Wanted Domain Liquidation Platform - Seeking input for new Epik project

[DanSanchez]

Dear Namepros,

The team at Epik is exploring the development of a project that aims to shift the painful domain name expiration process into a more profitable experience for domainers. Perhaps you have read my opinions about registrars selling expired domains and refusing to help registrants in recovery. The time to disrupt this with action has come!

In the meantime, since joining Epik last month, I decided to do something about it with the help of some amazing engineers. The goal of this "name liquidate" idea is to sell domains directly to buyers that may otherwise wait to acquire these domains at expired auctions or being filled as registrar backorders which pays zero to the registrant.

The planned solution addresses two domainer pain points,
1. Liquidation of expiring inventory brings much needed capital, meaning you can renew more of your portfolio.
2. Buyers get clear title and dont waste time bidding on names that can be recovered post-expiry.

Here is the process,
1. Submit your domains: you unlock your domains, provide auth codes.
2. Seller acknowledges that a fast-transfer of the domain will occur once domain has a bid.
3. Bidders agree to non-revocable change of ownership if their bid prevails.
4. Sellers receive a large portion (80%?) of auction proceeds.

The process begins with a 7 day reverse auction counting down hourly/daily, down to $1 plus renewal/transfer for delivery. The domain doesn't have to be expired or expiring. You can submit the name multiple times during the life of the name but not more than once per year. Once the auth code is verified:
• Epik parks the domain with auction template with Make Offer pricing so retail bids can come in.
• Wholesale buyers are informed of expired auction inventory update.
• Domain goes through reverse auction in 7 days
• Domains are fast transferred to Epik as soon as one bid is made.
• If seller locks name, all domains will be removed and no further listings will be accepted from seller.
• Domains already at Epik are pre-qualified for "name liquidate" services, but you must opt in manually.
• External domains are eligible once auth codes are verified.
• Data will include number of views, expiration date, and expected delivery.
• Pre-set domain buys will give you the ability to buy any name when a price hits a certain target.
• Once a bid is submitted, it cannot be revoked. All purchases a final non-refundable.
As for brand name, we are considering NameLiquidate.com — very descriptive name and targeted at a very specific audience. That said, open to considering other names. A separate brand naming project is coming shortly for what Rob describes as the “Ultimate Digital Brand Marketplace”. This is separate.

 

[tonyk2000]

one domain in .top currently shows "2020" years old (if sorted by the 3rd column - age)

 

[Ategy]

Video feedback ...

@DanSanchez .. really good overall. Your voice is clear and your sound approachable/happy (despite your profile pic .. lol). Some notes:

1- You just said "Price" but the field is "purchase", but in fact both are not clear and it should actually be (and you should say) "CURRENT PRICE" .. and definitely mention price drops every hour. Because as of now, the most most important aspect of the marketplace (hourly drops) is not shown or explained anywhere. People will come and see a domain listed at $50.79 and logically assume it's that price for the next 3h29m (after which it presumably will disappear)

2- Change "Hour to Drop" to either "Time to next drop" (and obviously only show the minutes until the next drop). OR at least change it to "Hours to drop" because currently the grammar isn't correct.

3- Where are the $9 closeouts? You mentioned them, but didn't explain where they are. I actually looked earlier today because I slept through a $9 listing, but couldn't find anything.
(Make sure they do NOT stay in the same listing, otherwise nobody will ever see the upcoming domains.)

4- Don't say $8 because hopefully most won't be sold at $9, and the way you said it, it seems it's always $8 when in fact it's always 91% (the way it came out in the video it seems like it's always $8 and was just 91% because it was $8/$9 .. which actually is only 89%).

5- While most should know the renewal / transfer pricing, that last part came across a little confusing if someone isn't as experienced. Maybe take a few extra seconds to explain the various possibilities:

- Non-Expired Epik domains = No renewal or transfer
- Expired Epik domains = Renewal
- Non-Epik domains = Transfer (which includes renewal)

OVERALL VIDEO FEEDBACK: That being said .. I think if you redo the video one or two more times you'll come up with a very good end result. Your overall style and clarity are very good for this sort of thing.

