout button directly under the payment options. Right now it is awkwardly place somewhere below at the sidebar, which I don't find cool at all.

Sales experience is also welcomed in this discussion. I haven't had any sells so far at Epik because I started using the marketplace just recently, but the future is looking so bright.

 

[frank-germany]

This is a good topic on Backordering.

We are very close to deploying a large update to Backorder pricing. Currently we offer an exclusive backorder for a fixed fee. We are going to also add the non-option of a non-exclusive backorder which is basically a watch list on steroids using dropcatch technology but it will only charge the payment method on file if the domain is delivered and it will do it at a standard reg-fee but with no assurance of exclusive.

Also, in terms of the dropcatch market, we have decided not to join the Dropcatch arms race. Many years ago, I briefly considered to buy Snapnames. That is how I got to know Ron Wiener. In the end, they did not accept my offer, but I did get to learn a lot about that industry which is how we got to know Intrust Domains which we did acquire in 2011, and which gave us a phenomenal engineering team in Russia.

We do also run our own expiry action. We call this Daily Diamonds. It is a daily revertse auction which I highly recommend:

https://marketplace.epik.com/daily-diamonds

The prices drop to $9 in the last hour of the 24 hour reverse auction. People find some great deals there.

what time frame does the revenue column refer to?

 

[Rob Monster]

what time frame does the revenue column refer to?

Show attachment 125928

Lifetime revenue.

For our O&O domains (about 9,000 of them), we do allow folks to lease with a purchase option. If a lessee cancels within 5 days, we do a full refund.

See refund policy:

https://www.epik.com/refund.php

With the rollout of our global Content Delivery Network earlier this year, we are collecting visitor stats on all parked pages, without requiring client-side Javascript.

 

[oldtimer]

@Rob Monster

Rob, does Epik have any in house brokers, for those who don’t want to get involved directly with the buyers it might be nice to have the option to let an Epik Broker handle the negotiations on their behalf on the domains that are set to Make Offer.

Maybe have a box for Owner Negotiation and Broker Negotiation that can be check marked for Make offer domains. On the Broker Negotiation option certain price expectations can be indicated by the domain owner so if those expectations are met by the buyer the domain can be sold immediately, also if Broker Negotiation option is selected by the domain owner, then that can be indicated on the landing pages in place of where it says contact domain owner.

The domain owners should also receive an email from Epik informing them of their initial price expectation settings for each domain and any subsequent changes to it so that there wouldn’t be any discrepancy as to what prices they have authorized the broker to accept for the domain.

What do you think.

 

[Rob Monster]

@Rob Monster

Rob, does Epik have any in house brokers, for those who don’t want to get involved directly with the buyers it might be nice to have the option to let an Epik Broker handle the negotiations on their behalf on the domains that are set to Make Offer.

Maybe have a box for Owner Negotiation and Broker Negotiation that can be check marked for Make offer domains. On the Broker Negotiation option certain price expectations can be indicated by the domain owner so if those expectations are met by the buyer the domain can be sold immediately, also if Broker Negotiation option is selected by the domain owner, then that can be indicated on the landing pages in place of where it says contact domain owner.

The domain owners should also receive an email from Epik informing them of their initial price expectation settings for each domain and any subsequent changes to it so that there wouldn’t be any discrepancy as to what prices they have authorized the broker to accept for the domain.

What do you think.

I get a fair amount of closing transactions, i.e. where the buyer just needs to be talked over the line and the seller is struggling there, e.g. because they are not well known or because they are from a part of the world which people have stereotyped, e.g. Nigeria, where the people are mostly very lovely, but they got a bad rap from the past.

As for outbound brokers, I am actually not a fan. I think outbound has very weak ROI with the possible exception of generic premium .COMs. We can do outbound brokering but we are not great at it, and so I would rather suggest that you (1) use our SSL landers, and (2) if you hire a broker, use Epik for escrow and will help close/finance.

