UNDERCUTTING....

That's just economics.

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Originally Posted by KumaAkuma

Your item won't sell faster if you undercut from 40k to 30k than if you undercut it to 39k. But yeah if you want to give it away, go for it.

You're putting in a lot more effort trying to make money tho.

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Guys, everyone has their own idea of what something is worth when they consider what effort it takes to obtain. Value and worth are subjective. The market sets the price, not you. This is no secret or conspiracy, it's just the fundamental laws of economics at play. Some of you seem to be advocating for price fixing...

I do support a minimum undercut though. I usually make it a point to not buy an item from someone that has undercut by say only one or two gil.

If you get frustrated with undercutting, life won't be easy for you ...

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Originally Posted by KumaAkuma

You're still the sucker, because you could have gotten the same result by just selling it for 9.999.000

Besides you think you're the only one undercutting. You undercut to 8 mil, then someone else undercuts to 6 mil and then you get the guy who thinks prices are way too high and wants to be generous to the buyers: starts selling it for 2 mil

Ofcourse you still want to get rid of your items so you undercut that guy again and sell your items for 1.5 mil

and repeat.

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Could I? What about the guy selling it for 9,998,000 half a day later? When I undercut to 8 mil, I not only shut out the people who want to sell for 10 mil, I shut out tons of other people who don't want to go as low as I do. An 8 mil price tag will also encourage my possible customers to purchase the item faster, because they're going to think "holy s**t, what a great deal!"

At the end of the day, I still make a profit that is acceptable to me, on my own terms. If I didn't, I would not be selling the item. If I get undercut to 2 mil, and the effort that I put into getting or making this item is not worth 2 mil, then I stop doing it and go find something else to do. This is what happens in real world economics, folks.

And fyi, you will never be able to fix the price of an item. It's impossible with a player-driven economy. That item will not stay at 10 mil forever and I don't know why you would ever want it to. If prices don't change, it means that your economy and game have stagnated.

If you want to see an example of how price fixing completely destroy's a game economy, do a little research into what happened with RuneScape's trade limits between 2007 and 2010. The game's economy was FUBAR.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

LOL like that's ever going to happen.

The people who complain about undercutting have this ridiculous double standard where they expect to have the easiest and best solution every time. They're okay with buying the cheapest item because it's the first on the list and they save money, but they also want to never have to re-list their items, for their items to go fast, and to get more for them than their market value.

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Would anyone like to address this point?

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Originally Posted by Gramul

That's just economics.

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What a great comparison indeed. My local grocery stores keep lowering their prices by one cent every few hours as well, so they stay on top of the item search list. I even keep encountering a bunch of brainless retainers every time I go shopping.

FFXIV and real life are so very much alike!

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Originally Posted by Efrye

What a great comparison indeed. My local grocery stores keep lowering their prices by one cent every few hours as well, so they stay on top of the item search list. I even keep encountering a bunch of brainless retainers every time I go shopping.

FFXIV and real life are so very much alike!

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Hello Mr Strawman and Professor Red Herring, I haven't seen you guys in at least three pages.

Clearly you, sir, haven't played the stock market.

If Supply is in surplus then it forces prices to go down. Nothing really you can do about it. The demand for the item remains the same and has a lower equilibrium price due to the higher quantity.

Best way to get more bang for your buck is look for somthing where demand exeeds supply then pretty much you can name your price.

Also, if prices for items were fixed then this game would support communist ideals and i wouldn't play anymore.

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Originally Posted by Achtzen

Also, if prices for items were fixed then this game would support communist ideals and i wouldn't play anymore.

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That is absolutely not what communism is, bro.

If only NPCs would buy items at close to fair market values. (well say... 80% of the average of the last 100 marketplace purchases) Undercutting wouldnt be as big an issue. Those that just want to dump their stuff for a quick buck can just go to the NPC reducing the amount of undercutting. I'm a 1gil type unless the item has sat in the list for several days.

