Very Upset With Myself

[Exhibitman]

Shilling is the biggest reason to snipe. Since Ebay made it impossible to see who is bidding against you, it is open season for shilling. I usually put in a low bid to indicate that someone is interested in the card so the seller won't panic that the item won't sell, then set my real max as a snipe. I believe it has saved me a lot of money over the years.

Chipping away at a max bid is definitely real; I do it all the time. I often see an item that I would be willing to own at a certain price level but don't want enough to pay what I perceive to be full retail. If it has bids already I will sometimes whack away at the high bid a few times just to see if I can luck out and top it, running up the bid in the process. If that bidder set a snipe instead I would end up with the high bid at a lower tier and would stop bidding at that point.

Another use of sniping is bid coordination. I use auctionstealer, which allows you to create bid groups in which the first item to hit cancels the other bids on items in the group. Really useful when I definitely want at least one item of a group-like for a rare type card--but not necessarily all of them.

Finally, there are some circumstances in which I am not sure whether I want to commit to an item for whatever reason. Sniping lets me set up a bid so I don't forget the item [we all know how life can interfere with card shopping] but without really committing to it until the last minute.