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.

 

[Rob Monster]

Well I just regged 10 names with the special $5.49 coming to an end. Kassey one is for you, you don't have a way to pm here, but I will ask @Rob Monster to push from my account, just about every first name male or female in the plural, Vinces.com just sold for $20,000 Roberts.com sold for $19,500 and several others. So I regged Kasseys.com and would like to give it to you for all you have contributed here on all things China.

Classy move. Now, when Kassey opens his Hookah Lounge, Restaurant, or what not in Auckland, he will already have the domain for it.

 

[Kassey Lee]

Well I just regged 10 names with the special $5.49 coming to an end. Kassey one is for you, you don't have a way to pm here, but I will ask @Rob Monster to push from my account, just about every first name male or female in the plural is taken, Vinces.com just sold for $20,000 Roberts.com sold for $19,500 and several others. So I regged Kasseys.com and would like to give it to you for all you have contributed here on all things China.

That's very generous of you, Raymond!

Classy move. Now, when Kassey opens his Hookah Lounge, Restaurant, or what not in Auckland, he will already have the domain for it.

Raymond is an expert on domain appraisal so Kasseys.com must be worth 20 grand. Maybe I should just create an SSL lander, sell it for $19,888, and use the money to open a restaurant so that you folks can come for some delicious Chinese dishes. Best opportunity to showcase my cooking skills. Ha ha!

 

[Windoms]

The More Details link in the CONTACT DOMAIN OWNER field.
When you set the domain to private listing and click that link, it goes to marketplace error page.
Under performance tab, when you click on whois, it already shows ip addresses, it should also show country flag and name next to it.
Same with visits.

 

[Rob Monster]

Earlier this week, I bought a NP member's hyphen domains -- because we buy those. I asked him if he got his money, and he shared a reply, that is too cool not to share.

I won't identify the seller, but you have to smile -- the domain economy apparently helped out a white pigeon in India. True story.

 

[oldtimer]

@Rob Monster , thanks for helping me save my 12 expired domains by letting me transfer them to Epik, and thanks for giving me the special rate.

God Bless

 

[dande]

@Rob Monster, one important thing you guys should consider implementing at Epik Marketplace is internal messaging between Epik.com and customer's accounts. External emails could fail sometimes or be delivered into the spam folders. Then it is important to login to your epik account and get those messages right within the dashboard.

Epik-Inbox and Internal Notification is very important

 

[Rob Monster]

@Rob Monster, one important thing you guys should consider implementing at Epik Marketplace is internal messaging between Epik.com and customer's accounts. External emails could fail sometimes or be delivered into the spam folders. Then it is important to login to your epik account and get those message right within the dashboard.

Epik-Inbox and Internal Notification is very important

A full CRM for the domain marketplace is on the way for tracking transaction histories and domain conversations with prospects. However, in the meantime, let's see if we can highlight latest offer history to expedite the process of accepting or responding to offers.

@vitigo

 

[ResoluteDomains]

Hi Rob, I may have found a bug... Not sure if others have encountered this but this is what happened:

On August 30th I transferred over about 15 domains from GoDaddy. When the domains arrived at Epik I didnt go into each one to look at the WHOIS, all I did was make sure the domains were in my account. I think I set some nameservers, etc but that was all I did.

Yesterday I received that yearly reminder to inspect the WHOIS data and this morning I did. I noticed that all of those domains had very old WHOIS data, it wasnt the WHOIS details from August 30th at GoDaddy. The data that Epik shows was probably changed well over a year ago when my PO box changed. I am thinking it was after May 2018.

I happened to have a download CSV file from GoDaddy on July 29th showing the WHOIS to be what I had changed it to after my 2018 PO Box change. However when I go into these domains at Epik I see the old data and I am not sure where that data was picked up from but its quite old.

I changed two domains already but then I stopped because I thought maybe you'd want to look into this? I have screen shots of the old (correct) WHOIS from the July 2019 GoDaddy CSV download if you want to see that. Let me know. Thanks! Anthony.