Also:
6 - You also need a "favourite" button, because otherwise I need a notepad to mark the domains I'm interested in

7- Downloadable list is a must!

8 - Serious Age Bug: I reported this global marketplace bug to @Rob Monster a few months ago. The occasional domain shows "Age" as the actual current year +1 = "2020". This is generally a result of a blank data field in your original data for creation year, so when it calculates age, instead of something like
2019 - 2019 + 1 = 1 year old
or
2019 - 2011 + 1 = 9 years old
you actually get
2019 - 0 + 1 = 2020 years old
Look at bronze.top (currently has about 71 hours to go)

If so, while 72 hours sounds reasonble, it might still make sense to make it longer. Lets say 5 days. Or 1 week which I think was mentioned in related discussions.

We had a 7 day timeline but the process was a bit too slow for it to be priced at $998.

I 100% agree with @tonyk2000 on this. It really is way too fast. Again, I understand where you're coming from as the developers as you're expecting people to be there all the time waiting to jump on deals. But the fact is most people do not want to be stuck to their screen .. particularly for the random $9 domain (even worse, scattered randomly throughout 24 hours).

ADDED: Keep in mind there is no reason your actually need to stick to "hourly" drops. If anything it should stay at $998 for a while to allow for discovery, as of now there's virtually zero chance of the domain selling for the maximum 998, even if someone would have been willing to pay 5 times that.

 

[BrandBoogie]

What do I do after I add a domain & auth code from an outside registrar to my portfolio? How do I list it?

 

[tonyk2000]

and... if we think about the future... How long Chinese New Year is? All China stops business. Two weeks or so each February? I do not remember exact dates. Earlier or later the project should return to 1 week listings. It appears to be optimal value. Also, fixed high-3-figures initial price makes no sense sometimes. One should not reasonably expect such a sale price for some domains, so why offer it? A user-submitted starting price should be considered.

 

[Ategy]

Also, fixed high-3-figures initial price makes no sense for some domains. One should not reasonably expect such a sale price for some domains, so why offer it? A user-submitted starting price should be considered.

Can't really agree with you there. Definitely would agree in "concept" if most domainers had a realistic idea of what their domains are worth at liquidation, but go look at pretty much 100% of marketplaces where the seller chooses the price. You'll find stuff like ff4-3ff.info listed at $9,999! It would be a disaster if ALL domainers were allowed to price their domains (would be something to consider for some who prove to be realistic or who prove to have an above quality supply).

Conversely it would make sense to price them what they are actually worth .. but if @DanSanchez or someone else had to go in and manually assess and price each domain, the project would no longer be viable.

What they could do, is have someone quickly go down the list and mark some as "notable". No real price difference or anything, but they simply stand out more and could be sorted. Look at my daily closeout list at NameCult (I usually don't have time to mark them for the auctions) .. I have a field with a simple asterisk that is sortable. (To be clear, in my case I simply think they are among the top 20-30% .. and NOT an endorsement or suggestion to buy)

 

[Blitzpotz]

one domain in .top currently shows "2020" years old (if sorted by the 3rd column - age)

Look at bronze.top (currently has about 71 hours to go)

This domain was regged by Joseph after the three Magi had delivered their Jesus birth gifts. No?

 

[tonyk2000]

You'll find stuff like ff4-3ff.info listed at $9,999!

Yeah, but we are discussing liquidation platform. Let $9xx be the maximum allowed. If a member accepts it - fine. If a member wants to start skjdi23i904.xyz auction with 1 million dollars bid - the system would not let him to, as the maximum is $988. However, if the member wants to price some domain realistically - such as low 3 figures inital price - he would be allowed to do so.

 

[Rob Monster]

This domain was regged by Joseph after the three Magi had delivered their Jesus birth gifts. No?

Show attachment 140240

Good catch - engineering will need to check that one.

That's a bug.

Just deposited bug bounty bonuses to:

@Blitzpotz
@Ategy
@tonyk2000

I would also do one for @Avtar629 but I don't know his Epik account. Will do it when he moves MarketDN.com to Epik. We'll pay the transfer fee. Not sure he realizes that it does not resolve.

