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.

 

[7363824]

That's the problem. They shouldn't be interfering with my business and make that decision on my behalf.

Thats at least a fair criticism. In theory they could add a setting to control the lock on domains you sell.

IMO though its not worth the fraud risk to not use a 60 day lock. Even NameBright does it when you buy a name from HugeDomains. IMO if anyone could eat the loss from fraud it'd be them.

 

[Samer]

Last I checked with ICANN, we are required to have folks opt out and we make that easy:
Show attachment 165957

Besides, we don't enforce it.

That said, will check with @Sufyan Alani if we can drop that checkbox entirely and not be outside of ICANN compliance.

Hallelujah.

“60 Day lock” is the worst.

 

[Rob Monster]

Another notable SSO company is OKTA.

Their Q2 earnings came out recently. market cap is about $30 billion despite major operating losses:

https://investor.okta.com/news-rele.../okta-announces-strong-second-quarter-results

Docusign is another one in a related space. Market cap of $48 billion. The company also is break-even at best. We incubated something related called SignDeck.com. Your Epik SSO works there too.

The net result is that Epik is more than a registrar. We are a Digital Empowerment company that makes domains useful so that enterprises of all sizes can compete in thrive in the digital age.

Trust me, the SSO is a useful step forward. We'll be working diligently to make sure it is not a burden to domainers or their customers.

 

[karmaco]

Would be nice if federated id worked. The login is broken right now can’t log in.

 

[NicTraders]

Thank you, we are aware and working on it, sectionalized to a small number of users.

I had the same the other day, so it may be a bit of an ongoing thing...

 

[Mister Funsky]

Thanks @dande for getting the ball rolling on improving checkout. I was not aware of the steps a buyer was required to make...hopefully this will result in more sales for us all!

 

[dande]

I think we can actually drop the bottom two checkboxes:

Yes, I recommended that last year. If you can streamline the ToS boxes into one. Something like:

By checking this box, you agree to our ToS, Privacy Policy, and Transfer/Refund Policy. Just one or two boxes, in-place of the many boxes.

 

[NicTraders]

A little spelling error here, in case no-one notices it:

 

[Ala Dadan]

thank you @NicTraders good catch

 

[Rob Monster]

Is there a maintenance on epik? Can't reach my account.

Yes, nearly finished -- was not planned but the result is that you should get a faster Epik shortly. The work is finishing up. Apologies for inconvenience.

 

[NicTraders]

Is this a glitch or for real? I spoke with customer service and I've been told that's the regular retail price??

Yeah, their retail price is a bit excessive. Send a message to @Jess Robison, tell her you're a NamePros member and they'll setup a discount for you. You'll pay $8.49.

 

[Samer]

I think that Epik should dedicate a team member to user testing.

There are definitely glitches that could be easily remedied. For example, on the "free appraisal", if a user not logged in, they reach the Free Appraisal page, enter a domain name, then the results page gives a message..."To continue using our free WHOIS service, please login or create an Epik account."

It should say something like please login to use this tool or something. People might get frustrated when it says free, takes you to the page, let's you enter a domain, then no results and a message in red talking about using Whois. It should be professional.

I appreciate that epik said it’s “free”
they have to say it’s free somewhere.
Maybe less wordy; but “free” is essential imo

 

[blogspotter]

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.

It is nit just a login frame. Takes you to a new webpage and if you auto generate password, you need open your password manager to look for it again since it is a a new url.

 

[uzver]

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.

Now that this topic arose, I remembered I have some issues here too.

I added 2FA on FederatedIdentity.

Now, when I need to login to my Epik account I have to first login at FederatedIdentity.com (login/password + 2FA) and then I’m being redirected to Epik where I have to login again (My Epik’s 2FA that’s different from FederatedIdentity 2FA).

I’m guessing I may need to disable the “old” 2FA at Epik, so that I don’t get asked twice. But I see some disconnect here, it shouldn’t behave this way regardless. For this reason I don’t feel safe to rely on FederatedIdentity only — I keep it as is (2 x 2FA).

 

[jideofor]

This is painful... I noticed that there had been clicks to my domains of recent, like 5-6 for a particular domain name. Normally, the prices are announced in my pitches and I usually wondered why I don't hear anything back. I mean 5-6 clicks to page mean they are somewhat interested as they already know the price before going there.

