Playing the role of the sniper can be very beneficial in online penny auctions. This occurs when a person does not bid on an item until it is in the final seconds of the auction. The main problem with this is that you never know who else might be trying out the same strategy. If there are a number of snipers looking at the same product, a bidding war can ensue causing a larger out of pocket expense than what you hoped for. On top of this, if a sniper enters even later in the bidding war, they can get a hotly contested item for only a few bids just by being patient.
With a proper sniper technique, then, you must often allow items that you want to pass you by without bidding on them. This is mostly due to the fact that you want to be sure you will win the item, and if people use up all their bids before you, you will have a better chance. If an item that should be in high demand is still at a low price, you can be sure that over a long period of time, more people will bid on it. This is why you should wait, and even let some items be won without your bids. You want to preserve bids, after all, and the majority of the time, these items will not go for a cheap price. You need to play the odds here, and like anything that is based on probability, sometimes you will be wrong.