 

[tonyk2000]

"I agree to fast transfer the domains when the request is sent by Epik". A good thing, but not always possible. The transfer will autocomplete in 5 days anyway. If the registrar does not allow to force or expedite the transferaway - then there is no workaround. Also, the registrar may allow such a thing (GoDaddy) - but it frequently does not work in their new interface as we know.
The wording may be replaced with "best efforts" or smth. similar

 

[tonyk2000]

Also. At least for some domains, which I am not going to renew anyway and which are expiring or expired, if not sold for min. $9 on Name Liquidation platform, I'd rather let another fellow domainer have them for free (OK, for the transfer fee payable to Epik) if he so wishes. Using the same platform. It would be better. In particular, I do not like the games on godaddy expired auctions, or hugedomains becoming even more huge routinely grabbing it after pendingdelete. Just saying. Of course we are discussing commercial platform here, and so the above setup may or may not be possible or practical...

Edited: It may be a "sale" for $0.01 (+ transfer fee), just to make programming easier...

 

[Ategy]

Is there a minimum buffer cut-off before renewal before which you're charged for a renewal?

Like the domain expires in over 60 days so no renewal fee (if already at Epik) ..
.. but ..
the domain expires in under 60 days so there's a renewal change even if it's not expired just yet but will soon?


There was a nice big wave of non-expired domains that just ended .. was a pain being organised and grabbing them .. but wow .. was it ever fast to enter my account !!!

Anybody here beat me to Ch_rg_C__ter.com? Nice pickup whoever got it! I grabbed some great _____Crate.com domains and a few other fantastic 2 words, as well as 2 one word canna related non.com's!

I feel bad for whoever had to liquidate those names. A couple of them had 8-9 months and even more than a year left, so at $9 it was almost like getting them for free.


Just a note for developers .. for me personally, I didn't even think of grabbing them at the next price level ($21 I think). But if there was a few steps lower, I certainly might have jumped on some of them at more than $9! So basically if I wasn't able to be online or awake at exactly the 1-hour window in question, I wouldn't have purchased a single domain.


That being said .. I'm rather happy about my acquisitions. Better value than GD closeouts for those particular domains .. particularly those that had more than 2 months remaining so I didn't need to pay extra for renewal!

 

[DanSanchez]

What do I do after I add a domain & auth code from an outside registrar to my portfolio? How do I list it?

The listing process for NameLiquidate is independent from the portfolio additions. There is no way to list a name from your portfolio, yet. You have to submit the names directly onto the submissions page, you can go to NameLiquidate.com while logged in and click on "ADD DOMAINS" at the top of the page or visit this page directly https://registrar.epik.com/portfolio-liquidate

"I agree to fast transfer the domains when the request is sent by Epik". A good thing, but not always possible. The transfer will autocomplete in 5 days anyway. If the registrar does not allow to force or expedite the transferaway - then there is no workaround. Also, the registrar may allow such a thing (GoDaddy) - but it frequently does not work in their new interface as we know.
The wording may be replaced with "best efforts" or smth. similar

True, most registrars have the feature though (even Netsol!) and we need the domain delivered as soon as possible. If you have issues with the fast-transfer you can shoot me a note or support so we can manage the buyer's expectations. It should be fine as long as the transfer is not cancelled.

Also. At least for some domains, which I am not going to renew anyway and which are expiring or expired, if not sold for min. $9 on Name Liquidation platform, I'd rather let another fellow domainer have them for free (OK, for the transfer fee payable to Epik) if he so wishes. Using the same platform. It would be better. In particular, I do not like the games on godaddy expired auctions, or hugedomains becoming even more huge routinely grabbing it after pendingdelete. Just saying. Of course we are discussing commercial platform here, and so the above setup may or may not be possible or practical...

Edited: It may be a "sale" for $0.01 (+ transfer fee), just to make programming easier...

Will consider that a possibility, I like the idea because it is voluntary.

Is there a minimum buffer cut-off before renewal before which you're charged for a renewal?

