Aussie_girl,
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, there seems to be a lot of people on ebay that don’t decide in advance what they are willing to pay for something, and then bid it. We all do that to some extent – we all allow others to influence our opinions as to the value of “things”. But, there’s probably some self-defense at work on the proxy bidder’s part. Before sniping, I would place my one large proxy bid, and I would place it early. Mistake (spell that M-I-S-T-A-K-E) ! Those were proxy bids asking (“pretty please”) to be nibbled or shilled or stalked or (and this is my favorite) to have someone expose my bid then retract their bid.
Now, just because this is my experience, doesn’t mean it happens to everyone, but being a guy I’m more concerned about myself then anyone else (I’m predicting no one will disagree).
So, to a large part, I can understand not placing that one “most willing to pay” proxy bid, because there’s bound to be someone out there that will help you to pay that amount.
Of course, there are bidders that just can’t stand to lose, and bidding moves beyond the grabbing of goodies to something personal. I think they feel that losing an auction makes them losers – so up the price they go.
Well, I’m rambling, and telling you and everyone else something they already know, but like I said, I’m a guy, so I like to hear myself talk, or in this case, read myself post.
P.S. Lexie’s idea about a manual snipe is a good one for must-have items. Sara’s latest statistics are that they have been missing less than 1 out of 5,000 (or more than 99.98% successful). So, the odds are greatly in your favor that your snipe will get placed. But you know how bad things always seem to happen at the badest times (and it’s a bummer to be that “less than 1 out of 5,000”), so backing up AS’s snipe with a manual snipe is that much better. Probably unnecessary, but better safe.