Epik Recent Innovation Glitches

[dande]

Everyone knows I'm a strong believer in Epik platforms and would like to see them succeed. Make no mistakes about it. There are many positives about Epik but one or two bad negatives can destroy the whole thing. The purpose of this thread is not to condemn but to trigger a discussion.

Late later year, I moved some of my domains from Uni to Epik in hope of better days. But after nearly a year of no inquiries nor reasonable sales, I decided to test the lander, trying to see what potential buyers use to see, and what I discovered truly horrifies me.

1. A buyer will click on "Buy Now" button and the first thing he sees is a warning that his domain will be delayed for 60days before transferring to another registrar. To a Domainer, that's not a problem. To an end user, it's a huge turn off, capable of destroying a sale.

2. If the buyer managed to scale the first huddle and continued with Signup. After signing up at Epik.com he will be required to verify his email. The person will head to his inbox looking for email from Epik. On getting to the inbox or spam folder, what he will see is FederatedIdentity.com. Another big confusion capable of turning away good number of potential buyers. How is the new customer suppose to know that FederatedIdentity is the same as Epik?

The FederatedIdentity (to me) is a completely Bogus Innovation.

3. Now, if the buyer did scale yet the huddle and clicked on the verification link, the page below is what he will get.

To continue the signup all over again!

At this point, even the most serious buyer will give up and start looking for alternatives.

4. But, if his life depends on the domain and he continued with the second signup. After filling the form and clicked the "Save Settings", the whole process will simply end there. There will be no redirection to the domain transaction he has been going through all these troubles for. He's
simply gonna start the process of searching for the domain name all over again. God help him if he's an impulse buyer and has forgotten the name.

I'm of the opinion that Epik is not concentrating on what matters most. They want to be everywhere at the same time. Thereby, sacrificing users experience and good conversation rate.

I believe sales are going down the drain before of these. I still have so many things to complain about the platform but let me leave for others. If you've noticed anything, pls share it on this thread.

 

[ivey]

Wow, they make Uniregistry look like geniuses...

 

[Lord Antares]

Good points. The email part especially looks really shady, they need to do away with that.

Hope the feedback is heard and considered by Epik.

 

[xeroox]

They should have focused more on epik platform instead of creating all the other projects.
Don't like at all the federatedidentity solution.

 

[blogspotter]

And why do they need to logion from the Fedexxxidenty page to do a single sign on. Why not use the fed identity auth and single sign from any of the epik properties? Login from epik/nameliquidate etc can be domen from the respective home pages and Fedid in the backend.

Any additional step puts off a buyer.

 

[Shawn T]

Extremely good points. I never actually thought to test the buying form while I was using Epik landers.
This is horrible UX which has a very real business consequence.

I am open for UX consults and services if needed

 

[bmugford]

That seems like a very convoluted and inefficient process that will only add friction when it comes to a potential buyer.

Brad

 

[eternaldomains]

Never knew it ended up this complicated. Now it's reminding me of those "log in using your Facebook/Google account", except that it's now logging in using an account totally unheard of by everybody except long time users of Epik, and on top of that with bad UX. Yikes.

 

[D Haynes]

Yikes I never knew it was this difficult and convaluted to make a purchase on Epik. This is not good at all. Think I'll be changing my landers back to Dan if this doesn't change.

It should be click the BIN button, create an account on a single page maybe with a code sent to a mobile to verify the account so they don't need to come away from the purchase page, then go straight through to the checkout.

The federated identity thing is not needed for someone carrying out a single time purchase.

 

[Shawn T]

I'd guess that the form page probably sees more than a 75% drop-off rate, wouldn't be surprised if it was close to 90% or more.

 

[BrandEntrance.com]

Fair criticism. Let's hope it is received well.

 

[Rob Monster]

We'll review the marketplace checkout to see what friction can be removed. A large checkout upgrade is already in progress.

As for the typical checkout, see here:

https://laptopcomputers.com/

Or visit any Epik landing page. No signup is required. Just checkout and done.

As for the conventional marketplace, if the user is logged in, they are logged in automatically. However, if they are first time user, the guest checkout should be more frictionless.

Fine there, point taken. We'll see if we can fast-track an improvement there this week that avoids the needs for invoking the SSO for guest checkout in the marketplace as we do on the Landers.

As for the Single Sign On, it is a pretty compelling idea when you understand the bigger picture of what is being built in terms of the Epik ecosystem.

Focus on the good. It is not easy these days but your soul will thank you if you try.

@Ala Dadan @Sumeeth @vitigo

 

[Bipul]

I had tried to buy a domain from nameliquidate & failed to make payment using my Payoner card. immediately knock-in chat, they request to verify my account using my photo ID. After submitting my Photo ID they verified my Epik account. but again they are not satisfied and asked me again to provide them a selfie with my ID card. I respect their terms but the platform should be buyer-friendly as well as. that's a small transaction maybe$ 20-50.

