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Or was I doing it totally wrong?
No, but the optimal strategy (which is what the sniping bots do) is put your maximum bid in as late as possible (we're talking with seconds to go).
If you put your maximum bid in early there's a greater chance that someone will come along and decide to pay just a bit more for it and you lose out.
If you put your maximum bid in as late as possible there's no time for anyone to react to it (unless they've already entered a higher maximum bid themselves).
As others have said, the other benefit of a good sniping bot is that you can set it up to bid on a group of items and if you're successful with any of the items in a group it won't bid on the rest.
I snagged a PowerTap wheel for my commuting bike with manual patience. I must have bid on 10 or more wheels over the course of months that all went for £200+ until I hit on one that I got for ~£100.
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Greenbank
What worked best for me was to put my maximum (what I was willing to pay) bid in, and forget about it until it was over. Let everyone else with their bots faff around raising the price bit by bit then just come back after the auction to see if I'd got lucky and by how much. Or if i'd lost, sod it, it was more than I was willing to pay
Or was I doing it totally wrong?