to "froogal" -- Well, to continue this discussion, I want to add a few points:
1) The sniping experience I described happened to me not as a newbie, but as an experienced eBay buyer with over 200 purchases, and it occurred over a fairly long period. It seemed to me the sniping was getting more sophisticated (and faster) as time passed. So I don't think it's strictly an issue for new eBay buyers.
2) - from your post -
"Sniping tends to be better for buyers because it eliminates open competition, thus keeping the bids lower, IMHO. Snipe bidders tend to win more, again IMHO, because the action of an auction usually picks up at the end. A little experience can show a sniper where to bid with a few hours left in the auction. If they bid like everyone else with more time left, that sends a signal both literally and figuratively to other bidders that the object is more desired by someone else and will push up the price. Snipe bidders also tend to be more aware of overall pricing and have researched the price before the snipe bid taking into consideration both the value of the item, the strength of the seller, and current bids on the item."
The text I've put in bold type explains exactly what the problem is with computer sniping, why it is unfair to other bidders IMHO, and why I object to it. I thought the whole point of eBay bidding was open competition. The sniper is, in effect, a "hidden" bidder, whose existence and bid is only revealed once he/she has won. He/she doesn't want to participate in the bidding process with others in the "room", so to speak, but to circumvent it.
Now this may also be true of a "human" last-second sniper with his finger on the button, but I doubt he would be able to place several bids in the last millisecond in the event one of the existing bidders has an earlier reserve bid in place. And, honestly, if a bidder knows his stuff and has done his research, regardless of time zone, etc., he can decide on a price, make his best and highest bid early and count on his reserve bid to win the item.
Your experience may be somewhat different from mine because of the category of item involved. I completely disagree with your statement that sniping keeps bids low. That certainly hasn't been my experience; if anything it's been exactly the opposite.
In one series of auctions I can recall that took place over about a 2-week period, a computerized sniper who grabbed the first item more or less at market value set off a frenzy of bidding for the rest. Even though the bids had gone far beyond a reasonable value for the remaining items, more than twice normal (I was well aware of the market value of these particular items), the sniper won them all, every single one of them. The seller must have been pleased at the windfall, but there was nothing honest or fun about it for any of the other bidders.
This wasn't the result of diligence and research, just greed and secretiveness. There was, I'm certain, more to that particular sniping than simply plugging a maximum bid into the computer programme. You may disagree, but I am convinced there are sophisticated programmes out there that can hack into eBay's auction data. Toward the end of the series mentioned, I bid on one item as a "test" -- I placed a bid early that was quite high, then increased that bid within the last 3 or 4 seconds of the auction to roughly 3 times the other bids. The sniper won, at about the 0.5 second mark. How could that sniper possibly have known in advance what my last-second bid was going to be, at least in enough time to have set a maximum bid, and not only match my bid, but beat it by exactly the auction "step" amount? To me, that smacks of cheating.
The other side of the coin is that sniping programmes are not available to every bidder -- imagine what a mess eBay would be if they were!! Unfortunately it seems to me that the people most apt to defend computerized sniping are those who have access to it (not everyone is so technically competent). I'm not exactly techno-illiterate, but I wouldn't know how or where to find a sniping programme. And I wouldn't use it if I did -- it's not illegal on eBay, but it confers an unfair advantage.
Your suggestion about "popcorn" bidding being a possible solution says to me that you recognize the inherent unfairness of computerized sniping. This would in fact probably be a good way to level the playing field and allow other bidders at least a last chance to outbid a sniping computer.
As I said, computerized sniping, especially of the more sophisticated variety, left a sour taste in my mouth. It was exactly because snipers were driving up prices, particularly of serial auction listings in sought-after categories (like antiques and collectibles) that I gave up bidding on them -- what was the point of continuing if no matter what bid was placed, that bid would be outdone by a machine?
EBay's auction mechanism is (again IMHO), a broken machine, likely in part because there are many disgusted buyers such as the OP who are put off and will go elsewhere or look for BIN items at reasonable market prices. EBay is doubtless well aware of this, as they've been encouraging and supporting more of an eCommerce BIN/store paradigm for sellers in recent policy changes.
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