Most of it is free market forces. Supply & Demand driven ecconomics paired with the limited store inventories and the desire for a quick gill. If someone undercuts too much then the more enterprizing can swoop in and snatch the item for resale at a higher value.

Crystal prices dropped with the merge. Why? More players playing in a consentrated way. More crystal drops. More supply equaled lower prices. Remember when a water shard was 100gill? Now you cant sell one for 10. Its so low I NPC them now. They can fix this by adding a few recepies in the hamlet defense or elsewhere that use water shards or by reducing the drop rates.

I'd prefer more recepies TBH. That way the crafters can make more things to be undercut on. *chuckle*

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

That is absolutely not what communism is, bro.

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Everyone has their own idea of what communism is or is not. Suffice to say, nowhere has it ever made things better; and, everywhere it is tried, it has failed and resulted in the deaths of millions.

Communism isn't cool.

Yeah, It is. Having SE (government) steps in to fix prices in a player driven (free-market) economy is a stepping stone to a socialistic economy. Anyone that knows thier history should know what the road to socialism ultimately leads to.

All the socialism / communism / capitalism bullsh** aside, it's a good thing you are being undercut.

It means people are actually buying stuff off the wards, which for a very long time wasn't happening.
It's a sign the economy is strong, and that's a sign the game is getting good.

thats the way it works, the sale pretty much gues to theperson who is attentive enough to catch the undercut and lower yours. i find that sometimes i just want to npc stuff..

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Hello Mr Strawman and Professor Red Herring, I haven't seen you guys in at least three pages.

Clearly you, sir, haven't played the stock market.

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And once again: You can't compare real life economics with the market wards in Final Fantasy XIV. Sure, the basics apply to both, but the RL stock market is a tiny little bit more complex and has many more factors playing into it that you won't find in FFXIV. Not to mention that you can make a living camping the stock market all day long, whereas the Eorzean market wards are part of an entertainment product.

Also, please check this and this before using those terms again. I don't see how my post qualifies as either one of them. Your post on the other hand...

If there are so many people making/gathering/selling something that you are getting undercut to the point that the things you are trying to sell won't sell within in few days of posting, the market is obviously saturated and you should stop crafting/gathering it. It's simple supply and demand. Find something that sells well but is rare or annoying to farm/craft, or is easy to make but isn't crafted.

Having a steady income is about finding a niche in the market and keeping a consistent, reasonably priced supply. Believe it or not, you will get undercut when you try to make the same 2 mat recipe everyone else is crafting a dozen of or when you dump your crap dated gathering mats on the market. If you keep getting undercut, just move on to something else and learn to price better.

if you want fixed prices, go sell to NPC.
supply, demand, market price, freedom... not a command economy. if you wanted to stop people from undercutting what YOU think is fair, then we would need enforcement, and a glut in the market, a similar amount would sell, but yours would not because everyone was just waiting their turn to sell and the backup would stretch from the coral tower to stillglade fane.

Actually a lot of crystal prices dropped when they allowed you to exchange guild points for them. Which caused there to be a lot more of them...which illustrated a funamental rule of economics. Supply dictates price.


Off of that chat and just as a basic player: I have undercut before. When I was leveling culinarian before, there was Shepherd's Pie and Knight's Bread as the main food for people. The prices were insane considering the recipe. Like 6k for 1 Knight's bread. They hardly sold, no one really bought the pies either. I tanked both prices. Found out the market would support 2k-3k prices. Kept the price around there and did very well for myself.

This is a reason also people undercut. It is all very well and good you are going to keep your Knight's Bread at 6k each and sell one or two a week and make 7000 gils. Meanwhile, I made and sold 100 at 1k profit each. According to this thread, that is undercutting. According to me, it is good business.

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/823...stingmanin.png

I try and make it a point to not buy 1g undercuts, seems like a community issue to me.