If you do use a broker, you can also share/delegate your domain to them so that they can manage DNS but without being able to see the auth code, for example. This can be useful for certain situations where the broker is also doing domain staging or needs 3rd party analytics.

if you have a specific domain you are selling, happy to advise on which broker could help though most brokers won't spend time on a domain that is worth less than $50,000 simply because the sales cycles are often quite long for anything that is not premium or distress.

Hope that helps.

 

[oldtimer]

I get a fair amount of closing transactions, i.e. where the buyer just needs to be talked over the line and the seller is struggling there,

Thanks for the quick response,

I was just wondering if this could be done automatically by Epik ( without asking for help in the middle of the negotiation process) once certain price expectations are set on Make Offer domains by the domain owner.

 

[Rob Monster]

Thanks for the quick response,

I was just wondering if this could be done automatically by Epik ( without asking for help in the middle of the negotiation process) once certain price expectations are set on Make Offer domains by the domain owner.

Yup, just go here:

https://www.epik.com/services/escrow/

We'll help you close the deal.

 

[oldtimer]

Yup, just go here:

https://www.epik.com/services/escrow/

We'll help you close the deal.

Rob, It says in there that this service is not available to residents of Idaho and Texas, (I live in Texas)

By the way when I asked if this service could be made to be automatic I meant that when visitors click on the link that says contact owner or make offer to owner in the landing page if they could be directed automatically to the broker at Epik to negotiate the deal (who has been given the price parameters by owner in advance).

 

[Rob Monster]

Rob, It says in there that this service is not available to residents of Idaho and Texas, (I live in Texas)

By the way when I asked if this service could be made to be automatic I meant that when visitors click on the link that says contact owner or make offer to owner in the landing page if they could be directed automatically to the broker at Epik to negotiate the deal (who has been given the price parameters by owner in advance).

The Domain Marketplace is open for Texas. We agreed with the regulators in TX to not call it an "escrow" in Texas for Texans. We can still clear transactions through the Domain Marketplace. PM or email to discuss if you have a transaction pending and will advise the preferred clearing method.

 

[Soofi]

Epik is Epik!

 

[Kassey Lee]

NS3.EPIK.COM
NS4.EPIK.COM

When domains are transferred, the default status is to inherit the DNS of the former registrar. You can automate the process of optimizing your domains for Epik by using Domain Profiles:

https://www.epik.com/support/knowledgebase/how-to-create-and-apply-domain-profiles-to-domains/

It lets you set WHOIS, DNS, Host records, Marketplace listing, parking status, etc. You can have multiple profiles.

I did change to the NS3 and NS4 name servers but my domain still does not resolve.

I'm getting to like Epik more and more for its sophisticated functions for domain investors. Just need to invest the time to learn them.

 

[Kassey Lee]

@Rob Monster Thanks for the prompt assistance. My domain is now live with a clean, simple landing page. So the trick is "MARKETPLACE | List the domain for sale..." and make sure to select [X] "Park 1 selected domain(s) to Epik Parking" (even though I have no parking interest at all).

Surprised to see the landing page supports Chinese! I can now use Tagline 2 for Chinese description.

Just two wishes:

(1) The ability to capitalize any letter in the domain. The dashboard shows my domain as "EZ44" but the landing page changes it to "Ez44". This becomes important when I list 2-word domains.

(2) API to automate the whole listing process.

 

[Kassey Lee]

I found the answer to my #1 wish:

On changing the casing, it is actually configurable in your control panel for any domain. The menu option is called "Domain Transforms and Keywords". You can custom edit the casing:

Show attachment 124399

 

[Rob Monster]

I found the answer to my #1 wish:

Yes, we have an integrated tool for letting you edit the casing your domain name in case the automated casing does not look the way you want. Sometime people prefer to show a domain like this:

ApplePie.com

Instead of:

Appliepie.com

And that is why that tool exists.

 

[Cal2]

I did change to the NS3 and NS4 name servers but my domain still does not resolve.

