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.

 

[Haris]

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

 

[Kassey Lee]

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

Same experience.

 

[Rob Monster]

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

We now have 25 Chat agents on the team. Our Asia Pacific team has added 3 new Chat agents in the last week so you might some new faces during the Asia daytime. These are all lovely people whose job is Client Services and who work seamlessly. Raj is a long-time Epik staff member, like @Jess Robison who also happens to know many of the engineering team and has a high sense of urgency to address customer questions, including the hard ones that others might "escalate" but not "amplify".

 

[dirk]

@Rob Monster

Something going on with your backordering service? I just handregged a domain at Epik that I had under backorder on Epik.

I randomly checked if it already dropped a moment ago and found it sitting available.

Edit: it's a .org. backorder availability status shows as N/A.

 

[Rob Monster]

@Rob Monster

Something going on with your backordering service? I just handregged a domain at Epik that I had under backorder on Epik.

I randomly checked if it already dropped a moment ago and found it sitting available.

It depends on the TLD. PM with details and we'll have a look. Upgrading of ccTLD backordering systems is on the Monday engineering agenda, for example. Historically the action for backorders was overwhelmingly .COM but now we see a lot more action with .ORG and .CO.

Happy to review the specific case and see what might be the issue. The core backorder services, e.g. for .COM are working great and some folks are having 50% catch rates by focusing on second and third tier names, and often getting them for just the $8.49 reg fee.

However, yes, we do have work to do in the ccTLDs.

 

[dirk]

It depends on the TLD. PM with details and we'll have a look. Upgrading of ccTLD backordering systems is on the Monday engineering agenda, for example. Historically the action for backorders was overwhelmingly .COM but now we see a lot more action with .ORG and .CO.

Happy to review the specific case and see what might be the issue. The core backorder services, e.g. for .COM are working great and some folks are having 50% catch rates by focusing on second and third tier names, and often getting them for just the $8.49 reg fee.

However, yes, we do have work to do in the ccTLDs.

Thanks for the info. It was a .org. it's sitting safely in my account now so that's good .

I'll send you details later on. No need to hurry but just in case there are some glitches you guys can review it.

Yeah, on ccTLDs backorders it will be hard to compete with the competition.

 

[DN Universal]

Rob,

Why is there a lag of 2 days+ for whois count and parking visit count? Cannot it be done with a lag of 4/6 hours?

I think @Rob Monster may have accidentally missed seeing this valid question...

 

[Rob Monster]

I think @Rob Monster may have accidentally missed seeing this valid question...

Actually, not missed. Waiting for engineering to report back. It is a reasonable question. There are a few moving parts because we are also releasing WHOQ.com -- for WHOIS ownership verification and related services for overcoming GDPR-related challenges with getting to the verifiable owner of a name.

 

[DN Universal]

Actually, not missed. Waiting for engineering to report back. It is a reasonable question. There are a few moving parts because we are also releasing WHOQ.com -- for WHOIS ownership verification and related services for overcoming GDPR-related challenges with getting to the verifiable owner of a name.[/

I completely understand Rob. It's nice to see that you are still working behind the scenes to resolve this issue. Even when we think you may have overlooked something, it's nice to see that you are always on the job...

 

[DN Universal]

I completely understand Rob. It's nice to see that you are still working behind the scenes to resolve this issue. Even when we think you may have overlooked something, it's nice to see that you are always on the job...

 

[Rob Monster]

I completely understand Rob. It's nice to see that you are still working behind the scenes to resolve this issue. Even when we think you may have overlooked something, it's nice to see that you are always on the job...

Thanks, just not wanting to clutter the thread with noise. I can tell you for sure that the engineering team is working at full power knocking out some really useful core initiatives while also responding to the steady flow of (usually) helpful suggestions from a growing network of increasingly sophisticated clients. We'll have some news this week. In the meantime, look out for $1.99 .CO promo starting Tuesday.

 

[Kassey Lee]

@Rob Monster I mentioned it before. Does Afternic have any plan to extend the feature of listing from within Godaddy account to Epik and other registrars? Being able to list and manage our Afternic listings right from within our Epik account will greatly save our time.

 

[Rob Monster]

@Rob Monster I mentioned it before. Does Afternic have any plan to extend the feature of listing from within Godaddy account to Epik and other registrars? Being able to list and manage our Afternic listings right from within our Epik account will greatly save our time.

If you will allow us to manage your inquiries, we have a solution for you now, which is we list your domains in a master Afternic account and compare inquiries against what is authorized to sell. Afternic still takes their 20% but it is pretty turn-key.

It is relatively easy to work with Afternic/Godaddy to sell their inventory through their MLS, including fast-transfer. We support that part and also give verified customers the ability to buy Afternic and Sedo MLS inventory without markup.