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Originally Posted by Efrye

And once again: You can't compare real life economics with the market wards in Final Fantasy XIV. Sure, the basics apply to both, but the RL stock market is a tiny little bit more complex and has many more factors playing into it that you won't find in FFXIV. Not to mention that you can make a living camping the stock market all day long, whereas the Eorzean market wards are part of an entertainment product.

Also, please check this and this before using those terms again. I don't see how my post qualifies as either one of them. Your post on the other hand...

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http://img.ponibooru.org/_images/dd7...ht_sparkle.gif

I sure as s**t can compare virtual and real world economics, because, by your own admittance, the 'basics' still apply. 'Basics', in this context, being a fairly lengthy list of rules, phenomena, and behavioral patterns that govern free markets and human interactions in those free markets. The variables present are reduced and the model is not as complex, but it works more or less the same way.

The prices of your grocery store example don't fluctuate as fast, because the management in those grocery stores does not keep an up-to-date registry of their competition. Several other factors go into the price differences of a grocery store as well, such as convenience, quality, customer service, transportation costs, regional taxes, and overall regional wealth of the customers. In FFXIV, all of these are equal; it is no more convenient to buy from retainer X than from retainer Y. Same for quality, etc.

The owners of those retainers can see the competition's price, and adjust accordingly. I gave the stock market example, because prices are generally as volatile on the stock market as they are on MMO virtual economies. MMO economies are absolutely just as exploitable by camping them and "buying low, selling high". As another example, selling during week days will net you lower profit for items than selling on the weekends, because of fewer customers. People can and do take advantage of these price fluctuations, especially in MMOs with matured, fast paced, matured economies like RuneScape, World of Warcraft, and EVE Online. The term is called "merchanting", and you can find articles about it all over Google (example).

Finally, your argument is very much a straw man. You should have read that Wikipedia article you linked. I can recite it almost from memory now, because I pull it out a lot on these forums. If you don't feel like reading it, here's where you went wrong:

"Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y. The position Y is a distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways..."

Sound familiar? Oh yes, it's your grocery store example, which while it has some parallels to FFXIV's retainers, it also has a lot of other significant differences which I've listed above. That's what your "superficially similar position" is.

Your red herring fallacy -- which can be loosely defined as introducing a new, irrelevant point in order to appear correct or distract from the issue at hand -- is your comment on retainers. The arguments in this topic have to deal with undercutting, free markets, and generally economic theory and phenomena. The way in which items are transfered between parties is irrelevant for this purpose, especially since it does not incur any additional costs or penalties, and is equal across the board. It is, in every way you slice it, irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by Krausus

I try and make it a point to not buy 1g undercuts, seems like a community issue to me.

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Your loss...

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Originally Posted by Matsume

Your loss...

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yes a 1 g loss I dont know how I can live with myself QQ

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Originally Posted by Krausus

yes a 1 g loss I dont know how I can live with myself QQ

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Yeah but... Imagine when you lose 1gil, 1 million times O.O

It's hard to take the post seriously with a pony gif.

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Originally Posted by Matsume

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/823...stingmanin.png

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Epic fucking win

boo for images being blocked at work =( I tend to miss the meaning of some posts because of it.

could be there is so much room to undercut since the mark up is 10,000%...

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Originally Posted by RoosterAgathos

could be there is so much room to undercut since the mark up is 10,000%...

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the markup is no where near that much anymore

hell, the sellers are mostyl taking a loss as it is selling, so the undercutting is hurting that even more

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

the markup is no where near that much anymore

hell, the sellers are mostyl taking a loss as it is selling, so the undercutting is hurting that even more

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depends, you still see a lot of overpriced items on Gungnir

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Originally Posted by Krausus

depends, you still see a lot of overpriced items on Gungnir

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have you actualy looked up how much it costs to make them all?

youd be surprised how much some of the materials cost

Doesn't really matter if the mat cost is X, and the finished item is Y.

