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.

 

[equity78]

Good idea. Thanks. Just transferred another small batch of domains to Epik. Smooth process.

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.

 

[Rob Monster]

We bought the back cover of the NamesCon program guide. What do folks think of this advertisement?

We need to finalize it today but still can make some edits if folks spot something important.

Thanks for co-creating!

@Ala Dadan

 

[GoKaizen]

My transfers in and out of Epik have always been smooth @Jessica T.

 

[Rob Monster]

Just wanted to discuss my latest Epik experience

Yesterday I had reason to contact Epik's customer services/support help line
For reasons attributable entirely to my own stupidity I could not access my account there
I wanted to resolve my problem quickly so I called in as opposed to submitting a written support ticket
I was placed on hold for a few moments after which a gentleman came on the phone saying "Hi welcome to Epik how can I help you today? I explained my situation and dilemma which for the sake of brevity I won't go into all the details of here other than to say that my partcular situation was a tad complicated!
At any rate I found the customer services representative that took my call to be exceptionally polite, completely understanding of my situation, and super accommodating in addressing my situation and needs. The CS rep went above and beyond in addressing my situation and I was actually relieved at how smoothly things had gone. If I had encountered this very same problem at any number of other registrars it would have been an absolute nightmare. This guy saved me a ton of grief, he really did. In fact he was so good that I said to him afterwards

You did a really great job for me and I really appreciate it. I would like to repay your efforts by providing your superiors with some positive feedback regarding the exemplary effort you put forth for me here today! Would you mind giving your name.

The voice at the other end said: My name is Rob Monster

Which other registrar do you know where the CEO mans the help lines Thursday afternoons? I have to say, I am blown away by this guys commitment and dedication. When a train starts running like that it is hard to stop.

I have been in this space a long time and have never been afraid to criticize what I believed to be shoddy work. By that same token I feel compelled to recognize service that goes above and beyond when I get it which doesn't happen nearly often enough but it did happen yesterday and the person behind that service was Rob Monster @ Epik.com

Thank you again Rob, really appreciated your assistance it was indeed EPIK

Thanks @domaintrader. Enjoyed the chat.

I don't normally take the support calls these days but yesterday was @BrookeUnderwood's birthday so she took the day off. I ended up getting added to the phone queue to help with calls. I used to do it all the time, but lately there is less time for it.

We ended up taking for more than 90 minutes. Good times. Glad to have you coming to Epik. Thanks in advance for helping keep the bar high for service excellence!

 

[jberryhill]

You can follow the progression of key letters

"Key letters"? Nonsense. It's your right to publish whatever one-sided screed you want, but the page is notable for the absence of any communication from Paypal.

I can say with certainty, having been the compliance backstop for a major registrar for several years, that inquiries from financial service providers about particular transactions are common. If you are handling, say, a time-structured purchase which involves repeated sub-$10k transactions involving a foreign entity, then, yeah, that is going to trigger an inquiry because it looks like structuring a transaction to avoid SARS reports.

And, yeah, once in a while, someone gets arrested and it turns out that they had some domain names and thus had records of transactions with a registrar. Law enforcement will typically ask questions about those sorts of transactions with the merchant and the payment processor. Getting combative, taking sides, or engaging in "philosophies", is not the role of neutral service provider in those circumstances.

There is zero, zero, justification for publishing spreadsheets of Paypal and GoDaddy employee email addresses and direct telephone numbers as an invitation to targeted harassment of them. You falsely label a roster of relatively low-level employees as "Executive Contacts". That is a lie. Don't even bother with whatever ridiculous rationalization you have for that stunt.

Like, "Oh, I'm curious to know what this is about. I guess I'll call someone at Paypal with the title of 'Director, Api Product' using their direct number who, I'm sure, knows all about this."

Despicable.

Someone who is, as noted in the Paypal spreadsheet, a user-interface designer or marketing manager is not a contact person for "interviews" on a legal matter at Paypal. You know that. Any adult knows that. Paypal has published contacts for "interviews" by legitimate media.

