FFXIV ECONOMICS 101

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Originally Posted by ClaireAbigail

Which part of "she doesn't care about Gil and just wanna sell it" don't you get? Some people treat this game like...I don't know...a game and not a business.

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There's a vendor for that.

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Originally Posted by kidvideo

Listing for less than the "going rate" guarantees mine will sell first & fastest, IF I want it to move. I do this in FFXI too.

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But when things are selling for one price dozens of times per day, there is literally no reason to undercut like that.

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Originally Posted by TheCurls

But when things are selling for one price dozens of times per day, there is literally no reason to undercut like that.

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Yes there is. I want mine to sell super quick just to get rid of it but selling it higher than vendor price.

Or how about, I want a lucky person to get something cheap today to brighten up his day.

Or I can say I don't care if I loose 10-100 Gil as long as I made profit I'm ok

Or how I see it. I have a sadistic pleasure watching the market crash because of the stuff I did. I LOVE watching people whine and complain about undercutting them in Mor Dhona even though they were clearly overpricing the material or whatever I'm crafting. It gives me great pleasure knowing I made money and you didn't. If someone undercuts me kudos to them. I'll buy it and sell it to a higher price :p

Occupy Eorzea ! Down with price fixing!

Economy crash or riot! (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

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Originally Posted by ClaireAbigail

Or how I see it. I have a sadistic pleasure watching the market crash because of the stuff I did. I LOVE watching people whine and complain about undercutting them in Mor Dhona even though they were clearly overpricing the material or whatever I'm crafting. It gives me great pleasure knowing I made money and you didn't. If someone undercuts me kudos to them. I'll buy it and sell it to a higher price :p

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None of those other things are the actual reason people do it. This one is. Now, you might think you're upsetting me (I know you're upsetting other people), but I'm not a market hound. I'm just pointing out that it's silly to do things the way you, and other people do them.

But it's okay. Keep trolling the market. I'm glad it makes you happy to piss people off. Your life must be fantastic.

I undercut this all the time. Usually things my retainer brings me, usually by a good amount. Why? Cuz I can. Cuz it pisses people off. Cuz I just don't care? Cuz I'm still making money, more than selling it to a vendor, and still at a decent speed.

I just don't care if it makes others upset. It actually kind of amuses me when people get angry that I sold that lvl 50 gear for 10k less. Amuses me more when I throw something up for like 5k lower just to sell it, and I come back an hour later and see 5 more under cutting. Mine by 2-5k. Lol. Just means my ways are getting to people XD

Though in hopes of meeting someone like the op, I wait for the day I get an angry tell from some crafter lol.

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Originally Posted by TheCurls

But it's okay. Keep trolling the market. I'm glad it makes you happy to piss people off. Your life must be fantastic.

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Yup life's fantastic and I'm not trying to piss you off please don't flatter yourself I'm just saying how it is. And do you feel bad if you set your price lower than the other competition? Here's how I see it: I made money. The other didn't. Ah well. Or the other made money, I didn't ah well. That's how free market works.

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Originally Posted by TheCurls

But it's okay. Keep trolling the market. I'm glad it makes you happy to piss people off. Your life must be fantastic.

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Ok, this is crazy talk. I really doubt anyone is true trolling here. If anyone is it's rare/ex.

This is common sense. I have something I want to sell. I see X of the same item on the marketboard. I sell mine at X - X so that it moves.

The complainers take it so personal... with all the name calling & harrassing tells & forum posts...

Meanwhile, back at the market board... my retainer has some gil for me.

lol do people really think we undercut to piss people off... wtf

If I undercut by a lot, it's because I think everyone else is asking for too much. Especially if it's a lvl 1-30 item, a newbie may not have much gil but still need to gear up, so I won't go over a certain price.

