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.

 

[tonyk2000]

the proper currency can be shown

Yeah, but we may have unexpected side effects as the result. OK, lets forget about exotic currencies like Venezuelian Bolivars where there are different exchange rates for private persons, legal entities, government entities and for banks. Lets speak about Canadian Dollars. All clear, with one exception. The Canadian buyer would reasonably expect to see this exact amount shown (xxxx CAD$) in his credit card statement. Which will likely not be the case. Is Epik able to send charge to cc processing system in other currencies, not in USD? Likely, no. Or, at least, not for all world currencies. So the charge will be in USD, and the buyer will see higher amount of CAD charged (as per his bank exchange rate, and possibly with some extra international purchase / exchange fee in some cases)

 

[tonyk2000]

may have devices configured for a different country

Yes, it is a problem. As well as taking in account javascript output in general (user side VS server side) - not always practical. For domain landing pages, not to overcomplicate the things, it should be enough to analyze what is received by a server, namely - IP, real IP (if proxy is used), and User agent language. So the server would be able to determine the country by IP (to show appropriate language), correct previously selected language in some specific cases (Switzerland - 4 languages actually in use, Canada - 2 languages), and show the price in appropriate numeric format. It is 5,000 in US/UK but 5.000 in many other countries (comma vs point as thousands separator).

 

[karmaco]

Just a comment on NameLiquidate.com. I see you guys lowered the lowest price to a measly $1.00 instead of $9.00. That is going to discourage alot of people from listing. Who wants to sell for a total loss?

 

[tonyk2000]

That is going to discourage alot of people from listing

I, for example, list stuff which I am not going to renew anyway. No expectations of enduser prices Moreover, each domain I listed - if "grabbed" even for $1 (+ transfer fee) - will make me happy . It is really better - another fellow domainer got it, great, less business to hugedomains (I do not want them to become more huge by routinely regging what I drop), less business to pre-release auctions houses (they would otherwise probably sell it without paying even $0.01 to myself the previous owner).
About the maths: If it is not to be renewed, then, technically, any amount is better - $1, $9, $999.
And it works - one man's trash is another's treasure.

 

[Rob Monster]

I, for example, list stuff which I am not going to renew anyway. No expectations of enduser prices Moreover, each domains I listed - if "grabbed" for $1 (+ transfer fee) - will make me happy . It is really better - another fellow domainer got it, great, less business to hugedomains (I do not want them to become more huge by routinely regging what I drop), less business to pre-release auctions houses (they would otherwise probably sell it without paying even $0.01 to myself the previous owner).
About the maths: If it is not to be renewed, then, technically, any amount is better - $1, $9, $999.
And it works - one man's trash is another's treasure.

There are nearly 400 domains in liquidation now. More inventory is coming online, and more bidders are showing up. There will be domains that sell for $1 but a lot more names sell for much higher.

As @tonyk2000 says, this is mainly about making sure domains don't go through the HugeDomains/GD oligopoly, but rather stay in the hands of indy domainers.

 

[tonyk2000]

There are nearly 400 domains in liquidation now.

Anything between 21 years old (Creation Date: 1998) and 1 year old ... Thank you Epik for improving the inventory

 

[NicTraders]

There are nearly 400 domains in liquidation now. More inventory is coming online, and more bidders are showing up. There will be domains that sell for $1 but a lot more names sell for much higher.

As @tonyk2000 says, this is mainly about making sure domains don't go through the HugeDomains/GD oligopoly, but rather stay in the hands of indy domainers.

Rob, a few Q's:
- What % of domains listed on NameLiquidate are actually selling at the current time?
- Can you list an already expired name?
- If your name doesn't sell can you still choose to renew? (And what's the grace period for renewal with Epik?)
Thanks

 

[karmaco]

I, for example, list stuff which I am not going to renew anyway. No expectations of enduser prices Moreover, each domain I listed - if "grabbed" even for $1 (+ transfer fee) - will make me happy . It is really better - another fellow domainer got it, great, less business to hugedomains (I do not want them to become more huge by routinely regging what I drop), less business to pre-release auctions houses (they would otherwise probably sell it without paying even $0.01 to myself the previous owner).
About the maths: If it is not to be renewed, then, technically, any amount is better - $1, $9, $999.
And it works - one man's trash is another's treasure.