Like the domain expires in over 60 days so no renewal fee (if already at Epik) ..
.. but ..
the domain expires in under 60 days so there's a renewal change even if it's not expired just yet but will soon?


There was a nice big wave of non-expired domains that just ended .. was a pain being organised and grabbing them .. but wow .. was it ever fast to enter my account !!!

Anybody here beat me to Ch_rg_C__ter.com? Nice pickup whoever got it! I grabbed some great _____Crate.com domains and a few other fantastic 2 words, as well as 2 one word canna related non.com's!

I feel bad for whoever had to liquidate those names. A couple of them had 8-9 months and even more than a year left, so at $9 it was almost like getting them for free.


Just a note for developers .. for me personally, I didn't even think of grabbing them at the next price level ($21 I think). But if there was a few steps lower, I certainly might have jumped on some of them at more than $9! So basically if I wasn't able to be online or awake at exactly the 1-hour window in question, I wouldn't have purchased a single domain.


That being said .. I'm rather happy about my acquisitions. Better value than GD closeouts for those particular domains .. particularly those that had more than 2 months remaining so I didn't need to pay extra for renewal!

Glad to see you are enjoying the inventory! Most of those you grabbed belonged to one person that just wanted to minimize their inventory and they did so successfully! You and several others understood my point about grabbing them despite of the lack of official tools to track them. I made a bookmark folder to visit them regularly, but the automatic buy-in will be highly welcomed. It will make buying more competitive too since you will know if your domains have others interested without knowing which price they are willing to pay.

In regards to your question about the limit on charging a renewal fee, I am certain we won't charge renewal if the domain is not expired already.

Thanks for the video feedback, I did it quite rushed so I will be working on making more concise and informative guides in the near future.

 

[Ategy]

BTW .. so where is the $9 closeout section? (For $9 domains after their last hour at NameLiquidate) .. Or does it not exist yet?

In regards to your question about the limit on charging a renewal fee, I am certain we won't charge renewal if the domain is not expired already.

That's why I asked, seems it was a little bug of some sorts. Certainly was not expected behaviour. Although I didn't think it was the end of the world since they are good enough for me to renew anyways.

Two of the domains I just grabbed in that batch expire in Feb 2020 and unlike all the others that expired after that, they were automatically packaged with renewals (now in my account and expire in Feb 2021).

My guess is that the cut-off is 60 days, but not sure. At least one of them was at Epik. In fact I'm pretty sure both were:

Vic___Dr__s.com
Per____Ma_____e.com

. I made a bookmark folder to visit them regularly

Each listing has it's own page we can bookmark? I was looking for that.

Also .. you desperately need a "Cart" button at the top of the page so that we can actually go pay for our domains without needing to add on more.

Will consider that a possibility, I like the idea because it is voluntary.

$0.01 domains would just clutter things up, and frankly is not the point of this. That's giveaway as opposed to liquidate. While $9 doesn't need to be the minimum set in stone (I originally was thinking $5). If you want to donate your domains, give them to eRise.org. This platform should not be about retail domains, nor should it be about free domains.

 

[DanSanchez]

BTW .. so where is the $9 closeout section? (For $9 domains after their last hour at NameLiquidate) .. Or does it not exist yet?



That's why I asked, seems it was a little bug of some sorts. Certainly was not expected behaviour. Although I didn't think it was the end of the world since they are good enough for me to renew anyways.

Two of the domains I just grabbed in that batch expire in Feb 2020 and unlike all the others that expired after that, they were automatically packaged with renewals (now in my account and expire in Feb 2021).

My guess is that the cut-off is 60 days, but not sure. At least one of them was at Epik. In fact I'm pretty sure both were:

Vic___Dr__s.com
Per____Ma_____e.com



Each listing has it's own page we can bookmark? I was looking for that.

Also .. you desperately need a "Cart" button at the top of the page so that we can actually go pay for our domains without needing to add on more.



$0.01 domains would just clutter things up, and frankly is not the point of this. That's giveaway as opposed to liquidate. While $9 doesn't need to be the minimum set in stone (I originally was thinking $5). If you want to donate your domains, give them to eRise.org. This platform should not be about retail domains, nor should it be about free domains.

