To be... or not to be... the first bidder.

[DomainVP]

In reference to expired and pre release auctions.

Is it a deterrent to your interest in a name when there there is a bidder (or bidders) days in advance of the auction ending?

When you see a name you like do you wait until the final minutes to wage your bidding warfare?

I only ask this because sometimes I see people place bids 5+ days in advance and think to myself, "what were they thinking?"

Logically there are two top justifications for this. First, the bidder wants to scare off others with potential interest letting them know they are going to have a nice bid war if they place a bid as well. The second possibility is that the bidder has no idea what they are doing and are new to bidding warfare.

Well... what say you?

 

[N-A]

I use a whole different tactic. I bid on what I believe is pigeon wank at the last minute to distract from the real name I want. Usually I win the name I want and 1 "junk" name out of 5-10 I bid on. It's a great diversion to pinch pennies IMO.

 

[AEProgram]

In reference to expired and pre release auctions.

Is it a deterrent to your interest in a name when there there is a bidder (or bidders) days in advance of the auction ending?

When you see a name you like do you wait until the final minutes to wage your bidding warfare?

I only ask this because sometimes I see people place bids 5+ days in advance and think to myself, "what were they thinking?"

Logically there are two top justifications for this. First, the bidder wants to scare off others with potential interest letting them know they are going to have a nice bid war if they place a bid as well. The second possibility is that the bidder has no idea what they are doing and are new to bidding warfare.

Well... what say you?

in most cases if you see a single bid many days before cutoff time its someone who is clueless and there is no shortage of that.

lll.com and single word names will have many bids days in advance as it dont matter.

We must stop and realize that many non domainers order on sites like gd, nj, sn etc, they simply dont know much about domaining and im sure I dont know much about the business they are in.

What you suggested "the bidder wants to scare off others with potential interest letting them know they are going to have a nice bid war if they place a bid as well" reminded me of the many episodes on the discovery channel where they show you what animals do to scare each other off.

When I see a single bid days in advance on a semi decent name I dont get scared much, I know that there is a good chance this bidder will not be at a computer or not know how to login to outbid me the last 5 minutes of the auction especially on their phone. I have proven this to be true many times.

This one guy posted on some business forum a while ago something in the lines of that "if the registrar sees no bids they remove the domain from their system so bid the moment you see a name you like and that forces them to give you the name".

 

[Kate]

Logically there are two top justifications for this. First, the bidder wants to scare off others with potential interest letting them know they are going to have a nice bid war if they place a bid as well. The second possibility is that the bidder has no idea what they are doing and are new to bidding warfare.

There is also a third possibility: sometimes people place a backorder early, I mean the same day because they live in a different (remote) time zone.
Fourth possibility: for certain type of domains people know that there will be plenty of bidders anyway, so they just take the pole position.

 

[Doron Vermaat]

There is also a third possibility: sometimes people place a backorder early, I mean the same day because they live in a different (remote) time zone.
Fourth possibility: for certain type of domains people know that there will be plenty of bidders anyway, so they just take the pole position.

Exactly. I'm based out of Hong Kong so I usually place my (proxy) bids way in advance because most auctions end around 3 AM local time for me. Not everyone wants to make or has the time to place last minutes bids.