I really don't want to moan about undercutting but....

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Originally Posted by EricCartmenez

I undercut only if I have a lot less to sell of a particular item. For example, the going price of an item might be 500 gil and the smallest QTY is 10 and I only have 2. I might sell for 495 for that person looking for a one-time purchase. If they need more than my 2, they'll buy from the next one up. I noticed that some people don't pay attention to HQ. They will sell items for normal quality prices while the HQ might be several times the price. Then there's the person who takes the recommendation "Item sells for X gil". Next thing you know, there's a 1,000 gil item on sale for 10 gil. Does the AI not check pricing? Anyway, so that definitely affects the market. Of course, I'm sure there are those who scoop those low priced items up an sell them quickly at a much higher cost.

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I actually make a lot of profit by selling in small stacks at a premium price. People have things like two-star foods listed in stacks of 20-50, and things like lumber listed in stacks of 99. Who really needs 50 food or 99 lumber? Most people don't want that. They want the 1 lumber they need to finish the item in their crafting log/levequest or 2-5 food for raid day. So I list food 2 at a time at 500-1k over the going price and they sell like crazy. The same goes for lumbers and the like - I list in stacks of 5 at an increased price and they sell like crazy.

It requires a lot more micromanaging my market listings, but it makes good money.

When I want an item to be sustainable income, I'm careful about my undercuts, and if it looks like someone will be fighting me over it, I often remove the item from the market and sell something else in that retainer slot.

However, if I have an item because I anticipated it would sell well and it didn't, or my retainer brought it back, or it's an NQ version of something I was trying to HQ, or anything like that, I just want to get some money and clear up inventory space as fast as possible. When I'm trying to do that and people start undercutting me by anything including just one gil, since I only care about selling speed, I massively undercut to the point where it's well under the profitable point for someone who's actually crafting it to sell.

While this may be really frustrating to crafters trying to sell those items as a source of income, sorry, but I really need the inventory space and vendor prices are too absurdly low. If you want to buy my stupidly cheap items and resell them at a higher price, go ahead! Then I can go back to selling more reliable sellers to make a consistent and sustainable profit.

Remember, what looks like a ridiculous sale price to you probably looks just fine to others, and they're welcome to sell things for however much they want to.

This is something that drives me up the F*CKING wall!

Undercutting is a necessary part of economics. It's going to happen. I'm not upset about undercutting. What I hate is when people put up 20! (seriously, not exaggerating here) items up at the same time, THEN undercut by 50%! Then wonder why it's not selling! Then, tomorrow, when they check their retainers and find nothing has sold, they drop their prices by another 30% thinking it will force sales. /eyetwitch

For anyone reading this who does that, know this:

STOP IT!

You are not creating any demand. You are not making people need/want your items any more than they already do. In fact, all you are doing is raising the supply and in turn, lowering the demand. And in turn, making your goods all that much lower in value than they already were!

for some reason the other day a thought occurred to me regarding market board sell orders.

one of the easiest ways to make it random for se to do would be to apply a hidden number to each crafted item, either at point of crafting or purchase from vender.

so if each item was given a number between 1-100 then as placed on mb arranged in that numerical order it would appear to be random on the surface but really is not.

of course the only way to manipulate it would be to craft a lot of the same item to get the better "hidden number".

when I use to craft a lot of 1 star mats to sell there was at times when I would be first and last in sell order with the same prices and quantities, so maybe that is the answer to the riddle of mb placement whilst selling.

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Originally Posted by chidarake

when I use to craft a lot of 1 star mats to sell there was at times when I would be first and last in sell order with the same prices and quantities, so maybe that is the answer to the riddle of mb placement whilst selling.

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That is actually a time listed event. Everytime someone pulls their retainer from the market which is if you summon them for anything and then when you are done it relists the objects and they are now back at the top of their arrangement because their listing time is newer. And in the event you were thinking of giving an advantage to who ever had it up the longest, even if you flip the listing so new stuff is at the bottom that would just promote undercutting by 1 gil to remove the advantage of the first one to post.

New stuff IS on the bottom. It doesn't refresh the price position unless you adjust the price (even if you adjust it to the same value it already was), and this would put the item at the bottom, not the top. At least, these are my observations.

I just sell things at a reasonable and affordable price. I think sold a critical hit rate +6 materia 70,000 less than the lowest person or one time I sold earrings for 40% of the lowest person.People with low money can buy and increase item level WITHOUT breaking the bank/wallet. Shows love.

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Originally Posted by Marcu18

I just sell things at a reasonable and affordable price. I think sold a critical hit rate +6 materia 70,000 less than the lowest person or one time I sold earrings for 40% of the lowest person.People with low money can buy and increase item level WITHOUT breaking the bank/wallet. Shows love.

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Except it isn't the people with low money who comb the MB for underpriced items and snatch them up for use or resale :P

People who are more active in the market have more advantages in the market. Working as intended.

