Quote Originally Posted by BurnBeGone View Post
Can you folks who are sniping explain the logic to me? I just won a bid for a razor on ebay against a guy who bid six times in a minute and a half, starting 8 minutes before the close. Each time he raised his bid by a couple of dollars, but never got as high as the bid I had put in a few hours earlier. I don't get it -- if he was willing to go that high, why not just put in one bid? It seems to me he either doesn't understand eBay's Dutch auction system (you don't have to pay as much as you bid, only a little more than the next highest bidder), or he was deliberately trying to jack up the price on me without having to buy it himself.

I guess I can understand waiting until near the end to bid so as not to attract attention to a good find, but this kind of sniping is beyond me. What's your reasoning for waiting until the last minute?
It's just a speculation about his reasoning, but that could be the equivalent of an impulse buy. They may have stumbled on the auction and want to win it but are not sure how much they want it. So they try few times and realize they've bid more than what they were willing to pay. Conversely if you had used a snipe you'd have probably paid less. That bidder would've been winning it with his first bid but then not have the time to react on your snipe. Not sniping, you just give more time to others to outbid you. Of course if your snipe doesn't go through (a glitch for example, or you're not fast enough) you lose for waiting too long.