You never know what's going to happen in a private domain auction at a dropcatcher. I've been in auctions at pool, enom, + snapnames with a lot of others for
great names, and ended up winning some of them from $60 - $100. This is rare, but it happens if others are asleep at the wheel. (Many people, like myself, prefer to wait until the last minute to bid and prefer not to use proxy bids ahead of schedule. Sometimes, this practice will cause them to miss an auction completely.)
Conversely, I have been in auctions with only 1 or 2 other people for names that were not that good and have seen those names sell for insanely overvalued amounts. Just recently, the dot Info version of my home city dropped and was caught at Snapnames. There were three of us in the private auction for this domain. The population of my city is around 75,000 people so I figured I should be able to get this domain for under $100. Was I wrong! All three bidders wanted the domain, and the bidding didn't stop until $825 was the final amount.
So I guess what I am trying to say is you never know what will happen. Seeker gives some great advice that can help avoid getting caught up in the competitiveness and paying too much. Unfourtunately, when it comes to expired domains, sometimes the only way to get the specific domain you want is to overpay. :td:
Auctions at snapnames extend themselves for 5 minutes with every bid that comes within 5 minutes of the schedule closing time. So it's different from eBay in regards to sniping. With this in mind, I prefer to make my bids with about 5 or 6 minutes left on the "estimated time left" clock. This way, I do not extend the auction longer than I need to and I minimize the amount of time the previous high bidder has to react (he will get an outbid notice via email). I believe this is the best way to approach an auction at Snapnames if you are able to be near the computer at the close. It will help keep the price down, in theory. But if other bidders are alert and available near the auction close... there's just no way to know what will happen.
Good luck.