And people who sell for cheap to piss others off are just enabling market traders to make even more money. Buying low and selling high is the most profitable activity in almost any game with a functioning economy. So thanks for that :)

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Originally Posted by Clicked

And people who sell for cheap to piss others off are just enabling market traders to make even more money. Buying low and selling high is the most profitable activity in almost any game with a functioning economy. So thanks for that :)

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i concur. some guys thought undercutting by 50k at a time would sell a 3 star gear faster. i noticed they did 50k twice in a row, so i kept getting under them by 1 gil, until eventually i just ended up buying their item for 200k and reselling for 450-500k. i did this multiple times, sometimes only making 100k profit, but hey, i literally did nothing but click a few things to earn it.

the guy who said reducing the price by 50-100k is spot on too. this doesn't force sales. the problem is the demand. if people don't have money, or just don't want the item really, then taking it from 1 million to 700k doesn't do shit. 700k is still a lot for someone with not a lot of gil to purchase. to the person who must have this item, they will be it for premium prices, as long as its reasonable.

It may have been said, but... as far as value of crafted items goes, it doesn't matter how much the individual materials cost if you don't spend gil on them. Gather the materials or purchase them with other forms of currency (tomes, GC currency, etc) and whatever you sell the end crafted product for is nothing but pure profit.

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Originally Posted by Clicked

...And people who sell for cheap to piss others off are just enabling market traders to make even more money. Buying low and selling high is the most profitable activity in almost any game with a functioning economy. So thanks for that :)

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No, it really doesn't... In theory, your idea might sound good, but we're not dealing strictly in theory here. Buying up everyone's grossly-undercut items only encourages them to sell even more at that low price. Now, you have 39458743295483275 items that you can't move because some retarded jerk-off thinks selling at <50% is a good idea.

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Originally Posted by Ramath

No, it really doesn't... In theory, your idea might sound good, but we're not dealing strictly in theory here. Buying up everyone's grossly-undercut items only encourages them to sell even more at that low price. Now, you have 39458743295483275 items that you can't move because some retarded jerk-off thinks selling at <50% is a good idea.

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I am astonished this thread is still around.

Anyway, markets solve drastic undercutting because drastic price cuts lead to drastic increases in demand (just look at Black Friday sales). What markets don't solve is collusion, where we all tacitly agree to sell our stuff for the exact same price and then jostle each other for position in line by increments of one gil. In fact, real world predatory pricing laws only exist out of concern over monopolization, which is to say that the former kind of behavior is only ever economically problematic insofar as it has the potential to devolve into the latter, which is destructive and utterly unjustifiable.

When you buy up stuff to resell, you are increasing market liquidity. You're basically a pawnbroker. Or the internet. I have an easier time converting my goods into gil, and you get to make a profit by reselling my stuff at higher prices. You think I'm an idiot for selling things at less than a premium price, and I think you're an idiot for wasting your recreational time standing at the summoning bell. Everyone wins.

If you get stuck with a bunch of items you can't sell for the price you want, that doesn't mean the system is broken. It means you're doing it wrong. If your goal isn't just to buy up something that is fortuitously underpriced but to control the market and ensure that no one sells Titan weapons for less than what you want the price to be, you're basically trying to shoot the moon; you're undertaking a risky gambit that requires you to outmaneuver everyone else in the game and if you aren't good enough to pull it off you don't have anyone to blame but your own misjudgment.

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Originally Posted by Kakure

I am astonished this thread is still around.

Anyway, markets solve drastic undercutting because drastic price cuts lead to drastic increases in demand (just look at Black Friday sales). What markets don't solve is collusion, where we all tacitly agree to sell our stuff for the exact same price and then jostle each other for position in line by increments of one gil. In fact, real world predatory pricing laws only exist out of concern over monopolization, which is to say that the former kind of behavior is only ever economically problematic insofar as it has the potential to devolve into the latter, which is destructive and utterly unjustifiable.

When you buy up stuff to resell, you are increasing market liquidity. You're basically a pawnbroker. Or the internet. I have an easier time converting my goods into gil, and you get to make a profit by reselling my stuff at higher prices. You think I'm an idiot for selling things at less than a premium price, and I think you're an idiot for wasting your recreational time standing at the summoning bell. Everyone wins.

If you get stuck with a bunch of items you can't sell for the price you want, that doesn't mean the system is broken. It means you're doing it wrong. If your goal isn't just to buy up something that is fortuitously underpriced but to control the market and ensure that no one sells Titan weapons for less than what you want the price to be, you're basically trying to shoot the moon; you're undertaking a risky gambit that requires you to outmaneuver everyone else in the game and if you aren't good enough to pull it off you don't have anyone to blame but your own misjudgment.

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In short, if you misjudge the true value people are willing to pay for that item, and you buyout others who in your perception undercuts your price when in true fact it's the real market equilibrium price, you fail to shoot the moon and suffer the losses.

If you're not good a percepting what's the current market value of items, which involves a lot of homework and daily camping and remembering price fluctuations of items over extended periods of time, say weeks, i say farm your own materials and craft to sell, or even better just don't craft and sell the raw materials at premium. You'll be surprised that on certain days of the week the prices can go up so all you need is patience and someone will buy out your premium price in due time (provided of course being reasonably priced premium, not like 10 times higher than what the market is selling them at now)