Sometimes in life you pay for labor, and convenience, me personally I'll pay to have both.

Either way, undercutting by more than 1gil is just silly, why not make more gil if you can....

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Originally Posted by Geo

Doesn't really matter if the mat cost is X, and the finished item is Y.

Sometimes in life you pay for labor, and convenience, me personally I'll pay to have both.

Either way, undercutting by more than 1gil is just silly, why not make more gil if you can....

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Why have competitors when I can drive them out of business by selling low and fast?

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Why have competitors when I can drive them out of business by selling low and fast?

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is it really competition when your losing money to do?

Can you really be proud of losing of losing millions to stop someone else from selling something before you?

I liked the FFXI AH better. People will always undercut because:
- there are only a few items way overpriced (eg. Harlequin gear for 10 M because it's the only one up)
- there are too many of them and the only way to make sure yours sells fast (key word) is to undercut. Most people like to have the gil right away instead of waiting for 1 week only to realize someone is selling 5 k cheaper. (eg. materia gear such as belts or wristlets)
- last reason: people stumble over something they only planned on using temporarily, therefore not looking to make a profit, so they don't mind undercutting to get some gil back

You can't solve undercutting because everyone is doing it.

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

have you actualy looked up how much it costs to make them all?

youd be surprised how much some of the materials cost

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I completely understand for some of the new items for sure but having to pay 80K gil for a level 20 item that cost all of 8K to make and some materia is still outrageous.

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

is it really competition when your losing money to do?

Can you really be proud of losing of losing millions to stop someone else from selling something before you?

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Ontop of that Wolfie's loss is some other crafters gain and a compounded loss on herself.

Example: Wolfie undercuts a HQ raw material. Crafter buys cheap HQ raw material. Crafter makes HQ item. Crafter sells HQ item for exorbitant price to Wolfie. Wolfie pays exorbitant price for HQ item made with her own raw material Crafter wins two fold, wolfie loses two fold. Of course this doesn't apply to wolfie on the condition that wolfie doesn't buy crafted items, but it applies to the next person in line. It's just a thought...

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

is it really competition when your losing money to do?

Can you really be proud of losing of losing millions to stop someone else from selling something before you?

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If I'm losing money selling the item, then I won't sell it.

But let me come up with a fictional example. An item costs 1mil to make, and it sells for 10mil because few people make it and they've all decided that it should be priced at 10mil.

I come along and sell my item for 8mil. I'm still making a big profit, and I can ensure that I'm the only one selling the item now. Nobody is going to buy it for 10mil. Those other people are either going to have to bow out, or drop their prices to compete with me -- at which point I get to decide again if I want to drop my price and drive them out, or if it's no longer worth it for me to make and sell this item.

During this whole process, I'm not losing anything. I'm the only one making pure profit.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

If I'm losing money selling the item, then I won't sell it.

But let me come up with a fictional example. An item costs 1mil to make, and it sells for 10mil because few people make it and they've all decided that it should be priced at 10mil.

I come along and sell my item for 8mil. I'm still making a big profit, and I can ensure that I'm the only one selling the item now. Nobody is going to buy it for 10mil. Those other people are either going to have to bow out, or drop their prices to compete with me -- at which point I get to decide again if I want to drop my price and drive them out, or if it's no longer worth it for me to make and sell this item.

During this whole process, I'm not losing anything. I'm the only one making pure profit.

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Then one day someone comes along and sells the item for 1mil and you never get to sell it again...TRUE STORY

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Originally Posted by Krausus

I completely understand for some of the new items for sure but having to pay 80K gil for a level 20 item that cost all of 8K to make and some materia is still outrageous.

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actualy, even then, some of the new items cost ALOT more then people realize

what you think is a markup, actualy isnt at all in alot of cases


some of the items needed to make darksteel/rose gold can only be vender bought...for 100k
so when that item is expensive, think about how many of those vender bought items were involved in making it