 

[7363824]

I get an Epik account is needed to manage the domain, but I wounder if that can be de-coupled from the buying process. Allow them to checkout without an account, then send a link to create an account afterwards to manage the domain.

 

[dande]

I get an Epik account is needed to manage the domain, but I wounder if that can be de-coupled from the buying process. Allow them to checkout without an account, then send a link to create an account afterwards to manage the domain.

Excellent idea. When people click on buy now buttons, the next thing they want to see is payment options to select from. Follow by billing information and checkout. That billing information should be used to create an account automatically.

 

[Samer]

i dont mind practicability so much as; NAME!!

dont want to be “that guy”
My AccountIdentity.com better name than your 2.0 one page identity; FederatedIdentity!!

My issue remains purely; bogus name;
Although the innovations, are not dande, imo.!

This should be open to rebrand other than this
8 syllable FederatedIdentity. Come on, Rob! Maybe wack name doesnt instill confidence;
Why are you so in love with this name?

 

[7363824]

This should be open to rebrand other than
8 syllable FederatedIdentity. Come on Rob!

IMO they should just stick with the Epik brand for their federated ID, less confusion since Epik is their main brand and a better name.

 

[Samer]

Said single sign-on feature enhances security.

IMO they should just stick with the Epik brand for their federated ID, less confusion since Epik is their main brand and a better name.

I agree; im using it as an example;
Mine is better than past tense “federated” Rob, Dont use mine... just meant to portray 2 cents..
Rob, can you explain; best in layman's terms
what does “federated” mean?

 

[7363824]

Rob says single sign feature enhance security


I agree; im using it as an example;
Mine is better than past tense “federated” Rob, can you explain; best in laymans terms
what does “federated” mean?

Laymans terms, a federation is basically like a group. Basically calling it federated identity is just calling it exactly what it is. But I kinda feel using anything without the Epik name is more confusing than anything and their ID solution I don't feel needs a dedicated brand to it. Just call it Epik ID, and host the federated identity website at id.epik.com...IMO

 

[iAdam]

As a user I really don't care about what epik ecosystem is. All what matters is security, simplicity, and user experience.

I hope the criticism is taken in consideration.

 

[bmugford]

i dont mind practicability so much as; NAME!!

dont want to be “that guy”
My AccountIdentity.com better name than your 2.0 one page identity; FederatedIdentity!!

My issue remains purely; bogus name;
Although the innovations, are not dande, imo.!

This should be open to rebrand other than this
8 syllable FederatedIdentity. Come on, Rob! Maybe wack name doesnt instill confidence;
Why are you so in love with this name?

Why not just have it all under Epik, why do you even need Federated Identity?
What even is that?

I would totally delete an email like that from a random email I have never heard of. It sounds like some scammy thing.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

IMO they should just stick with the Epik brand for their federated ID, less confusion since Epik is their main brand and a better name.

I agree.

Let's be honest. Epik is a small, privately held company. They are not GoDaddy.
Are all these fragmented side projects really even beneficial or necessary to their actual user base?

Brad

 

[Rob Monster]

I appreciate the user experience feedback.

As stated above, the landing pages are not impacted. We'll fast-track a review of the guest user checkout experience whereby capture of an email address and payment info is early in the checkout for a guest user.

As for the larger topic of why have "Single Sign On", I believe the upside outweighs the downside. Technically, it is an impressive feat. Allow me to explain why I think it is useful.

With SSO, we now have not only a unified sign on but also unified checkout and unified cloud wallet with Masterbucks.com. This opens up many possibilities for movement across applications.

It also opens up interesting possibilities for partner integration, e.g. allowing a parking company to pay out parking income in Masterbucks on a daily basis with funds that can be used to buy domains.

Worth noting that as of today, Apple is worth more than the entire Russell 2000 combined. This shows the power of platforms and ecosystems. This matters to individual domainers more than meets the eye.

Our goal is to empower. Single Sign on will make it possible to accrue reputation and verified identity in one part of the ecosystem and use it another.

Rest assured that we are reviewing the marketplace feedback closely and will make a swift move to make that as frictionless as possible for 1st time users.

 

[7363824]

Are all these fragmented side projects really even beneficial or necessary to their actual user base?

Brad

I don't use all their little side things but I am sure there are those who do. For the ones I use I am glad they have them. I am glad they try to innovate and create new things they think will be useful, even if they don;t end up working out. Yes they are a small privately held company, they have nothing near the marketshare of Godaddy or Network Solutions, they can't afford to be complacent and stagnant like Godaddy IMO and they do some real good stuff outside of just being a registrar.

 

[Rob Monster]

I agree.

Let's be honest. Epik is a small, privately held company. They are not GoDaddy.
Are all these fragmented side projects really even beneficial or necessary to their actual user base?

Brad

Apple's market cap is now about about $2.2 trillion. Godaddy is about $14 billion. Spot the difference?

This is where Apple started:

One of the things that did make Apple great was vision. The other thing was enthusiastic early adopters.

Lord-willing, we too get to do something cool.