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.

 

[Name Trader]

Could someone post the top 10 backorder services and how many servers they have hitting the .com registry? Not 100% related to Epik. But it would be helpful to see how Epik ranks among the top dropcatchers.

 

[eternaldomains]

Been waiting for a day since the stated day to get my domain out. Live chat support talks like a friggin robot pointing me to everything else. My buyer is hounding me for it. Can't I get my auth code already FFS??

 

[Name Trader]

Show attachment 203894
Been waiting for a day since the stated day to get my domain out. Live chat support talks like a friggin robot pointing me to everything else. My buyer is hounding me for it. Can't I get my auth code already FFS??

Up until maybe a week ago. They released the domains on the date stated. But since then they had added approx 2 days to the release date, without changing the day it will be released. So your domain should be released within 24hrs. Nothing to panic about. And you won't ever get a reason why from anybody in support. Tell you customer to calm down as well

 

[Name Trader]

I've started a trial over the next 4 days contrasting Epik Dropcatching and SAV Dropcatching. There are some nuances between them. At Epik, unless you are the first to order the backorder, your backorder is toast, if they catch the domain. The first bidder wins the domain. No auction. If there are 2 bidders at SAV it goes to a 10 day auction. Probably not applicable in most cases (nobody else wants my domains) You pay up front with Epik, you only pay for domains you win at SAV.

So for me. This is a straight out fight between Epik & SAV Dropcatching. There are 6 domains ordered at both Epik & SAV. It's only a small sample. But it should be enough to be conclusive or inconclusive

I actually like the fact at Epik, that if you are the first backorderer, you will win the domain outright. I am the first backorderer for all 6 domains. I think its worth a lot. It's probably the same at SAV too, no other backorderers. I'm not keen on going to auctions for 10 days. Which I don't think will happen.

So the real test here is who is the fastest to catch these domains All .coms between 6-11 chars long, 2 keywords/initials.

Neither Registrar would I want to keep my domains at though. From the few domains I have at each.

 

[dirk]

I've started a trial over the next 4 days contrasting Epik Dropcatching and SAV Dropcatching. There are some nuances between them. At Epik, unless you are the first to order the backorder, your backorder is toast, if they catch the domain. The first bidder wins the domain. No auction. If there are 2 bidders at SAV it goes to a 10 day auction. Probably not applicable in most cases (nobody else wants my domains) You pay up front with Epik, you only pay for domains you win at SAV.

So for me. This is a straight out fight between Epik & SAV Dropcatching. There are 6 domains ordered at both Epik & SAV. It's only a small sample. But it should be enough to be conclusive or inconclusive

I actually like the fact at Epik, that if you are the first backorderer, you will win the domain outright. I am the first backorderer for all 6 domains. I think its worth a lot. It's probably the same at SAV too, no other backorderers. I'm not keen on going to auctions for 10 days. Which I don't think will happen.

So the real test here is who is the fastest to catch these domains All .coms between 6-11 chars long, 2 keywords/initials.

Neither Registrar would I want to keep my domains at though. From the few domains I have at each.

Nice! Do keep us posted.

 

[Name Trader]

Nice! Do keep us posted.

OK. First blood goes to SAV. They picked up both domains expiring today. 4 domains still outstanding on this test.

 

[dirk]

OK. First blood goes to SAV. They picked up both domains expiring today. 4 domains still outstanding on this test.

Doesn't surprise me since they added a lot of registrars for dropcatching as of late. Most important, you got 2 of the domains you were after, congrats

 

[Name Trader]

Doesn't surprise me since they added a lot of registrars for dropcatching as of late. Most important, you got 2 of the domains you were after, congrats

Do you have any idea of the number of servers both Epik & SAV use for dropcatching?

 

[xyo]

Do you have any idea of the number of servers both Epik & SAV use for dropcatching?

Epik only uses its single own accreditation for dropcatching. Once or twice I beat them with my own API based catching-scripts (using multiple registrars). Though that was the exception

 

[Name Trader]

Epik only uses its single own accreditation for dropcatching. Once or twice I beat them with my own API based catching-scripts (using multiple registrars). Though that was the exception

OK. Then clearly my pick-up domains at Epik were all caught from that single server, which probably explains also why they didn't catch everything I've backordered. So far it's 2 out of 2 at SAV in this experiment, 4 out of 4 in total, and my thinking at this point, it will be 6 out of 6 by the time this little experiment is over. You have to take into perspective, that I expect these all to be dropped and not picked up. But the faster they are picked up makes the result more certain against interlopers I'll keep posting the results daily for the next 3 days. It has been a good start.

 

[dirk]

Do you have any idea of the number of servers both Epik & SAV use for dropcatching?

Like mentioned, Epik uses one although they might partner with other registrars for dropcatching. Would not be a noteworthy number.