I respectfully disagree. I’d rather let it drop than get 90 cents or just renew. The goal should be to liquidate for at least what you paid. I don’t care about huge domains or whoever. The first week the bottom price was $9 and I thought that was fair to both parties. Now I can do far better liquidating here at NP. I thought we were helping domainers not thwarting Huge Domains etc.

 

[Rob Monster]

Rob, a few Q's:
- What % of domains listed on NameLiquidate are actually selling at the current time?
- Can you list an already expired name?
- If your name doesn't sell can you still choose to renew? (And what's the grace period for renewal with Epik?)
Thanks

- Good question on sell-through. We don't have stats there. If folks like the idea of publishing sell-through rates, and list of sold domains, we could do it. However, for sellers they may prefer to keep it under wraps that they picked up their diamond through liquidation auction. Dunno, open to input there.

- Yes, you can list expired domains. As long as the domain is unlocked and has a valid auth code, the auction submission should start.

- If it does not sell, the domain is absolutely still yours as before. You renew it wherever you have it, or start a transfer. You do make a good point though which is we could give folks the option of indicating what to do with the domain if it does not sell, i.e. keep it or drop it. We'll give that a review asap.

 

[NicTraders]

- Good question on sell-through. We don't have stats there. If folks like the idea of publishing sell-through rates, and list of sold domains, we could do it. However, for sellers they may prefer to keep it under wraps that they picked up their diamond through liquidation auction. Dunno, open to input there.

- Yes, you can list expired domains. As long as the domain is unlocked and has a valid auth code, the auction submission should start.

- If it does not sell, the domain is absolutely still yours as before. You renew it wherever you have it, or start a transfer. You do make a good point though which is we could give folks the option of indicating what to do with the domain if it does not sell, i.e. keep it or drop it. We'll give that a review asap.

Thanks Rob.
- I'd be interested in seeing sold listings, or if not specific sold listings it would be interesting to know totals, though that's less valuable data.
Thanks for the info.
P.S. How long is the grace renewal period with Epik?

 

[NicTraders]

@Rob Monster re Backorders @ Epik. I have a domain on b/o and I notice that it says:
DOMAIN EXPIRES ON: N/A
AVAILABILITY DATE : N/A
Perhaps something not quite working right that you might want to look into...
However I see the domain was recently renewed (now expires 2021). The company has gone out of business so I assume it was an auto-renewal. Anyway, not sure if the fact that it has been renewed makes those dates N/A, or if that's an issue.
Cheers.

 

[Rob Monster]

@Rob Monster re Backorders @ Epik. I have a domain on b/o and I notice that it says:
DOMAIN EXPIRES ON: N/A
AVAILABILITY DATE : N/A
Perhaps something not quite working right that you might want to look into...
However I see the domain was recently renewed (now expires 2021). The company has gone out of business so I assume it was an auto-renewal. Anyway, not sure if the fact that it has been renewed makes those dates N/A, or if that's an issue.
Cheers.

As discussed, this domain has no imminent or projectable drop-date.


<domain omitted>

Registry Domain ID: 3159703_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN

Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.gandi.net

Registrar URL: http://www.gandi.net

Updated Date: 2019-12-18T20:47:06Z

Creation Date: 1999-01-22T05:00:00Z

Registry Expiry Date: 2021-01-22T05:00:00Z

Registrar: Gandi SAS

Registrar IANA ID: 81

Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]

Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +33.170377661

Domain Status: ok https://icann.org/epp#ok

Name Server: NS-1491.AWSDNS-58.ORG

Name Server: NS-1775.AWSDNS-29.CO.UK

Name Server: NS-276.AWSDNS-34.COM

Name Server: NS-621.AWSDNS-13.NET

 

[NicTraders]

Yeah, I understand. Previous expiry was 22 Jan this year. And it is for a company that I know has gone out of business. But when I checked today the expiry has moved to next year. So I am guessing an auto renew was triggered and their credit card still worked. Or something like that.
Anyway, just thought I'd check whether that was the expected behaviour on your backorder entry or whether there should have been data there. Doesn't worry me as I can check whois, just thought I'd mention it. Thx

 

[Rob Monster]

Yeah, I understand. Previous expiry was 22 Jan this year. And it is for a company that I know has gone out of business. But when I checked today the expiry has moved to next year. So I am guessing an auto renew was triggered and their credit card still worked. Or something like that.
Anyway, just thought I'd check whether that was the expected behaviour on your backorder entry or whether there should have been data there. Doesn't worry me as I can check whois, just thought I'd mention it. Thx

@vitigo will have a look but in the meantime, safe to say no imminent drop.