 

[Rob Monster]

Hi Rob, I may have found a bug... Not sure if others have encountered this but this is what happened:

On August 30th I transferred over about 15 domains from GoDaddy. When the domains arrived at Epik I didnt go into each one to look at the WHOIS, all I did was make sure the domains were in my account. I think I set some nameservers, etc but that was all I did.

Yesterday I received that yearly reminder to inspect the WHOIS data and this morning I did. I noticed that all of those domains had very old WHOIS data, it wasnt the WHOIS details from August 30th at GoDaddy. The data that Epik shows was probably changed well over a year ago when my PO box changed. I am thinking it was after May 2018.

I happened to have a download CSV file from GoDaddy on July 29th showing the WHOIS to be what I had changed it to after my 2018 PO Box change. However when I go into these domains at Epik I see the old data and I am not sure where that data was picked up from but its quite old.

I changed two domains already but then I stopped because I thought maybe you'd want to look into this? I have screen shots of the old (correct) WHOIS from the July 2019 GoDaddy CSV download if you want to see that. Let me know. Thanks! Anthony.

Thanks Anthony.

When you start transfers, I recommend to use and apply domain profiles:

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

As for WHOIS, we run our own WHOIS server. So, it should be whatever you have set as your account default. You can check it here:

https://whois.epik.com/

In the rare case that our WHOIS does no give a timely response, it will look up from a public WHOIS aggregation service to which we subscribe.

 

[ResoluteDomains]

Thanks Anthony.

When you start transfers, I recommend to use and apply domain profiles:

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

As for WHOIS, we run our own WHOIS server. So, it should be whatever you have set as your account default. You can check it here:

https://whois.epik.com/

In the rare case that our WHOIS does no give a timely response, it will look up from a public WHOIS aggregation service to which we subscribe.

OK, I have corrected my default profile and applied that to the domains in my account. Thanks Rob!

 

[oldtimer]

OK, I have corrected my default profile and applied that to the domains in my account. Thanks Rob!

I might be wrong, but I believe when you set a default profile for your account (to be used for whois) it only works for new domain registrations and transfers, the domains that are already in your account still need to be set to the correct whois info manually, unless of course if you sat the default profile for whois at the time that you opened your account before you had any domains (like me) which in that case you should be okay. IMO

 

[ResoluteDomains]

I might be wrong, but I believe when you set a default profile for your account (to be used for whois) it only works for new domain registrations and transfers, the domains that are already in your account still need to be set to the correct whois info manually, unless of course if you sat the default profile for whois at the time that you opened your account before you had any domains (like me) which in that case you should be okay. IMO

Existing names in my account had the correct PO Box because I had manually changed them when my PO Box changed, but I totally forgot about the default profile.

When I transferred names in recently I just assumed the WHOIS was correct (dont know why I did but.....) so I never checked their WHOIS. I just assumed the WHOIS data would transfer over from the WHOIS data at the losing registrar.

Yesterday I corrected the default profile so my guess is that the next reg or transfer will have the correct WHOIS.

 

[Embrand]

Any update regarding becoming a registrar for .ng? Would be great to have .ke as well.

 

[Rob Monster]

Any update regarding becoming a registrar for .ng? Would be great to have .ke as well.

It is a question for @Sufyan Alani . I expect .NG will come first as we have @domainexpert77 on the ground there and a fast-growing client base. I know the application process is in motion.

 

[Windoms]

Existing names in my account had the correct PO Box because I had manually changed them when my PO Box changed, but I totally forgot about the default profile.

When I transferred names in recently I just assumed the WHOIS was correct (dont know why I did but.....) so I never checked their WHOIS. I just assumed the WHOIS data would transfer over from the WHOIS data at the losing registrar.

Yesterday I corrected the default profile so my guess is that the next reg or transfer will have the correct WHOIS.

If you add those domains to Uniregistry and you hover onto a domain, it shows admin contact, you'll notice it shows old information on many domains.
whoxy.com/whois-history/
whois lookup always works fine.