It is relatively harder to work with Afternic to programatically add inventory on behalf of a customer account. You would think that would be an obvious API integration but in fact not so much. So the solution is to manage those listings on behalf of the client.

The managed service is described here:

https://www.epik.com/manage/

That is what we have today. Programatically adding and removing domains from your own Afternic account is possible but would require you to save your Afternic login within Epik and then we manage the update as your proxy. This is not automated yet.

I am not aware of any software that allows you to save once and list everywhere. We'll see who gets there first with a robust system. I believe we are the furthest along there and in the meantime are able to do it as a professional service as your proxy.

Hope that helps.

 

[Abdillahi Abdillahi]

If you will allow us to manage your inquiries, we have a solution for you now, which is we list your domains in a master Afternic account and compare inquiries against what is authorized to sell. Afternic still takes their 20% but it is pretty turn-key.

It is relatively easy to work with Afternic/Godaddy to sell their inventory through their MLS, including fast-transfer. We support that part and also give verified customers the ability to buy Afternic and Sedo MLS inventory without markup.

It is relatively harder to work with Afternic to programatically add inventory on behalf of a customer account. You would think that would be an obvious API integration but in fact not so much. So the solution is to manage those listings on behalf of the client.

The managed service is described here:

https://www.epik.com/manage/

That is what we have today. Programatically adding and removing domains from your own Afternic account is possible but would require you to save your Afternic login within Epik and then we manage the update as your proxy. This is not automated yet.

I am not aware of any software that allows you to save once and list everywhere. We'll see who gets there first with a robust system. I believe we are the furthest along there and in the meantime are able to do it as a professional service as your proxy.

Hope that helps.

If you list then who gets paid? Epik then it pays the seller? How does it work? What is the main benefit?

 

[Rob Monster]

If you list then who gets paid? Epik then it pays the seller? How does it work? What is the main benefit?

Epik gets paid and then we pay out. We do the same with PPC parking -- we are a proxy for Voodoo. It has worked well for years. With PPC parking we do daily payout.

The main benefit would be:

1. Convenience -- easy management of inventory and management of after-market listings.

2. Payment processing - We can pay out flexibly, e.g. not just wire but also BTC, Western Union, etc.

3. Liquidity - If a sale is pending, we can do advances or loans for a known pending liquidity event.

I could see a bunch of reasons why folks would do it.

 

[Abdillahi Abdillahi]

Epik gets paid and then we pay out. We do the same with PPC parking -- we are a proxy for Voodoo. It has worked well for years. With PPC parking we do daily payout.

The main benefit would be:

1. Convenience -- easy management of inventory and management of after-market listings.

2. Payment processing - We can pay out flexibly, e.g. not just wire but also BTC, Western Union, etc.

3. Liquidity - If a sale is pending, we can do advances or loans for a known pending liquidity event.

I could see a bunch of reasons why folks would do it.

Thanks sounds good. You mentioned Afternic gets their 20% so what does Epik get from offering this service?

 

[Rob Monster]

Thanks sounds good. You mentioned Afternic gets their 20% so what does Epik get from offering this service?

We actually treat it like escrow:

- The domain owner is the seller
- Afternic is the buyer
- Epik is the broker and escrow agent.

The fee is 1.5% plus whatever fees we incur relaying funds outbound at time of disbursement.

We are simply serving as the seller's proxy for domains that are either at Epik and for which we are confident that the asset being sold is safe to sell.

 

[Abdillahi Abdillahi]

We actually treat it like escrow:

- The domain owner is the seller
- Afternic is the buyer
- Epik is the broker and escrow agent.

The fee is 1.5% plus whatever fees we incur relaying funds outbound at time of disbursement.

We are simply serving as the seller's proxy for domains that are either at Epik and for which we are confident that the asset being sold is safe to sell.

So the seller has to pay Epik's commission in addition to Afternic's?

 

[frank-germany]

So the seller has to pay Epik's commission in addition to Afternic's?

epik has to earn money
you all love epik/Rob

so that shouldn't be a problem

 

[Rob Monster]

So the seller has to pay Epik's commission in addition to Afternic's?

Our fee is 1.5%. Chump change.

We would do it as a courtesy to Epik customers who already work with Epik.

It is a value-added professional service similar to:

- Free fairness opinions
- Commission-free escrow
- Free SSL landing pages.
- Etc.

In other words, when it comes to value-added, if it can be free, it will be free.

However, when it comes to Afternic, there are always non-automatable human touchpoints and there is a low-level fraud risk that has to be managed.

The good news is that we are only tolling exits. When it comes to domainers, we lose money or break even on the costs that lead up to the exit. We toll the exit but usually add value.

And for folks who need help closing deals, I am pretty sure that we more than offset our fee by helping sellers achieve larger exits than they would have perhaps achieved on their own.