 

[NicTraders]

@vitigo will have a look but in the meantime, safe to say no imminent drop.

Yep, for sure, no worries. Thx

 

[BharatR]

We'll take a look this week at how to force a currency default versus having the system guess the user's currency based on GEO IP.

@vitigo

Thanks please get it done, i was planning to move my portfolio to epik from dan but this is a hindrance.

 

[Rob Monster]

Thanks please get it done, i was planning to move my portfolio to epik from dan but this is a hindrance.

Yup got it, engineers are working on it already.

Plus we got some other great feedback from another domain investor, @BuyBrandWeb.com:

1. I'm not a great fan of pop-up boxes and some browsers block pop-ups. It would be great if you place contact us form instead of 'make an offer' pop-up
2. TrustRatings.com's link should be placed anywhere in the footer or below the body, but not on the top
3. Give an ability to add BIN to other registrars domains
4. Offer and counteroffer mechanism should for registrars domains like DAN
5. Move currency droplist beside the BIN like DomainMarket
6. Setup a catch-all email to Epik hosted landing pages!
7. Share the interested parties who initiated a checkout(BIN), but not paid like Escrow ( Agreed terms and conditions, selected a payment option, waiting for the funds, paid)

So these are also being implemented unless others object strongly.

On #3 this currently for anyone whose account is approved for it. We are considering to enable this for everyone.

Anyway, this is another good example of co-creation -- where a few demanding, sophisticated stakeholders help direct development in real-time with the result being a better product for everyone.

@vitigo @Ala Dadan

 

[Rob Monster]

Quick update:

- Selling non-Epik domains is now enabled on all Epik accounts -- this used to require approval but now we have a tight workflow for tracking sales sold on external registrars so we lifted that requirement.

- Some big updates are coming to NameLiquidate.com including scheduled proxy bidding. Also, one click submission of domains to NameLiquidate right from Epik domain manager comes TOMORROW:

- NameInvestors.com, the widget dashboard developed by @Gube is an under-discovered gem. Ask @JudgeMind how much he loves it.

- Some Epik staff are buying domains at auction lately, which I support and encourage. We only host Dutch auctions so there is no shill bidding possible. They will often pay in Masterbucks which are redeemable.

 

[BuyBrandWeb.com]

Yup got it, engineers are working on it already.

Plus we got some other great feedback from another domain investor, @BuyBrandWeb.com:

1. I'm not a great fan of pop-up boxes and some browsers block pop-ups. It would be great if you place contact us form instead of 'make an offer' pop-up
2. TrustRatings.com's link should be placed anywhere in the footer or below the body, but not on the top
3. Give an ability to add BIN to other registrars domains
4. Offer and counteroffer mechanism should for registrars domains like DAN
5. Move currency droplist beside the BIN like DomainMarket
6. Setup a catch-all email to Epik hosted landing pages!
7. Share the interested parties who initiated a checkout(BIN), but not paid like Escrow ( Agreed terms and conditions, selected a payment option, waiting for the funds, paid)

@vitigo @Ala Dadan

Thanks, @Rob Monster.

It would be great if you design a special dashboard for Epik Marketplace with a number of inquiries received in the last one month, 6 months, or a year and for sold names. Display domain name with leads (mention multiple leads with the date those were inquired)

 

[Rob Monster]

Thanks, @Rob Monster.

It would be great if you design a special dashboard for Epik Marketplace with a number of inquiries received in the last one month, 6 months, or a year and for sold names. Display domain name with leads (mention multiple leads with the date those were inquired)

We'll take a look. Feel free to email any design input there. Your instincts are good.