Ah I see, good to know.

No closeout section yet, just ranked by price some remained at $9 for several hours after the auctions ended.

You can link to the names directly by using the search query link like this:
https://nameliquidate.com/?searchText=

Just put whatever name you like after the = and it will display only that domain.

Cart button is part of the next update, I can't wait to be able to offer you guys better functionality and I appreciate your patience while we get that setup.

I am going to list a few names myself and urging others to go through your lists tonight for submission in the morning. There buyers are starting to trickle in!

 

[tonyk2000]

There buyers are starting to trickle in!

Even though this thread might well be promotional in the beginning 1 month ago, and so it was posted in appropriate forum section, the service is now live. What we are speaking about now is a normal domain buying-selling discussion through a particular operational service. Imho. So maybe another thread in appropriate part of the forum will be helpful... More sellers, more buyers, extra feedback. Unfortunately I missed this thread in the beginning exactly because it was not in "discussions"...

 

[Rob Monster]

Even though this thread might well be promotional in the beginning 1 month ago, and so it was posted in appropriate forum section, the service is now live. What we are speaking about now is a normal domain buying-selling discussion through a particular operational service. Imho. So maybe another thread in appropriate part of the forum will be helpful... More sellers, more buyers, extra feedback. Unfortunately I missed this thread in the beginning exactly because it was not in "discussions"...

We are in beta testing even though it is with live transactions. As such, happy to recognize product feedback at this stage. We have paid out some bounties today and likely continue to do so for a few days longer while we work out the major kinks of what is actually working pretty well.

@DanSanchez and @Riacontents are working on bringing the awareness among both supply and demand. @Gube has integrated this list into the NameInvestors.com widget framework:

https://nameinvestors.com/

It is actually pretty cool to see a transactional ecosystem begin to take serious form.

 

[BrandBoogie]

Just bought 9 domains and listed 10. I love it!!

Thanks @DanSanchez & @Rob Monster for setting this up

Also, how do I earn bounties?

 

[Rob Monster]

Just bought 9 domains and listed 10. I love it!!

Thanks @DanSanchez & @Rob Monster for setting this up

Also, how do I earn bounties?

It is really cool.

It reminds me of something from the early days of Epik when we had this thing called Swapfest. One man's trash was another man's treasure. Same story here but the potential range of participants is vastly bigger because it is 24/7 and worldwide. And because we have automated everything, the fees can be very low.

Keep the feedback coming. More participants are on the way.

If anyone knows folks who are dropping domains, get them to submit their inventory. They'll get something and others will pick up new inventory.

The network effect is huge, and the Dutch auction format means NO SHILL BIDDING EVER which should let folks buy with confidence knowing that there is no way to game the system and no clawback.

 

[RJ]

Anybody here beat me to Ch_rg_C__ter.com? Nice pickup whoever got it! I grabbed some great _____Crate.com domains and a few other fantastic 2 words, as well as 2 one word canna related non.com's!

I feel bad for whoever had to liquidate those names. A couple of them had 8-9 months and even more than a year left, so at $9 it was almost like getting them for free.

Just a note for developers .. for me personally, I didn't even think of grabbing them at the next price level ($21 I think). But if there was a few steps lower, I certainly might have jumped on some of them at more than $9! So basically if I wasn't able to be online or awake at exactly the 1-hour window in question, I wouldn't have purchased a single domain.


That being said .. I'm rather happy about my acquisitions. Better value than GD closeouts for those particular domains .. particularly those that had more than 2 months remaining so I didn't need to pay extra for renewal!

Those were my names that I was liquidating tonight. I'm scaling down my portfolio size, so don't feel bad about it. I'm glad you got some nice names out of it.

In the end, 25 names sold. One for $96.92, one for $33.54, and 23 domains sold for $9.

Pretty easy process overall. There was instant Masterbucks payment to my account, so that's nice at least.

 

[BrandBoogie]

It would be great if you could buy in bulk instead of 1 at a time.

 

[Ategy]

Those were my names that I was liquidating tonight. I'm scaling down my portfolio size, so don't feel bad about it. I'm glad you got some nice names out of it.