 

[Silentptnr]

I find it ironic how the very people who preach love and understanding to rationalize acceptance of hatred, anti-semitism, and racism, turn into aggressive, stop at nothing, scorched earth victims when they feel they have been treated unfairly.

Just saying.

The statements publicly posted do not reflect what Rob has said. Quite the contrary.

I guess it's different when others ignore THEIR perspective. Where's the love and understanding now?

And I mean this with love.

 

[Silentptnr]

I must say....the communications from Epik are not professional. Off subject, but even some domain email notifications are poorly composed. Not polished.

I'm not sure what's going on. I use Epik and have maybe 100 names there despite my personal feelings about the company's trajectory based on its business decisions.

Chasing so many concepts before perfecting the core, aligning and publicly defending bad actors, and slowly losing important mainstream relationships. Its a disaster. In most organizations heads would roll internally over this level of inefficiency.

This is completely unacceptable from a business perspective.

 

[Michael]

Don't want to hijack the thread, but PayPal just banned us in the same way...

https://namebio.com/blog/namebio-among-latest-round-of-paypal-bans/

Both NameBio and my personal account. Maybe Adam's too, I haven't heard from him yet.

Edit: explanation a couple posts down.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I know this has been brought up before, but why was the interface for entering prices changed, now quite some time ago, so that if you enter for example 988 it sets the price at $9.88? Surely this is prone to errors. Does anyone really need to enter domain prices in pennies?

Perhaps it was related to the payment options, but there too I would prefer to round up to the nearest dollar on monthly payments. The current system of for example $112.56 CDN per month runs out of the box and looks ugly. Set your currency to something like CDN to see for yourself.

i like Epik, especially love the lander and payment plan flexibility and NameLiquidate, but have tried for my life and can think of no justification for requiring people to enter 129500 if they want to sell a domain name for $1295. As far as I can see you are alone in the domain world in doing it this way. No, this message was not prompted by me selling something for 1/100 its price, but I hate the extra effort to make sure it does not happen each time, and some day I will slip up and it will happen.

Thanks for considering my advice.

Bob

 

[rumevic]

Thank you to Epik for today's very quick sale and deposit into my bank account. I sold domain via Epik lander/marketplace, a buyer from Germany made offer, I accepted and promptly (within 15 minutes) got message that my domain was purchased and money deposited to my MasterBucks account. When a bit later partially withdrawing money, I did not find Zelle option anymore and thought ACH deposit (into my bank account) would be at least 1-2 day process, but I guess, within less than an hour I saw money available in my bank account. Very satisfied.
Last ~four months I see sales happening via Epik landing pages/Marketplace (screenshot attached below).
Thanks Epik Team!

 

[timestamp]

Could you tell us what did you do about security? You know, hackers and stuff.

 

[Rob Monster]

Sound like a great platform and very good points Rob. Congrats.

A problem is to get on Godaddy and Afternic premium network for wider exposure and get fast transfer status (which I think is important, but not too sure about it) you must have a buy it now price (maximum 25k BIN).

Actually Epik is on Sedo and Afternic MLS and authorized for fast-transfer.

Here is how I would play this game:

1. List the domains at Epik with Make Offer. Swing for the fences. I would use our parking landers if you want verified stats and/or the ability to display leasing options.

2. List the domains at Sedo and Afternic with BIN pricing. If someone searches for these domains, we'll still see those prices through our system. However, parking landers will show Make Offer not BIN!

I think that is a pretty elegant combo solution that gives maximum liquidity without sacrificing upside.

 

[DanSanchez]

Another successful transaction with Epik Marketplace, the buyer is extremely happy and I was expedited crypto payout the same HOUR. It's been a slow few months for sales, this helps tremendously. The SSL landers are worth their bits in coin, buyer had no issues navigating and making payment. Rob as usual, goes above and beyond for us, I am very grateful for his service.

It's a Saturday afternoon, for anyone reading this after the fact.

Totally unheard of in this industry to encounter a company this dedicated to adding value, true value!

 

[Rob Monster]

Do you want to know what warms my heart?

I love seeing folks from places like Nigeria picking up $5.99 .com domains on the drop and flipping those domains for hundreds or thousands of dollars a few days later.

