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.

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[xeroox]

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

 

[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

 

[Rob Monster]

You realize 99.999999% of companies that started in a garage are not Apple right?

Brad

Yes, of course. That is why they are called Unicorns.

Our single sign on and cloud wallet are part of an architecture that connects and empowers. It is architected to enable a range of applications and services to all connect seamlessly. Today, Epik is the only company in the world that has connected all of this under one roof in a single enterprise:

• Registry
• Registrar
• Resilient hosting
• Content Delivery Network
• DDoS mitigation
• ISP, ASN, BGP, and IPv4/v6
• Anycast DNS
• SSL/TLS provisioning
• VPN

For the domainer, we do also have the most complete framework for powering the domain value chain:

• Value: https://appraise.epik.com/
• Hold: https://registrar.epik.com/
• Acquire: https://marketplace.epik.com/
• Pay: https://masterbucks.com
• Finance: https://domainequity.com/
• Protect: https://dnprotect.com/
• Sell: https://escrow.epik.com/
• Liquidate: https://nameliquidate.com/

In short, we elected to connect the entire data delivery stack and built it around the domain name value chain since most digital enterprises will start with a domain name and build out from there.

Why do most people buy at Amazon? Largely for convenience. They don't need to take a risk saving identity, payments, preferences or shipping details in more than one place.

Success models like Shopify do prove that there is power in creating ecosystems that lift up small enterprise. Their market cap is now $136 billion. Overstock is about $3.5 billion.

Platforms and ecosystems are hard to build but offer much value when they co-create abundance and connect the vast pool of time, talent and treasure that still remains highly fragmented in the world.

Nobody said it would be easy but Lord-willing we get to work on it at a time when small enterprise, including small domainers, are struggling to compete against winner-take-all.

 

[bmugford]

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

Brad

 

[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.

 

[bmugford]

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

This is where Apple started:

Show attachment 165818

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.

Yes, the the difference is domains don't have the market size of consumer electronics.

In fairness you can also thank Microsoft for Apple still existing. It was only their loan in 1997 that saved them from complete failure. Without them they would have never even made it to Act 2, which is what they are today. Despite them being visionaries, their business was shit.

With that said, it is a massive outlier example. You realize 99.999999% of companies that started in a garage are not Apple right?

Brad

 

[dande]

FeDeRaTed IDenTiTy is not only 17 letters, which might be fine with great popular combo, but it also has a ridiculous number of syllables with 8 (!). I have hard time recalling any well known brand with even 6 syllables, let alone 8.

Important to add that people with Fedophobia will run away at the sight of Federatedidentity. Sounds like something that involves sending the users identity to the Federal Government.

 

[7363824]

Although getting feedbacks from the members here is a valuable thing and can help streamline certain problems, but in all fairness to Rob who is open to hearing all our feedbacks I believe that we should do it with a little less negativity and animosity and go about it in a more positive and constructive way. I am glad to see that the title of this thread which referred to bogus innovations has now been changed to something more positive.

While we are on the subject of creating better and easier experience for clients and customers (including domainers) I noticed that when I went to renew some of my domains that had expired two or three days ago ( on August 31) it only gave me the option to renew them if I did it for the minimum of 2 years which doubled the renewal price.

I believe that this can create a bad experience for domainers if they can't renew their domains for one year the day after they are expired. Unwilling to pay double to renew my domains I decided to register some new domains, but I wish I could get the full 45 days grace period to renew my domains at the Special 8 dollar price without being penalized and having to pay extra.


PS: just got a message from Rob that said he has extended the grace period on my account so that I can renew my domains for one year at a time at the special rate, I guess if they ask he will do this for domainers where the renewal charges are a main factor for them. (Thanks Rob).

IMO

Glad to hear that got solved. FWIW I can see from Epik's point of view why the grace period is so short since the registry will collect the renewal on the expiry date whether or not Epik has your payment. So I get the impact on cash flow and appreciate their willingness to extend it.

That said I really don't like the 2 year minimum if its already expired. And I know they will do it for 1yr if you ask but I think by default it should be standard 1year. Instead they should have some sort of upsell dialog or banner saying something like Did you know you can renew for up to 10 years? IMO

 

[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?

 

[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.

 

[dande]

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

The technology is good. The FI domain name is the problem. Why not put that infrastructure on Epik sub-domain, something like Id.Epik.com, Account.Epik.com, Secure.Epik.com, etc? The FederatedIdentity.com could be set as a redirection for now until it gains popularity. Same as Google did with Gmail.com until recently.

It is important to note the majority of the issues I raised exists mainly on "Buy Now" setting. If your domain is set at "Make Offer" only, you have no problem.

 

[Recons.Com]

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

Single sign on is supposed to make things easier, not harder. It is buggy, messy, confusing.

On top of that, I cannot understand how a domain registry owner and domain investor could come up with such a clumsy brand for something that begs for nice and short.

FeDeRaTed IDenTiTy is not only 17 letters, which might be fine with great popular combo, but it also has a ridiculous number of syllables with 8 (!). I have hard time recalling any well known brand with even 6 syllables, let alone 8.

Epik should have been the basis for your SSO. When anyone creates an account on any of your sites, that data should propagate through, not mess like this.

Oh, did I mention, I had hard time even logging in with FI?

 

[Silentptnr]

Epik is a cool name. I think all the peripheral brand names somehow don't strengthen the epik brand.

I think epik creates products. They should bear the epik name.

I dont think the epik brand hurts those products.

 

[Recons.Com]

I don't think the field is wide open, if you, @Rob Monster, have an ambition to offer it beyond your own projects.

People have option to use FB, Twitter, Amazon, Linkedin, Google for that. Much more trusted, recognizable names than Federated Identity. And even Open ID, which is specifically built for this project and not associated with a corp, like Federated Identity is with Epik.

It is also hurting Epik's core business. I could be a typical example, when I logged in to Epik on days to renew the name, got surprise encounter with new FI system, had huge problems logging in and instead of renewing ended up transferring out to GD.

One buggy registrar in Godaddy is enough for me to deal with.

 

[karmaco]

I don’t like to be forced into things by a registrar. That happens too much at Epik. There is a growing list of things I do not like at Epik but I don’t intend to list those here.

Regarding subject at hand, The federated ID will not keep you logged in even if you check the box. It gets tiresome with two factor to keep logging in every few minutes. The name is bad and the concept of logging in to all is not helpful to people who just want a registrar or to buy a domain.

 

[karmaco]

We should not have to ask for 35 day grace period. It should be automatic like everywhere else. We should not have to ask not to have to renew for 2 years it should be automatic. We should not see our names two days after expiration have an Epik lander as though its Epik’s name. We should not see gray locks and be unable to do a side to side push unless we provide proof of id. Control freak behavior does not help domainers.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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]

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