Well I'm glad everyone's happy! .. I ended up with 10 of them. 4 of the "_crate.com" names, the two bud_(non-.com) names, two great 2-word .com's, one that made sense locally for me, and one for SteamieTheHotDog.com (the Pup____.com domain)!

I'm trying to figure out if having that big a batch was a good thing or a bad thing? Because on one hand I might have grabbed a couple more if I was more organised and had a bit more time. But on the other having a batch like that got my attention because I saw higher than usual quality compared to the ones that passed previously .. that actually made me be a little more careful and thorough. There was a great name I wanted the night before .. but since it was just one name I didn't bother coming to the PC .. not even sure if I was awake when it ended or not? lol

In the end I think it was good you had a lot .. as it created a sort of critical mass .. but next time maybe spread them out a little bit more. I did like the fact they ended up being more or less alphabetical, that made going through them easier.


IDEA: It might be a good idea on the back-end, to set it up so when people submit more than 10 domains, that the system spreads them out at 10 domains every 5 minutes. (Or at whatever rate makes sense to keep them mainly as a group, but still give people a bit of time .. this "pacing" could be adjusted depending on how many domains are in the queue)

IDEA 2: Allow people to set a start time for their domains. I'm not really sure what time has the most potential on at the same time, but when I added BrakingTechnologies the other night, it didn't even cross my mind that the auction would end at 2am because I listed it at 2am. Or maybe it's a good thing because someone will grab it earlier for a few hundred dollars. Still trying to figure out optimal strategy.

As I mentioned much earlier in this thread, it might even be a better idea to batch all domains' start/end times relatively together (not all exactly at the same time though .. more like 1-2 per minutes, or have them all start within the same 2 hour window. If you have 60 domains, then it's one per minute over 1 hour, but on a busy day with 240 names, then it's 2 per minute for 2 hours.

That being said .. might be a good idea to keep it all random for now specifically so you can get time-of-day based traffic/sales data.

 

[golan]

I actually support an idea of prolonging the auction lifespan. Maybe not a week, but 5 days seem reasonable. 3 days seem too short. And yes, local holidays, citybreaks, all kinds of other stuff...

Also. At least for some domains, which I am not going to renew anyway and which are expiring or expired, if not sold for min. $9 on Name Liquidation platform, I'd rather let another fellow domainer have them for free (OK, for the transfer fee payable to Epik) if he so wishes. Using the same platform. It would be better. In particular, I do not like the games on godaddy expired auctions, or hugedomains becoming even more huge routinely grabbing it after pendingdelete. Just saying. Of course we are discussing commercial platform here, and so the above setup may or may not be possible or practical...

Edited: It may be a "sale" for $0.01 (+ transfer fee), just to make programming easier...

Totally support this. If i recall correctly it was even $1 bottom end discussed as an original idea. This is liquidation, after all. For me, to receive $1 is better than nothing. And here i also give something good to an other fellow domainer. Or to make it voluntarily, "i want my auction end at $9 / $1", but this would probably clutter the UI a lot even if doable programming wise.

IDEA: It might be a good idea on the back-end, to set it up so when people submit more than 10 domains, that the system spreads them out at 10 domains every 5 minutes. (Or at whatever rate makes sense to keep them mainly as a group, but still give people a bit of time .. this "pacing" could be adjusted depending on how many domains are in the queue)

+++++

 

[tonyk2000]

Afaik Epik offered transfer-in promotions some time ago, likely below cost. Next time (if the marketing budget so allows), such a promotion could be offered exclusively for domains purchased on nameliquidate

 

[BradWilson]

Just checking this out and the first thought I had was sure would be nice to have a built in time calculator to know...

"What is 56 hours from now?"

In my time zone of course.

And set an email and text alert as a reminder.

Also, not sure if this was already planned or not but bookmarking names and if so alerting anyone else who also bookmarked the name to increase urgency.

 

[golan]

bookmarking names and if so alerting anyone else who also bookmarked the name to increase urgency.

This unfortunately could be easily manipulated by dishonest sellers.

And in contrary, if alerting others then i as a buyer would never bookmark domain i like.