You think it could help or hurt a sale by giving a buyer only 1 registrar option?
This is a misleading question .. by having Epik be your first option in no way stops you from using any other option.
I had a recent $xxxx sale (not FullVenue) where I was approached by a broker on behalf of a buyer. The domain in question happened to be at Epik, so I offered the buyer to complete the transaction at Epik where I could offer them a no fee option. They said they were more comfortable with escrow.com (probably something to charge their client extra for .. lol) and I said fine, but it would need to be via Escrow.com's twice as expensive "concierge service", which would needless cost them hundreds of dollars extra. They went ahead with that .. and ironically I ultimately pushed the domain to Escrow.com's
Epik account! lol
So in the end the buyer just threw away hundreds of dollars for nothing .. but it didn't change anything for me at all .. I don't understand why this is an issue to you in any way? It doesn't limit our options in any way .. it's simply a great new option that happens to be better than all the others when it comes to instant transactions. "No-fee instant-exchange" "escrow" is simply a nice extra to offer clients .. it's also a nice way to make sure that they pay all fees if they choose to go via somewhere else.
Do you understand the difference between marketplace transaction and an actual escrow?
Maybe a part of the conflict here is in the usage of the not always completely agreed upon exact definition of the term "escrow". For all intents and purposes the instant Domain<>Funds exchange admittedly isn't even "escrow" (from the sellers perspective), since there is no holding period between when you own the domain and when you get your pre-secured funds. But do NOT in any way mistake that as being a bad thing .. because whatever you want to call it, it's actually better than a conventional "escrow", as the instant aspect renders the requirement of a conventional "escrow" effectively obsolete.
However .. admittedly .. where licencing does become an important consideration is with prolonged payment periods, as indeed the licencing does help theoretically protect your assets (although I'm not sure if that's 100% guaranteed) if the holding company ever becomes insolvent.
Although even then I only say that because I'm not really sure what would happen to your domain in the case Epik ever became insolvent in the middle of a payment plan. I'm pretty sure that even if the domain is being held by Epik, it still legally belongs to you (and not Epik) until the transaction is 100% completed .. at which point Epik then only owns the domain for a micro-second as the funds and domain are "simultaneously" exchanged via theoretical Epik ownership. I think legally, Epik:
1) holds the buyer's funds, then simultaneously
2) buys the domain from you, and
2) sells the domain to the buyer (Note the steps are 1, 2, 2 and not 1, 2, 3). If that's the case, then there effectively is really no difference than any other "conventional" Escrow .. with the exception being that it's faster, cheaper and more efficient to go via Epik!
(Hopefully @Rob Monster can confirm/clarify my guesses/assumptions in the above paragraph)
Most important worth noting in the debate is the
EXTREMELY INSECURE 24 hour "inspection period" AND "receipt confirmation" at Escrow.com .. where the buyer can cancel the transaction
FOR ANY REASON. Also, if you have a non-tech savvy buyer, they might take forever to confirm to Escrow.com that they received the domain or simply go silent before confirming reception of the domain at Escrow.com. Please note however .. that while this has obviously stressed me out during each of my larger sales (until I started insisting on the use of their concierge service), it's NEVER been an actual issue to me, and ALL of my transactions via Escrow.com have completed successfully.
Also a scammer could accept the domain and then simply tell Escrow.com they didn't receive the domain. Unless you are using Escrow.com's DOUBLE-priced concierge service, then as a seller, EVERY transaction is at risk and theoretically
NOT secure! Whereas this is a total non-issue if you do an instant ("escrow"/"marketplace") transaction via Epik or any other registrar set up to do the same.
So at the end of the day, particularly with single-payment transactions, going with Epik (or a similarly setup registrar) is infinitely more secure than a non-concierge Escrow.com transaction. An Escrow.com concierge transaction would only be equally secure (not more).
Note that I'm not saying this to belittle Escrow.com ... as demonstrated above with my buyers who preferred to go via Escrow.com, there is a PERCEIVED ILLUSION of extra security going via Escrow.com (even if there isn't one), and that in itself is a huge plus to the domain industry where one of the biggest issues facing domainers, is getting potential buyers to trust us. That fact alone makes having Escrow.com available to us as domainers a great tool and asset.
Epik is really doing something great .. I think for strictly technical reasons, for short or instant transactions, it's actually a better option than Escrow.com .. but that in no way means that I'm not grateful to also having Escrow.com available to us as a useful tool in our domainer arsenal.
Epik is shacking things up .. and if we're lucky that will get Escrow.com to pull up their socks and make improvements of their own .. increased competition is a great thing for us as domainers .. particularly when we have multiple good and viable options with slightly different benefits ... as is the case here!