Had the same issue today. Thumbs up to Brooke at Epik for getting me straightened out.

 

[Rob Monster]

Had the same issue today. Thumbs up to Brooke at Epik for getting me straightened out.

We'll look at what is making that step not intuitive. @Ala Dadan.

As for @BrookeUnderwood she is on NP too. She is going to be active in NP Domains Wanted area to help our Marketplace customers sell more inventory.

Make sure you have your domains in the Epik marketplace with at least Make offer.

 

[Mister Funsky]

Just came across something when using the ssl parking pages.

I compose my content in word and when I try to copy and paste (using right click) into the 'content and media box', it automatically pulls up a link option that I can't seem to override.

Is there a way to disable this? I've been using word to compose copy for years and most of my domains have info in that format and if I have to retype that info for every domain I will more than likely expire before I can get it all done.

 

[Kassey Lee]

Epik's landing page supports non-English as well, both in tag lines and the content box. I was able to build a landing page in both English and Chinese. I just need to automate this process programmatically for the rest of my portfolio when/if Epik gives us the API/function.

 

[Ala Dadan]

I found the answer to my #1 wish:

Will look into making the process easier in the future

I did change to the NS3 and NS4 name servers but my domain still does not resolve.

Will also look into this issue, and make sure it is correct

 

[Rob Monster]

Epik's landing page supports non-English as well, both in tag lines and the content box. I was able to build a landing page in both English and Chinese. I just need to automate this process programmatically for the rest of my portfolio when/if Epik gives us the API/function.

We just added the multi-language support this week. We'll have about 50 languages here shortly. That should help with conversion: language and currency that is appropriate based on the user.

Example:

http://epiktest.la/pt?currency=USD

The whole page is translated. If folks don't see their language, or want edits in the default language, just let @Ala Dadan or I know and we'll take care of it.

 

[Kassey Lee]

The whole page is translated. If folks don't see their language, or want edits in the default language, just let @Ala Dadan or I know and we'll take care of it.

Wow! That's excellent. The language and currency menus should be placed at the top not the bottom so that visitors from other countries can discover them immediately. Or, may even be better it each landing page has a geo detection function to switch to the appropriate language and currency automatically.

 

[Rob Monster]

Wow! That's excellent. The language and currency menus should be placed at the top not the bottom so that visitors from other countries can discover them immediately. Or, may even be better it each landing page has a geo detection function to switch to the appropriate language and currency automatically.

The language/currency should auto-detect, which is why the dropdowns are not prominently displayed. @Ala Dadan made that design decision.

 

[Kassey Lee]

The language/currency should auto-detect, which is why the dropdowns are not prominently displayed. @Ala Dadan made that design decision.

Well done Ala! I am very impressed with the sophisticated design of the landing page. Look forward to the API for bulk creation.

 

[Ala Dadan]

Wow! That's excellent. The language and currency menus should be placed at the top not the bottom so that visitors from other countries can discover them immediately. Or, may even be better it each landing page has a geo detection function to switch to the appropriate language and currency automatically.

Thank you, will look into this
we are in the process of major sitewide update.
Header and footer are part of this update, will see if it makes sense to have these items in the new design

 

[Cal2]

We'll look at what is making that step not intuitive. @Ala Dadan.

Will also look into this issue, and make sure it is correct

In case it helps, my own issue with a domain not resolving and my not knowing why - I was getting a 'Can't reach this page' when trying the domain after changing to Epik's servers - was solved by Brooke emailing me the following:

To confirm you are wanting the domain to go to a parking page?
If so, here is how to enable the parking pages.
https://www.epik.com/support/knowledgebase/enable-a-coming-soon-or-domain-parking-page/

Parking is not automatically enabled when moving over to our servers.​

 

[Ala Dadan]

In case it helps, my own issue with a domain not resolving and my not knowing why - I was getting a 'Can't reach this page' when trying the domain after changing to Epik's servers - was solved by Brooke emailing me the following:

thank you this helps, we are following up on this issue with our tech team.