Ed Price wrote:
As a matter of fact bidding hours or, worse, days before auction end
will give others time to place successive bids in small increments,
until they surpass you by just 1$....

This technique may harass bidders and inflate the auction price, but
it's not a way to win. The winner, despite having an unknown high bid,
ALWAYS wins by just the minimum increment.

The snipe strategy is just the opposite, Ed;
snipe bidding at the last minute substantially reduces final prices.
In a non-snipe environment, two bidders might proceed thus:

#1 thinks: "My absolute maximum for this is $50 and bids accordingly.
It is 3 days until auction close.

#2 decides $60 is his highest offer, and he bids.
It is 2 days until auction close.

#1 sees he is outbid at $51. He says "Oh, well." But that is not
the nature of humans. He frets. He figgits. He finally convinces
himself: "I really want this. If it's worth $50, it's worth $70."
He bids $70 and becomes high bidder at $61.
It is 1 day to auction close.

#2 now does exactly the same thing #1 did,
and is now the high bidder at $71.

In the last few hours, this cycle repeats until #2
actually reaches his (heretofore unconscious) limit of $95,
and #1 wins the auction at $96.

In a Sniped auction, #1 says "My limit is $50" and puts in his
snipe accordingly. #2 says his is $60 and puts in his snipe.
The auction closes with #2 the winner at $61.

Therefore, sniping actually brings prices down overall.

The wise sniper will use the long time before auction close
to think hard about just how much he wants an item,
instead of entering his first impulse
six days before auction end.

Kindly,
David S.

p.s. There is one reason for entering an early bid:
I sometimes enter a low bid just to put my name on the
list and let my friends know I'm really interested in
that item. This gives us a chance to negotiate
about which of us is going to actually try to win the item.
The other person can drop out of the race.
If you decide to use this idea, you and your friends
need to exchange emails about your Ebay user IDs;
don't expect your best friend to know "GoobaWappa6"
is you, unless you tell him.