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Originally Posted by ruinedmirage

I must've been the worst undercutter of them all. I gave stuff away for free, made relics with my own mats and materia, gathered and made stacks of 99 HQ foods to give away. I just did crafting and gathering on request, because I felt I profited more from helping people out of kindness than from getting another white pixel next to the yellow one.

Seeing people light up from free crafts, free melds, free mats, and even free gil donations was something that COULDN'T be bought, it DIDN'T have value in gil, and was absolutely PRICELESS. But as I had more and more fun doing that, I got more and more hate for it (stealing customers, as it were). I eventually realized ......... I was going against the typical flow. People are supposed to take advantage of the weak and extort whenever possible.

That's when I left.

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This. Just last night there was a player that shouted on the Steps of Nald that they needed gil for teleports. I invited her to party, got together, and sent her 50k gil, disbanded the party, and continued on with my day.

If y'all wanna price fix and collude then make a trade linkshell and do it with a bunch of other vendors. Buy out anyone that tries to undercut you and repost their product at an inflated price. Be the bad guy.

Don't expect everyone else to be complicit in your price fixing just by whining on the forums.

I say just ignore the whiners and let them cry.

If you're making money, no matter how(as long as it legal), keep on doing what you're doing. If anyone sends you a "nasty" telling you to stop just blist or laugh at them.

Actually OP, it's important to realize FFXIV does not have a crafting economy, except for high end items. It has a craft leveling economy.

If you are crafting to level up, then the products are waste. They have no value. You will sell and undercut for any amount to recover losses.

If an item costs 3k in materials, and you can sell it for 2k, you are not losing 1k. You are spending 1k to increase your crafting skills.

If you are trying to run a crafting business, then you must sell for greater than 3k. But if you are trying to sell for 4k to run a business, you cannot compete with people who are selling for 2k to level up.

So, don't get mad at people who undercut. They are in the market for different reasons than you are.

my unit price is higher than my stack price, so, its not that i undercut prices, i always put 1 unit and a stack, 1 unit and a stack, because players some times just need 1 and thats it and some players need a full stack, so they save like 500gil each piece if they buy a full stack, i mean, thats the way i usually do this, also a put 10 units on sale 100gil less than the cost of 1 unit, so they are saving

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Originally Posted by Felis

The quickest way to get it out of the inventory is to selling it to a NPC

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Even quicker way-> Discard. That's how I roll.

Well... higher e better but if its priced too high,
e game fails.... like Diablo3, items were like 100-900million gil,

there after MB was shut down eventually coz players were greedy.

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Originally Posted by ruinedmirage

But as I had more and more fun doing that, I got more and more hate for it (stealing customers, as it were). I eventually realized ......... I was going against the typical flow. People are supposed to take advantage of the weak and extort whenever possible.

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The nobility of your actions is greatly diminished by the fact that you use them to shame other people. If you truly intended your generous actions to be their own reward, you would never have felt the need to bring them up here. Instead, you did. It is clear that you actually were working to put yourself into a position of moral superiority from which you could lord it over other people you consider to be beneath you. Classy.

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Originally Posted by kidvideo

Listing for less than the "going rate" guarantees mine will sell first & fastest, IF I want it to move.

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This, precisely. I really don't see what's hard to understand. Yes, I realize that I could have made a little more gil by putting in more effort to follow the market and determine the ideal price. But by undercutting by a few thousand, I still make a good amount of gil, and it took less time and less effort. That's okay with me. I don't do this regularly, only when one of my retainers happens to bring me something valuable. I'd rather spend my in-game time and effort on other stuff than maximizing the profit I can make from the market board. It is that simple. The fact that this makes people mad blows my mind.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

The nobility of your actions is greatly diminished by the fact that you use them to shame other people. If you truly intended your generous actions to be their own reward, you would never have felt the need to bring them up here. Instead, you did. It is clear that you actually were working to put yourself into a position of moral superiority from which you could lord it over other people you consider to be beneath you. Classy.

