How can a company [Name itself] NameCheap itself when the prices are higher than of Sav, Porkbun or Epik?
I guess they're still "cheap" and cheaper than some (+cheaper than the leader: GoDaddy). They never claimed to be the CHEAPEST.
They seem to just have changed the
link structure for the names on sale on their marketplace, which is good. Before, the link was very specific to each sale (with a bunch of numbers and characters). When a sale expired (it can be for a duration of 90 days max) and you put the name up for sale again, the link wasn't good anymore and changed. When you want to change the price, you can't (still the case :/ ). You have to delete the sale and put up a new one: The link was changing too.
Now, they did like Epik: "
https://www.namecheap.com/market/DOMAIN.TLD/". The link is tied to the domain and always remains the same, even if you renew, delete and recreate, etc.
Interestingly enough, things were pretty immediate before. When you put a domain for sale, deleted a sale, or changed it, you could see the changes on their marketplace right away. Now, there seem to be a small lag of several minutes (maybe 10 or 15 minutes, even). Not very important. I had set up a new sale and wanted the link (in order to redirect the domain to it, which is something you have to do manually). In any case, you can now anticipate easily what it will be (which wasn't the case before. At all)
As for the marketplace itself, it may be quite good for cheap sales (or "liquidations"). I guess having marketplaces on registrars themselves has the advantage that some people directly have money in their account. It must facilitate a little the buying act. And you get your purchase right away, for sure, without having to pay a 1 year registration (or transfer price, really). I just had a $99 sale this week-end.
Namecheap is also supposed to show the names for sale on their marketplace to people searching for available domains. That wasn't always working in the past. Maybe it does now. Namecheap is quite a big registrar. So, lot of customers with money on their accounts and lots of searches.
(There is an argument all this is done by afternic too, but the number of partner registrars showing names on sale on Afternic seems to have gone down quite a bit compared to what it once was...)