I never knew that when they clicked the buy now, they see a warning sign.

Thank you.

 

[7363824]

This is painful... I noticed that there had been clicks to my domains of recent, like 5-6 for a particular domain name. Normally, the prices are announced in my pitches and I usually wondered why I don't hear anything back. I mean 5-6 clicks to page mean they are somewhat interested as they already know the price before going there.

I never knew that when they clicked the buy now, they see a warning sign.

Thank you.

This is what is shown as soon as you click buy now:

Yes it does mention a 60 day lock but im sure ICANN requires them to notify customers of that. And even if it isn't required being upfront is the tight thing to do.

 

[jideofor]

This is what is shown as soon as you click buy now:

Show attachment 165953

Yes it does mention a 60 day lock but im sure ICANN requires them to notify customers of that. And even if it isn't required being upfront is the tight thing to do.

It is not the right thing to. Which other registrar does it when buyer tries to purchase IF it is ICANN rule?

 

[branding]

IMO though its not worth the fraud risk to no use a 60 day lock. Even NameBright does it when you buy a name from HugeDomains. IMO if anyone could ear the loss from fraud it'd be them.

For the aftermarket, and buyers/sellers, restrictions in terms of locks are never a good thing. They're just covering their own ass. I don't mind, but let's be honest about it.

May there be issues, there's ways to go about to deal with it. 99% of the time that's not the case.

Domain transfers should (after initial registion) be without restrictions, and ultimately free of charge. That will move this industry forward.

 

[dande]

2. We uniquely allow you to monetize your own expiry stream with NameLiquidate.com. You can even automate it:

A positive plus. I was excited the day I saw it. Let's see how it'll perform.

 

[7363824]

This is a requirement that can actually be opted out of. So, why be upfront about a requirement that is optional? The way you see this is certainly not the way average end-user will see it.

Imagine you've been saving to buy a new car. The day finally arrived for you to purchase your dream car. On getting to the car mart, the first warning you get is "you may drive your car out of the shop after 60 days. USA-DMV requires a delay after car purchase". I guess as a first time car buyer, you'd be so excited to pay?

We have to be realistic here. That simple phrase can result to over 70% bounce rate.

First it may be able to be opted out of but its not so to thr buyer they have no choice.

Second I'd rather know something like that upfront rather then when I try to transfer out

Finally 70% really let's be honest you're just pulling a random number out of thin air there.

 

[dande]

First it may be able to be opted out of but its not so to thr buyer they have no choice.

Second I'd rather know something like that upfront rather then when I try to transfer out

Finally 70% really let's be honest you're just pulling a random number out of thin air there.

First, I've sold a number of domain names at Epik that were transferred out immediately by the buyers. So, you probably don't know what you're talking about.

Secondly, you're not a one time buyer. What is obtainable to you may never be the same with the end users.

Finally, it will be nice if you let me know what the current conversion rate is at Epik lander.

 

[dande]

So if you want to comaplin about something complain that you as the seller can't opt out of the lock on a marketplace sale. Why complain that Epik is being upfront and honest with buyers instead of hiding behind small print.

You can pander all you want but the truth is that the information is completely unnecessary. If it's so important and indeed a requirement, other registrars would have it displayed on their checkouts.

Glad to hear you're having a great success with buy now sales at Epik. That gives me hope.

 

[dande]

telling the buyer what to expect so they arent surprised afterwards.

It's all good. Let's agree to disagree. If the 60 days phares is the only thing I noticed, I wouldn't bother much about it. But as you can see, that was one out of many in the checkout process.

I like the idea of having my names listed at buy now and go to sleep. Only to wake up in the morning and receive alerts . That's the main reason I always have my domains for sale with the host-registrar. So, I have to be 100% sure noting is hindering my success. Good they're working on it and it will be better for all.

 

[DanSanchez]

Would be nice if federated id worked. The login is broken right now can’t log in.

Thank you, we are aware and working on it, sectionalized to a small number of users.

 

[dande]

It took a few extra days to get this fast-track development through QA but I am happy to report that Guest Checkout is in production for Marketplace purchases. The buyer is now taken directly to checkout.

Far better now than ever. That's what buyers wants to see - payment options, fill the details, and submit payment. Pure and simple.

Weldon!

If there is increased conversion and more revenue, I guess Epik will share some with me.