That is pure capitalism that allows local entrepreneurs to bootstrap wealth and financial independence for themselves, their families and their communities.

And you know what? I get to see it just about every day. It is probably the coolest thing about my job. Love that!

 

[Rob Monster]

so, i suppose no one wants to be notified when/if his Epik account is pwned...
no problem, we'll get a "transferred out" email after the point of no return is already passed, why bother

can Epik and @Rob Monster please comment on this too

i personally do not feel safe enough unless i get those emails immediately after my acc been accessed

i would def not keep my most valuable names with the registrar which does not offer this dead simple security feature (Namesilo )


Show attachment 138265

@Gube gave a a good answer on this one already. As far as I know, we do have the most compete security solution of the industry. That being said, the idea of being able to be notified when your account is accessed is a reasonable request. So, we'll discuss with @vitigo about adding an alert where you can choose between SMS and email for receiving an alert. It is not the best security feature but fine to add it for peace of mind of those who find such access alerts to be useful. If folks agree this feature is useful, press LIKE on either 4pm's post or this post. If there are 10 likes for that feature, we'll see if we can add it next week.

 

[Rob Monster]

not sure if it's a right place to ask but anyway...

Epik has 25+ representatives here on NP (excluding @Rob Monster) proudly wearing this badge:

Show attachment 138685
​

Source: this section of NP Member directory


Most of them though are freshly regged in 2019 accounts with 0-20 posts.
None has their role at Epik clearly indicated, if any.

Who are these random people from random countries?


Show attachment 138684

just curious..

Great question and totally appropriate.

They should probably be more methodical about introducing themselves or updating their profile pages so that their Epik roles are more obvious. I will relay that feedback. We can and should make it easier to find the right person within Epik!

As for who they are, ICYMI, we have been hiring 2-3 people per week. This is partly a result of announcing the openings for hiring of staff here:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/hi...ct-managers-and-executive-leadership.1162639/

Last night, we announced internally two more Epik hires who are also NP members:

@DnFolk - Also known as "Vicky", joined as Product Manager from India to work on our next-generated Digital Assets Marketplace where people can sell, lease, finance and manage bundled solutions comprised of any combination of domain, hosting, social handles, and software assets.

@DAMILOLA OYEWALE - Also known as "Paul", joined as Brand Ambassador for Africa. He is based in Nigeria. His emphasis is on social media and market education following the recent relaunch of DomainGraduate.com.

To the casual observer it might seem random, but if you read the hiring plan outlined in the above post, it is not so random.

 

[JoeCanadian]

Moved most of my domains over to Epik on the Black Friday sale. Just had my first sale off an Epik landing page for a cool $1999. Everything worked quickly for both buyer and seller. Domain already points to another site.

 

[Blitzpotz]

We bought the back cover of the NamesCon program guide. What do folks think of this advertisement?

Germans like to criticize, so thanks for the occasion:

• Overall impression is good
• Epik brands are placed well, very visible, but not too dominant which is good - I disagree here with Tony.
• I would prefer "Websecurity" against "Landers". (Landers reads to me like Normandy 1944)
  
• The stadium will be a welcome target for your opponents. It is disrepair. Is this Epik? Is this the future of domaining?
• The model is an unknown Northafrican guy, isn´t it? If you go for Nigeria here then take a Nigerian athlete. If you advertize in the US, take a (black) US runner, they have enough top athletes.
• The model is well worked-out. But for a sprinter his muscles are not enough, for the long-haul they are too much.
• First view the watch, is it a co-sponsor? Whatever, runners do not wear luxury watches during their competition. They may wear smart watches or fitness gadgets but probably are not allowed by the rules (Yes always the rules.).
• The runner´s dress looks like underwear.
• Shoes are ok - co-sponsor? However they are Leisure jogging shoes but this is not so important.
  
• Photo in general seems to be underexposed. Too many shadows on the runners - anyway dark - body.

 

[Rob Monster]

I owe a big thanks to @Lox. He not only conceived a better concept but his graphics assistant delivered a finished product for distribution to the printer.

