Dropcatch needs to increase its bidding increments.
There’s a heated domain auction going on at DropCatch.com right now. Bidders have placed over 350 bids and counting for reactive.com, pushing the price up over $135,000. (Update: the auction ended at $168,450.)
Like all domain auction platforms, DropCatch automatically extends the auction if there are bids in the final minutes. This makes the auction drag on and on, and there’s a good chance it will still be underway when you read this.
Peter Askew has been tweeting about the auction. He must be getting tired:
Bidding increments are too low for that price level
— DomainNameWire.com (@DomainNameWire) October 25, 2022
As I discussed with him on Twitter, this auction is taking much longer than it needs to because of the company’s bidding increments.
DropCatch’s bidding increments start at $5 but top out at $50 once a domain hits $500. So when bidder demands bid $136,050, just $50 over luxtea‘s bid, it reset the clock to five minutes.
Compare this to DropCatch’s competitors.
SnapNames and NameJet have 14 steps. They hit $50 increments at the $1,000 mark. By the time an auction hits $10,000, it’s up to $500, and $5,000 after $100k.
GoDaddy has 8 steps, starting at $5 for domains below $500. It’s $25 by the $1,000 mark, $250 by the $10,000 mark, and $1,000 on auctions over $50k.
I suspect that most of Dropcatch’s auctions had lower prices when the service launched years ago. With escalating bid prices, the company should consider raising its bidding increments.
Why is DropCatch.com getting lots of good domains to be auctioned? Do they have better technology or ?
Well, for one thing they have about a thousand registrar accreditations.
yeah dropcatch is clearly broken,
these $50 bids don’t make sense,
a lot of their high end auctions don’t close,
this one is looking pretty fake based on bid patterns
Why would dropcatch change it? I’m sure they love these never-ending auctions. Price seems to go higher than it would otherwise because it’s always easy to justify another $50.
And as far as the bidders, they are free to make their highest bid and leave. But there are 3 of them sitting at their computer now caught up in the endless bidding war. If any of them are reading this: please stop and go get some mental help. You are caught in a psychological trap overpaying for domain auctions:)
I think there is a lot to learn from the psychology of this domain auction. Mainly – domainers are reactive.
Hi Andrew! I’m a Product Owner with DropCatch/TurnCommerce and wanted to drop you a line that the bid tiers were updated as a result of this article. Appreciate you helping highlight the customer impact this had caused; we’re hopeful we can continue getting this type of feedback on our radar so we can keep shipping some quality of life improvements for our customers!
https://twitter.com/annie_domainsTC/status/1598417925446467585
Cool – https://domainnamewire.com/2022/12/01/dropcatch-changes-bid-increments-following-big-auctions/