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

Sometimes the undercutting is just silly, Vanya Robe of Healing is now selling for around 50k on my server, Potash is 4k each so by the time you've got all the mats and used food there is very little profit left. At that price it's a no brainer, don't sell the finished robe, sell the raw materials instead as they will sell faster and possibly for more profit.

Why would someone who took the time to be able to HQ 2 star synths then go and make almost no money at all from the actual craft? Makes no sense.

It's because of Crystal Tower. The demand for Vanya has dropped considerably.

The people that undercut down to 50k gil has probably had those goods in their storage for a couple of weeks now and they are frustrated to not being able to sell them.

Personally, if you want them to sell, fit in materias.

Sometimes I sell crafted items for little or no profit to spite people who insist on selling their items for one gil less than mine.

Pricing your item .002% lower than your competitor might look like undercutting, but it's not. That's selling the same thing for the same price, but doing it an underhanded way to ensure yours sells first. It does nothing to move the market toward equilibrium. It does not benefit buyers in any real way -- saving one gil on your Vanya Robe is like saving a fraction of a penny on a PS4. Rather than incentivizing efficiency, it encourages crafters to stand in front of the market board for hours constantly rejiggering their prices.

It is the economic equivalent of elbowing your way to the front of the line; rude, devoid of benefit to anyone but the person doing it, and detrimental to the community in its perversion of economic incentives. Crashing the market for a few days is my way of disincentivizing this behavior.

(P.S. You're welcome, Balmung.)

Yea, when I wake up in the morning and I find 3 items, each undercutting mine by 1 and then 2 and 3 gils each..

I just undercut by 10k because f*** the police and such.

I don't craft to make gil, I just craft to complete my log, so I get rid of my items this way.

Whenever I undercut by 1 or 2, I usually do so to stay above the fold. If 30 people have their stuff at the same price, I want to be at the top of that list. Then again, I'm also not above slashing my prices to sell, just to spite all the undercutters. Depends what mood strikes me at the time.

People that undercut by 1-100 even 1000 gil I can understand, you like me want your stuff to sell and sell the fastest. It's the people that just randomly throw up prices for stuff and undercut by 5k or even 10k on an item that really annoys me. Why anyone would kill a market that they can make money on baffles me.

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Originally Posted by Skapoc

People that undercut by 1-100 even 1000 gil I can understand, you like me want your stuff to sell and sell the fastest. It's the people that just randomly throw up prices for stuff and undercut by 5k or even 10k on an item that really annoys me. Why anyone would kill a market that they can make money on baffles me.

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It's simple, you go by percentages. On an item that sells for 50k+, undercutting by even 1k is meaningless. If you start undercutting by 5k or 10k, you discourage your competitors who are looking to undercut you in turn from doing so, as it would mean they would have to drop by the same amount.

I could also go into the ugly details of the underlying stochastic demand models and optimal times/amounts to undercut, but that's way too much effort for a game.

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Originally Posted by Skapoc

People that undercut by 1-100 even 1000 gil I can understand, you like me want your stuff to sell and sell the fastest. It's the people that just randomly throw up prices for stuff and undercut by 5k or even 10k on an item that really annoys me. Why anyone would kill a market that they can make money on baffles me.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

It's simple, you go by percentages. On an item that sells for 50k+, undercutting by even 1k is meaningless. If you start undercutting by 5k or 10k, you discourage your competitors who are looking to undercut you in turn from doing so, as it would mean they would have to drop by the same amount.

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This is why in my title I said I didn't want to moan about undercutting, I understand what you guys are saying and I don't do too badly on the markets for the most part. In addition to that some people are asking for crazy prices for some things, pre melded relic turn in weapons are a great example. Some people seem to think sticking 2 materia into a weapon is worth 50k. I'll undercut that all day long and make a nice profit.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

I could also go into the ugly details of the underlying stochastic demand models and optimal times/amounts to undercut, but that's way too much effort for a game.

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What would you call selling Vanya Robes of healing for 47k, when the Potash alone is worth 36k? I'd call it retarded, personally. I think on this occasion Asdamine must be right with the first reply in this thread, the player who is doing that has these items in storage and just want to get rid of them, crashing the market in the process.

On midgard there are some Vanya items below cost....I don't understand it but hey you're money to lose. Potash costs roughly 4100 so thats about 40k with tax and there are at least three different items sell for around 35-36k. On history i've seen as low as 29k. Cause THAT makes sense.

Nothing is going to change on crafting until 2.2. All we can do is find our nitch and be careful with what we craft.

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Originally Posted by Kakure

Pricing your item .002% lower than your competitor might look like undercutting, but it's not. That's selling the same thing for the same price, but doing it an underhanded way to ensure yours sells first. It does nothing to move the market toward equilibrium. It does not benefit buyers in any real way -- saving one gil on your Vanya Robe is like saving a fraction of a penny on a PS4. Rather than incentivizing efficiency, it encourages crafters to stand in front of the market board for hours constantly rejiggering their prices.

It is the economic equivalent of elbowing your way to the front of the line. Crashing the market for a few days is my way of disincentivizing this behavior.

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Oh, please try that. It's not like people with money won't, you know, buy your item for half price, re-post it, undercut by 5 gil anyways, and make a ton of cash. No wait, I will. Keep on doing that.

And you know what? Those small undercuts add up over time and MAKE a stable economy; most items, like dyes, can decrease about 10-25% in value a day if they're overpriced. All you do is screw over yourself as the crafter and make the price of items vary wildly, never hitting equilibrium, making it impossible for anybody to ever know if they'll be able to afford something beforehand (or make a profit if they sell something).

God forbid that I get rewarded for raising the skills to 50, buying the crafting gear, melding it, finding markets where demand exists, projecting the cost of items and balancing profit margin with the rate at which I can sell something, esp. with limited slots for selling. Oh no. We get deluded, self-righteous people like you DEMANDING that intelligent and reasonable people do something incredibly stupid, and then try to sabotage a marketplace when people don't listen to your incoherent rambling, which backfires because we see that pathetic crap, exploit it, and make more cash.

Cry more. Or maybe if you have a REALLY big boo-boo on your oh-so-hurt feelings, buy the items from the guy that isn't undercutting instead. It only works because people let it work; if people suddenly STOPPED buying the item that is 5 gil cheaper, it would stop. However, people obviously have no reason to punish people who are attentive enough to keep undercutting their items because that constant warring DRAMATICALLY lowers the cost of everything they buy.

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It's simple, you go by percentages. On an item that sells for 50k+, undercutting by even 1k is meaningless. If you start undercutting by 5k or 10k, you discourage your competitors who are looking to undercut you in turn from doing so, as it would mean they would have to drop by the same amount.

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No, I don't have to. Why would I have to do that? In fact, most people either:
A) Undercut you by 1-10 gil, which means that they get their item sold first (you'd have to FORCE the market board to have you undercut by a certain %, which would basically screw over crafters and buyers, as then I'm forced to overprice the hell out of whatever I'm selling so that any of us crafters makes a profit; it also gives rich trolls an easy way to collapse markets).
B) If you undercut ENOUGH and the market is hot enough, I'll simply buy and re-sell (like I said before).