I also owe a big thanks to @Blitzpotz for preventing us from going to press with the wrong creative. The grittier creative works great for instagram but for this print project it was the wrong one.

The term "Co-creation" is an inadequate word, So, I will just convey a giant THANKS.

 

[Haris]

Just wanted to say that Raj of Epik live chat support is awesome at his job. Fast and always helpful.

 

[Rob Monster]

Big update coming to the Epik Dashboard from @Ala Dadan .

Check it out:

https://invis.io/RPW33ME5HVC

I also want that dashboard to load FAST.

Feedback welcome.

 

[Ategy]

What would be benefit of adding external domains to epik? So someone can see my portfolio? Yes it makes transfers easier also i can see price of transfer with couple clicks

As far as I know the only "tangible" reason would be to use their landers or to put your domain for sale in their marketplace or nameliquidate (all very good reasons btw). Obviously some people like to have it listed there to help them keep organised, but if you already have your own system then you have your own system.

Another epik experience, i sent someone masterbucks, username example666, when i get notification example666 received masterbucks it displays their username and email which is unnecessary, maybe people for security reasons have an email for epik login that is used nowhere else.
If i use email [email protected] only for epik login i dont want anyone else knowing that. So sending masterbucks peer to peer exposes receivers email to sender. Receiving party cant see masterbucks senders email just username.

That's a pretty serious one they should get to sooner than later. Probably the result of using or copy/pasting one email template that was there for something else.

As Epik grows more and more and add ever more cool features, they need to be very careful about "creeping issues" with automation and communications. GoDaddy's platform did not become the disaster it is today over night. It was because of years and years of adding features and not doing proper audits about how those things affect existing systems. Seriously .. someone needs to take GoDaddy's platform out behind the barn and put it out of it's misery! But at least their platform can be useful as standing as a big warning to growing registrars like Epik about the importance of going back to check every single feature after each upgrade. It's tedious and painfully redundant .. but I seriously can't under-stress how horrible GoDaddy's platform is with all sort of little things in the same vain as this. So Epik crew .. be very very aware of this potential longer term issue and prepare for it now so you don't become GoDaddy in 5 years!

 

[golan]

I've noticed that the landing page is capitalizing bad the names. For example, I listed for sale PuraMoney dot com and It shows it as PuRamoneY dot com

Check this one:

https://www.epik.com/support/knowledgebase/adding-or-modifying-domain-transform-and-keywords/

This is what i also noticed. But Rob, why can't you just process the import of domains with their capitalizing as is? Now i'm making all my domains lowercase in bulk, but there's no chance that i go over 1,5k names and fix them manually. Should be some easy way like export-fix-import .csv. (There is a support ticket with this case)

 

[Josh R]

Stopped by to say that @Rob Monster and @epik has been very supportive of what we're doing at DNWE.

Our Epik experience is certainly a positive one so far.

Keep up the good work.

 

[NicTraders]

No it wasn't. Just being an emotional client There's a lot of people getting fed up with all this bullcrap.

I always try to look at the positive in people/companies and I have respect for a lot of things Epik has done and accomplished but the way they have been handling themselves recently is something I cannot get behind. Read between the lines and there's so much aggression and hostility. It baffles me.

Hey Gents, There is a way to solve it. Don't read the other stuff they're carrying on with. To be honest I don't even know what you're talking about, or where it's happening. So it's a non-issue for me. Now I realise you can't unsee whatever has gone on before, but really you can choose not to read any more pretty easily. I remember there was a "What's going on with Rob Monster" thread once. After the first few pages I stopped following as it was just the same people regurgitating the same opinions. I know - it's a bit like everyone slowing down to gawk at a car crash - lots of people do it. But I've tried my best to choose that if something on NP doesn't add anything to my domaining then I just don't read it. Since I am pretty well committed to the Epik platform I follow this thread, and several others. But all that other stuff I can leave that. Anyway, I think it would be good if you could stick around @Grilled, but I totally understand if you've made the decision to leave.

P.S. I am not trying to inflame the situation in any way, just trying to suggest a way whereby you could enjoy the Epik platform without having to take on the burden of all that political stuff that some people carry on with.