Sav has 50 registrars for dropcatching.

 

[NicTraders]

Does SAV charge a premium for drop-catching, or is it more or less reg fee like Epik?

 

[dirk]

Does SAV charge a premium for drop-catching, or is it more or less reg fee like Epik?

$8.69 for .com backorders.

 

[Name Trader]

One for EPIK capture today. Which surprised me. Beating out SAV's 50 servers. 3 more to go.

 

[Name Trader]

@DirkS - The results are in. There were actually 7 domains in total. not 6. These last three dropped today. 2 were picked up by dropcatch, and 1 was picked up by Epik. None from SAV. So that's not quite so different as I thought. 2 for Epik, 3 for SAV, 2 for DropCatch. I would expect that if I hadn't ordered at Epik, then the likelihood is SAV would have caught them. Seeing as they wouldn't have been ordered by anyone else. So I think I'm going to be switching my drop catching to SAV. But it's a worry that their 50 dropcatch servers cannot beat out Epik's sole dropcatching server all the time. I've also yet to see how smoothly SAV handle the transfers out. Unlike Epik's mess. I think I have to watch to see how SAV handle their auctions also. 10 days is an eon in time. Although I'm not expecting any auctions. But if there are auctions, I think I would prefer Epik's only one winner, the first bidder, policy. We'll just have to see how it goes from here.

Are their any other good, cheap dropcatchers worth trying?

 

[dirk]

@DirkS - The results are in. There were actually 7 domains in total. not 6. These last three dropped today. 2 were picked up by dropcatch, and 1 was picked up by Epik. None from SAV. So that's not quite so different as I thought. 2 for Epik, 3 for SAV, 2 for DropCatch. I would expect that if I hadn't ordered at Epik, then the likelihood is SAV would have caught them. Seeing as they wouldn't have been ordered by anyone else. So I think I'm going to be switching my drop catching to SAV. But it's a worry that their 50 dropcatch servers cannot beat out Epik's sole dropcatching server all the time. I've also yet to see how smoothly SAV handle the transfers out. Unlike Epik's mess. I think I have to watch to see how SAV handle their auctions also. 10 days is an eon in time. Although I'm not expecting any auctions. But if there are auctions, I think I would prefer Epik's only one winner, the first bidder, policy. We'll just have to see how it goes from here.

Are their any other good, cheap dropcatchers worth trying?

Thank you for the update. Sounds like Epik is doing surprisingly ok given the number of registrars (that we know of) they catch with. Thanks for sharing your data with us!

I agree that a 10 day auction is quite annoying, and I'm not sure if they are public or closed to people who backordered. I'm not a fan of sav but they have their use for certain things.

As for others, Dynadot has decent pricing with different tiers of priority but it's quite more expensive than those who just charge reg fee (like Epik, sav).

I think most would agree if you want to catch names with likely competition you're sentenced to use dropcatch or the likes. Domains with reasonably little or no competition and when you really want the domain? I think Dyna is a solid alternative albeit somewhat more expensive.

I have had some solid results catching domains with catched.com as well, albeit non .com but they beat some of my Dynadot backorders for what it's worth. They're not too expensive but I have no idea how they will perform on .com domains. Speaking of non .com domains, don't use Epik if you're after those. You can beat them by hand.

 

[4pm]

sold a name via Epik, for the first time
decided to try it out - crypto and all.. $7k

they secured the payment in usd on 11.08
i requested BTC withdrawal on 11.11
its still in a pending status as of today 11.15

contacted them twice via chat
the withdrawal is being "reviewed"
"it takes 48 hours to execute"
then the issue "is escalated to the accounting team"

not happy with my first sale at all
close to be disappointed

@Rob Monster anything i might be missing

 

[4pm]

sold a name via Epik, for the first time
decided to try it out - crypto and all.. $7k

they secured the payment in usd on 11.08
i requested BTC withdrawal on 11.11
its still in a pending status as of today 11.15

contacted them twice via chat
the withdrawal is being "reviewed"
"it takes 48 hours to execute"
then the issue "is escalated to the accounting team"

not happy with my first sale at all
close to be disappointed

@Rob Monster anything i might be missing

we're looking for additional information from the buyer before processing your withdrawal

8 days after the name was delivered to the buyer
can someone from Epik comment on this please

 

[NicTraders]

we're looking for additional information from the buyer before processing your withdrawal

8 days after the name was delivered to the buyer
can someone from Epik comment on this please

@Jess Robison is the best Customer Service person over there by a long way...

 

[Jess Robison]

we're looking for additional information from the buyer before processing your withdrawal

8 days after the name was delivered to the buyer
can someone from Epik comment on this please

Hello @4pm - thank you for reaching out.

I would be happy to look into this matter for you.

Can you please send me a DM with your name, email on file, and account pin # so I can look further into this for you.

Thank you.