A couple of weeks ago, Namecheap announced its Namecheap Market, a platform for buying and selling domain names. There are buy it now listings as well as domain name auctions on the platform. I bid on a few auctions, and I won my first auction over the weekend. As a result of winning the auction, I learned a few things that I want to share as an auction buyer.
Most importantly, not all auctions are expiry auctions. I was under the impression that auctions on Namecheap were for expired domain names that are registered at Namecheap. This assumption was wrong. It appears that domain registrants can send their Namecheap-registered domain names to auction on the platform. This adds a couple of elements to consider, including the seller’s control of the domain names and the expiration date of the domain names won in auction.
After winning an auction, I had a bit of difficulty seeing where and how to pay for the auction. My unpaid auction page was blank and there was nothing in my shopping cart. I decided to visit the domain name directly to see if that led me to the payment page, and it had a purchase link I could use. This brought me to the checkout screen, and I was able to pay for the auction. The total price was $49.
In a 
A little over a month ago, I reported that 