You see an item on Ebay you're interested in. There's two days left and the starting bid is $20. Only one other person is interested in this item, and they put in the first bid for $22, no one else is interested or going to bid. The item is worth $50 to you, so you put in a $50 bid. The other bidder puts his old woman hat on, and starts bidding, $22, $24, $26 and so on until they beat your $50 bid. If you bid again for $60, they either start bidding again until they beat you, or you end up paying $50 or more. If you had sniped, waited until the last few seconds to bid, you would have beaten their opening $22 bid and gotten the item for $23 because they wouldn't have time to bid again. Now, if someone else was also sniping on that, you might have lost, or paid more, but that's the breaks. If you want to see the price on an item go up, bid early and often.
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