You’re at the tail end of a 4 day auction. There were one or two early bids, but the price is way below your max. With 10 minutes to go, someone comes in and bids up the domain, but you’re still ahead. Five minutes later they do it again to extend the auction. After 30 minutes of extensions you’re ready to yell because they keep delaying it and you have an appointment to make.

Unless you’re one of those delayed bidders, you’ve probably experienced that scenario. This happened to me a few days ago and it reminded me of the few times I employed the technique, which helped me analyze and eventually win the domain.

Why do domain bidders do it? I can speak for myself that I have done it for two distinct reasons.

Limited Budget
The first is because I had a limited budget and was bidding on multiple domains at the same time. When your budget is $10k and you’re bidding on two domains over $5k, something’s gotta give. The best strategy for getting rid of these delayed bidders is to get your highest bid in early and forget about it. As soon as one of those $5k domains reaches $10k, your delay bidder is going to focus on the cheaper domain. Even if the domain only reaches $8k, the delay bidder will focus on the cheaper domain because of the perceived value. If he sees the two domains as relatively equal, he may place a bid on the cheaper domain at the price where the expensive domain is at, and upon winning will let you have your domain. As with any auction, the more you are willing to pay the more likely you are to win. But the worst thing to do in this late bidding scenario is to delay placing your max bid. This will give the delay-bidder the idea that you are close to your quitting point. For this reason, and many others, it’s better to get your big bid in and walk away.

Indecision
I have delayed an auction because I wasn’t 100% sure about the price. The difference between this excuse and the reason above is that I only delayed the auction once, not six or seven iterations. The only strategy here is to have your max bid place early so that one or two delay bids will be instantly answered.

If you have another reason for delaying an auction, drop me a line–I’ve love to hear about it.