So you're sniping just to avoid paying an extra $10 that you were prepared to pay anyway ?
$10 is still $10! My 'job' when buying an item at auction is to pay as little as possible for it. Why would I want to get into a battle-of-the-egos with some spoilt child who keeps coming back and bidding a bit more and a bit more (and then probably becoming a non-paying bidder anyway when he realises that his ego got the better of him and he bid too much)? Sniping is a misleading term, it suggests a targeted attack on another bidder. It isn't, it is simply placing your bid in the last seconds to avoid inciting a battle with other bidders. If anything it's actually a passive act.
I love a bargain as much as the next person, but it doesn't happen in real life auctions so I don't see why it should happen in e-bay. My 2c worth.
It does happen in real life auctions, to a point. Nobody likes to bid too early in a real auction and get into a head-to-head battle. People tend to hold off. Ideally, most would probably like to wait until the end of the (hopefully sparse) bidding and then win the item with a single, final bid. Obviously you can't really do this in a real-life auction as the auctioneer will keep the auction open until it is clear there are no more bids, so the other bidders can always bid again. On eBay the auction finishes at a set time, so you have the opportunity to get your bid into the auctioneer at the last second.
I nearly always snipe. It's nothing personal, but I see an item I want, I decide how much I'm prepared to pay (and the trick is to bid slightly MORE than you want to pay, not be in some dream-world about how much you'd LIKE to win the item for) and I set up the shot. Then I forget about it unless I receive the email a few days later telling me I won. If I won, the worst case scenario is that I pay a few more dollars than I would have liked. Big deal. Usually I will have won it for less, so I'm happy. If I didn't win, then it really wasn't within my budget. Simple. No hard feelings, nothing to whine about.
Usually it all happens in my absence and I don't know (or care) about the other bidders. If I do watch its progress though, it's rare that I'll be the only sniper on an item. Often the price jumps significantly in the final seconds as other snipers get their shots in. The auctioneer (eBay) will sort out the mess and award it to the highest bidder, whether they got their bid in on day 1 or with 4 seconds to go.
If there are no other snipers I'll often end up with a bargain, as the non-sniping bidders often bid less than they are prepared to pay, because they are blinded by greed and optimism and they think the way to walk away with a bargain is to bid frugally. eBay simply doesn't work that way. You can't orchestrate a bargain on any particular item, you can only increase your odds of them happening by being smart about your bidding. Occasionally sniping can even work against you. An item which receives no bids early on can attract more attention as its price stays low, and people think it has escaped notice. Sometimes getting an early bid in can help to discourage the vultures from circling. The trick is to find out what works for you and stick to it, but certainly not have any complaints. Anyone can snipe if they want to.
