There is only one type of bid. It is called proxy bidding because when you bid, the full amount is not shown, only the amount necessary to keep you as the top bidder. In the auction's bid history WHILE THE AUCTION IS IN PROGRESS, the amounts of the various bids are not shown, only the dates and times that bids were made. These, as you already know, are listed not chronologically, but in order of least to greatest. At the end of the auction, all bid amounts are revealed in the bidding history, with the exception of the winning bidder's amount, which only shows the amount he needed to win, rather than the full amount he bid.
Now, you seem to be under the impression that a person must bid more than once. Several times you refer to the winner not having put in any other bid beside his winning bid. I am not sure where you got this idea, but it is untrue. A person needs only to bid ONCE, and that is all it takes to win an auction. (That is what we, as snipers, do!) People are free to bid as many times as they like (and many so-called nibblers do precisely this, trying to nickel and dime their way to beating the current high bid.) But there is NO mandate to bid more than once--if the winner's bid was $100, made five days before the end of the auction, and none of the other seven bids are higher, then that single bid becomes the winning bid at the end of the auction. NO other bidding is necessary. Steve had tried to explain that to you.
You may ask why, then, we snipe; why don't we just bid our maximum amounts days before the auction ends? The answer is because of human nature and the typical behavioral patterns exhibited by many, if not most, eBayers, especially newbies. We avoid getting into bidding wars, where two or more folks, each with the notion that "I'm not going to let that bum take MY item from me," keeo trying to outbid each other. Such people view an auction as a card game, with the pot being raised successively higher as the game goes around the table. Those who have the guts stay in until the end, hopeful that they have the best hand, while others lose their nerve and fold. Bidding wars are gamblers trying to stick it out until the end, but meanwhile the price goes higher and higher, often far beyond the value of the item, often far beyond what the bidders had originally intended to pay. But their territorial mindset does not want to relinquish the war.
Another factor in this mindset is the desire to get the item at a "cheap" price. Because they are looking for bargain basement prices, two or more bidders may engage in the war, using very small increments. In their minds, this means they are not spending very much and can afford to make thopse bids "just a little higher." But they overlook the fact that their eight bids apiece raised the final price MUCH higher.
These folks would never just bid their full amounts at the outset. No, instead of bidding $25 for that item, they will bid $2.50, $2.75, etc. They think they are saving money, but each time their bids are answered with counterbids, they respond even higher. But, AND THIS IS CRUCIAL, if no one outbids them, they leave their lowball bids where they are. That's where we snipers come in. Without warning, we come in at the last seconds and SWOOSH the item away. Maybe the nibblers would have been willing to spend more than our snipe amounts, but since no one had bid that amount earlier, they never raised their bids. And once our snipes come in, they have no time to decide, let alone actually attempt, to place a higher bid or not.
Hopefully you now understand how the eBay proxy bidding system works and the fact that ONE winning bid is all that is required. Hopefully you also understand why we snipe.