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You know what, I believe you. You're right, there's no such thing as leading by example, no point in describing kind acts in hope that others might do the same. There's no such thing as altruistic people in this world, no integrity, and only moral corruption exists. You're right, and I'm just an attention whore with a superiority complex.

I do believe generosity is it's own reward, and I'm sorry for describing my experience. Even more sorry that people feel acts like this should be kept behind closed doors, and more sorry still that some consider virtuous acts as an ulterior motive to being "better" than others. If my viewpoint of the degradation of community offends you, that's a personal problem..... it's just an opinion.

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Originally Posted by ruinedmirage

You know what, I believe you. You're right, there's no such thing as leading by example, no point in describing kind acts in hope that others might do the same. You're right, and I'm just an attention whore with a superiority complex.

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If you had been describing the altruistic examples of someone else, rather than yourself, then it would leave you far less open to such accusations.

Ah, but I forget - the world is a swirling cesspool of moral corruption and degradation, with you as the sole shining beacon of light. Of course there could be no other example, for you are the only one!

On a more serious note, your post didn't really add anything to the thread as a whole; the discussion was about what business practices are "fair" and "unfair" for making money through crafting. The implication of your post was that it's immoral to make money through crafting at all - crafters should just give everything away for free! I'm pretty sure crafters who sell for profit are not inherently immoral. Earning money is a necessary part of playing the game, and crafting is one way to do it. Crafting for profit is in itself neither moral nor immoral.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

If you had been describing the altruistic examples of someone else, rather than yourself, then it would leave you far less open to such accusations.

Ah, but I forget - the world is a swirling cesspool of moral corruption and degradation, with you as the sole shining beacon of light. Of course there could be no other example, for you are the only one!

On a more serious note, your post didn't really add anything to the thread as a whole; the discussion was about what business practices are "fair" and "unfair" for making money through crafting. The implication of your post was that it's immoral to make money through crafting at all - crafters should just give everything away for free! I'm pretty sure crafters who sell for profit are not inherently immoral. Earning money is a necessary part of playing the game, and crafting is one way to do it. Crafting for profit is in itself neither moral nor immoral.

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Had I ever seen that kind of behavior before, I WOULD be posting about it, and how it was an inspiration to me.

If I implied myself as a "sole shining beacon of light" and that there would be no others like that ever, I apologize. Everyone has that opportunity to shine, and I encourage it .......... it's just an unreasonable request, I'll concede to that.

I'll admit, I add my opinions through a tone of cynicism in many cases. I may see profiting as extortion to a degree, and perhaps I shouldn't have voiced my opinion about business practices since it's not a popular stance. But the fact that I received requests from people was my "business practice" and what kept me playing while I was subbed. In the future, any outlandish thoughts I have about generosity or friendliness will be confined to its own thread (and die quickly) so I don't disrupt the flow of mainstream profit anymore. I promise.

“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.”
― Confucius

Today I undercut everyone by crafting an starter crafting HQ set for free for my friend woooo. And I even threw an HQ cnj weapon to a girl that was chatting with us.

I also bought 22 Ice Ward Potion and resold them to a NPC, making a whooping 126 gil. Master of the undercutting and wizard of the market board!

Those who complain about undercutting, know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

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Originally Posted by Eye_Gore

“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.”
― Douchecius

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Fixed that for you.

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Originally Posted by Eye_Gore

snip
― Confucius

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Let's reverse that shall we? "The inferior man does not understand what is right. The superior man does not understand what to sell"
Does it make sense? Nope. Same with your quote. All quotes are hypocritical and does not prove anything.

What makes a man superior? What makes a man inferior? Who are you to judge which one is superior and inferior? In the end it's all a matter of perspective. Here's the cold hard truth: in life there are winners and there are losers. Period. Just because you ended up with a bad sales transaction or you got undercut you can't just pat yourself in the back and just call yourself a good person. Deal with it. Get better. Neither the buyer nor the seller was the inferior or superior. IF one of them did something illegal then that's a different matter but undercutting is NOT illegal

Criers of undercutting are actually the most hypocritical.