 

[Rob Monster]

In my view, it's a meaningless ratings widget that actually damages the credibility of anyone who uses it.

I'm all for TrustRatings' success as an independent venture, but until it is firewalled, a trust site owned and operated by Epik that pretends to independently certify the trustworthiness of Epik and Epik vendors only hurts Epik's reputation.

Trust is earned, not bought. There are no shortcuts in the reputation business. Those who try them end up harming their business in the long run.

Just to followup here, Trustratings.com is being assigned to the NewCo called Toki, Inc. This assignment is in progress. The entity formation was confirmed this morning by the WA Secretary of State:

Digital Empowerment initiatives will be operated inside of Toki (for profit) and the upcoming Non-profit that is being named this week:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/poll-for-the-goodwill-of-domains-digital-empowerment-brand.1157478

The TrustRatings.com site is looking decent. Epik will start to use it shortly, replacing our current home-brew solution that was here:

https://www.epik.com/about/love/

We are working on governance and ownership progress -- this can ultimately be completely owned and governed by persons and entities other than Epik. It is Epik that incubated it and bootstrapped it.

 

[Sufyan Alani]

It is a question for @Sufyan Alani . I expect .NG will come first as we have @domainexpert77 on the ground there and a fast-growing client base. I know the application process is in motion.

We've just mailed our final application to the registry in Nigeria. The process is a bit lengthy because of the current requirements of sending actual signed paperwork (and all supporting documents) physically to the registry by courier. But, we're on track for this one.

Should probably be up and running by end of this month.

 

[Embrand]

We've just mailed our final application to the registry in Nigeria. The process is a bit lengthy because of the current requirements of sending actual signed paperwork (and all supporting documents) physically to the registry by courier. But, we're on track for this one.

Should probably be up and running by end of this month.

That sounds great. Thanks for the update.

 

[Rob Monster]

Pleased to add Nhi Doan to the Epik team in Vietnam:

https://www.namepros.com/members/nhi-doan.1028436/

Our Vietnamese user base has grown steeply in the last few months.

What else can you expect from Epik in Vietnam?

- .VN direct registry accreditation is in progress.

- Vietnam Content Delivery Network node for fast local local loading

- Vietnamese language coverage for UX and support

Thanks to @franka46 and @Tin Nguyen for teeing this up.

 

[Kassey Lee]

I have a domain profile set up as my default, which includes using Epik parking nameservers. This means domains created or transferred in have default landing pages set up automatically. This feature is handy as I'm moving domains to Epik and sometimes I'm too busy to set up my own landing pages right away. Great feature! Not sure if this default landing page can further be customized.

 

[Rob Monster]

I have a domain profile set up as my default, which includes using Epik parking nameservers. This means domains created or transferred in have default landing pages set up automatically. This feature is handy as I'm moving domains to Epik and sometimes I'm too busy to set up my own landing pages right away. Great feature! Not sure if this default landing page can further be customized.

Yes, Domain Profiles are a nice time-saver fore sure.

Will check with @Ala Dadan about allowing you to save a SSL lander profile and associating that witha default domain profile. Seems reasonable.

 

[NicTraders]

Yes, Domain Profiles are a nice time-saver fore sure.

Will check with @Ala Dadan about allowing you to save a SSL lander profile and associating that witha default domain profile. Seems reasonable.

That would be handy for sure.

 

[NicTraders]

Hey @Rob Monster - any update on whether that new SMS authentication engine (for 2FA) has been implemented yet? Or is it still coming?...

 

[Rob Monster]

Hey @Rob Monster - any update on whether that new SMS authentication engine (for 2FA) has been implemented yet? Or is it still coming?...

Yes live and working like a champ.

 

[Kassey Lee]

Yes, Domain Profiles are a nice time-saver fore sure.

Will check with @Ala Dadan about allowing you to save a SSL lander profile and associating that witha default domain profile. Seems reasonable.

Yes. Great time-saver. Would be an excellent feature if we can customize and then save an SSL lander to be included in our default domain profile to automatically apply to all new or transferred domains.