Discuss your Epik Experience!

[Dandelion]

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]

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.

Agree to disagree there.

Keep in mind that TrustPilot wanted $6000 per year to do this for Epik.com alone and would not let us put it on SSL landers. That's the point.

Dan.com is doing this too. See here:

http://decallab.com/

What do you see there?

1. No SSL certificate

2. A trust pilot seal that is (probably) not supposed to be there. The badge in the upper is a static image and not a followable link.

Epik has the more sustainable approach if you ask me. We disagreed with TrustPilot's policies and pricing model and instead set up our own solution and company to pursue it.

We did this for Anonymize.com too when ICANN told us that the registrar could not be the WHOIS privacy proxy. Anonymize, Inc is an ICANN-compliant solution to their policy.

Sometimes, you just have to think outside of the box.

 

[DomainBanana]

Seeing TrustPilot on DAN is one of the things that made the DAN landers attractive to me (that badge in the upper right is an active link, by the way).

I'm familiar with TrustPilot. I've used TrustPilot. And I know they won't sell out if someone writes a review that a company doesn't like because they have no ownership conflicts.

What's the point of a trust site that no one can trust?

Good luck

 

[NickB]

I have personally removed the trust rating from most of my landers - need to do the rest.

You have the option not to have it on there. I personally do not like it, but it is an option for the domain owner whether to use it or not....nice to have that control.....

 

[Rob Monster]

Seeing TrustPilot on DAN is one of the things that made the DAN landers attractive to me (that badge in the upper right is an active link, by the way).

I'm familiar with TrustPilot. I've used TrustPilot. And I know they won't sell out if someone writes a review that a company doesn't like because they have no ownership conflicts.

What's the point of a trust site that no one can trust?

Good luck

Well, trust is earned, not conferred. So, we'll work to earn trust. We manage domain portfolios worth hundreds of millions of dollars. People do trust us not lose them, and to help them use them when they need to do so. Sometimes that means going the extra mile for people. We have done that many times.

Surely you have figured out by now that I am reasonably capable of breathing life into new ventures. I choose to do this within the context of Epik Holdings as a diversified capital structure, but the principles of providing value for money, and being governed by principles is quite demonstrated.

 

[DomainBanana]

I'm not attacking you or your business acumen, Rob. Your work at Epik is admirable.

I'm just questioning the validity of TrustRatings until it is wholly independent from Epik.

Good luck

 

[Rob Monster]

I have personally removed the trust rating from most of my landers - need to do the rest.

You have the option not to have it on there. I personally do not like it, but it is an option for the domain owner whether to use it or not....nice to have that control.....

Yes, good reminder. Much of the lander is now fully configurable. See in the configuration dialog -- at the bottom:

 

[Cal2]

Review sites on TrustPilot, starting with 1.5 star rating, then 1.8 star rating, jumping to 4.5, 3.5, 4.3. Which to believe:

https://www.google.com/search?sourc.........0....1..gws-wiz.......0i131.MQcyWXnxDhc

 

[Kassey Lee]

If you have domains you are planning to not renew somewhere, I recommend to add them to the Epik marketplace and price them under $79

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

 

[Rob Monster]

Review sites on TrustPilot, starting with 1.5 star rating, then 1.8 star rating, jumping to 4.5, 3.5, 4.3. Which to believe:

https://www.google.com/search?sourc.........0....1..gws-wiz.......0i131.MQcyWXnxDhc

That is a brilliant customer acquisition strategy. If it works, I owe you a bounty. Thank you for co-creating.

@DomainGraduate

 

[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]

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

 

[Dandelion]

@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

 

[Optimal Names]

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.

 

[Optimal Names]

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!