Talking about economics 101? Economics 101 actually tells you that in a free market, when you have competitors it is actually GOOD, because it forces the producers to find methods to cut costs and also innovate. Consumers get quality products at attractive prices.

On the other hand as many have said, price setting is actually illegal in most jurisdictions.

Now that is economics 101 for you. Now either find cheaper ways to craft such as gather your own mats, or find another more profitable market/item to sell.

The items in FFXIV have only one value: Time.

It's really as simple as that. Price your time as you want. :)

Undercutting only really hurts your business if you aren't diversifying. You can only sell 40 items at once, and I usually only have ~25 slots for selling crafted good.

What I do is I have a list of ~50 items that I want to sell, and for those, I calculate out a "desireability" value based on the cost, current market price, and how many days ago the oldest sale in the history is to get how much profit/time I'm likely to make by selling it. I use a spreadsheet, so it's not that much work. I do this for the ~50 items and craft/sell the top ~25.

Then, when someone undercuts what I consider the current "maximum" value of the item to be, I undercut them by 10 gil, regardless of how much they undercut me by. When it gets too low, I either reprice my items back at my "maximum" and wait for the price to recover (as it always does), or I pull the items from the market. Then, I find a new item to sell from my list. Later, I'll check if an item's price recovered, and maybe sell it again.

A great example of this was when Clothcraft G1 Glamour prisms were selling for 5000 gold when they have a fairly fixed cost of 915, and they were selling so fast the date of the oldest sale was at worst yesterday. But, once other people realized how profitable they were, their sale price plummeted until it was about 1500.

The biggest cost to making these is time, since they can't be quick-synthed. When they got to 2000, I decided it wasn't worth my time and abandoned the market. I took all my goods, stacked them together, and put them up for sale at a price of 4000 each. Eventually, that stack sold, which told me the market had recovered enough for me to go back into it. Meanwhile, I was selling other things that had incredible profit, such as Leatherworking G1 Glamour prisms, where the market worked the same way.

So much profit. Such wow. All you have to do is take undercutting to be a part of the economy and work with and around it, rather than stubbornly against it.

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Originally Posted by ClaireAbigail

Let's reverse that shall we? "The inferior man does not understand what is right. The superior man does not understand what to sell"
Does it make sense? Nope. Same with your quote. All quotes are hypocritical and does not prove anything.

What makes a man superior? What makes a man inferior? Who are you to judge which one is superior and inferior? In the end it's all a matter of perspective. Here's the cold hard truth: in life there are winners and there are losers. Period. Just because you ended up with a bad sales transaction or you got undercut you can't just pat yourself in the back and just call yourself a good person. Deal with it. Get better. Neither the buyer nor the seller was the inferior or superior. IF one of them did something illegal then that's a different matter but undercutting is NOT illegal

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People are way too serious, it was a joke. Lighten up.

yadda yadda yadda

I will undercut everyone in the history of forever. The End.

The market board is another game unto itself. Undercutting is either a tactic or an indicator that a market has bottomed out. Nothing more.

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Originally Posted by ClaireAbigail

Let's reverse that shall we? "The inferior man does not understand what is right. The superior man does not understand what to sell"
Does it make sense? Nope. Same with your quote. All quotes are hypocritical and does not prove anything.

What makes a man superior? What makes a man inferior? Who are you to judge which one is superior and inferior? In the end it's all a matter of perspective. Here's the cold hard truth: in life there are winners and there are losers. Period. Just because you ended up with a bad sales transaction or you got undercut you can't just pat yourself in the back and just call yourself a good person. Deal with it. Get better. Neither the buyer nor the seller was the inferior or superior. IF one of them did something illegal then that's a different matter but undercutting is NOT illegal

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you're going a little off the rails here