Higher minimum bids in some NameJet prerelease auctions

[vivid]

Does anyone know, what is the nature of a minimum bid being considerably higher than the typical $69 in some NameJet pre-release auctions? Does it depend on the registrar, the name itself (manual decision?), something else? Also, as I see, it's possible to place a bid at any level below it; you see a message though that you won't be included in the auction until you raise your bid. I personally tend to understand 'Minimum' as the plain minimum allowed for backorder bid, but in this case it works just like a reserve price.

 

[Theo]

It is a reserve price, as it's a private sale.

 

[vivid]

I don't quite understand, as the names I'm speaking about have either 'Pending Renewal or Deletion' or 'REACTIVATION PERIOD' as the registrant name in WHOIS. Also, it seems that there's usually a label 'reserve auction' in case of a private auction. Or, otherwise, is it possible that a seller can send a name to auction when a month has already passed since it entered the autorenew-grace period?

 

[Theo]

Domains that are with Network Solutions and Register.com form the bulk of NJ auctions. They can change - and usually do - the domain's status to expired etc. when in fact it's a private sale. If the domain doesn't sell, its status is reverted.

 

[vivid]

Thanks for clarifying, I haven't known that. It's strange a bit though that NameJet doesn't use the same mechanism for this that was introduced for private 3rd party sellers not so long ago, when the type of auction is obvious and it's clear that 'reserve' is a reserve.

 

[vivid]

Though I forgot that the reserve price is unknown in case of standard private auctions, so probably not the exactly matching use-case.

 

[Theo]

In my opinion, they do that because people tend to bid higher 'believing' that the domain is expired versus a private sale

 

[vivid]

About bidding higher for expired domains - sounds like true story for many buyers indeed