Undercutting.

No, this is not a thread complaining about people who price their items low to sell quickly. I'm not going to whine about people getting into undercut wars or how undercutting by huge amounts hurts the game's economy. I have no problem with people who want to sell their items for cheaper than someone else.

But for the love of god if you're going to undercut, have some common sense :

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...2.png~original

And don't undercut yourself.

Actually, I undercut myself at times on purpose.

1- To find out at what price other players are willing to buy my stuff, at least sooner rather than later.
2- I undercut one retainer using another so as not to lead people to think both retainers are owned by the same player and make it look like competition.

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Originally Posted by Barboron

Actually, I undercut myself at times on purpose.
1- To find out at what price other players are willing to buy my stuff, at least sooner rather than later.

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You do realize there is a "sale history" tab when you put something up for sale that shows you how much, and when (date and time) items sell for, right?

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Originally Posted by Kiroh

You do realize there is a "sale history" tab when you put something up for sale that shows you how much, and when (date and time) items sell for, right?

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Yeah but it doesn't tell you how long it is up there for for every single item. I gave you reasons as to why I may undercut myself. That doesn't mean I do it every chance I get. Since you brought up the sale history tab, that doesn't quite put this situation into perspective. What if another player came and undercut this player? Why decrease the value of both entries when you could do it to just one, have the second player's item sell quick, leaving your own to be the two cheapest entries (or just the one) at a higher price.

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Originally Posted by Barboron

Yeah but it doesn't tell you how long it is up there for for every single item. I gave you reasons as to why I may undercut myself. That doesn't mean I do it every chance I get. Since you brought up the sale history tab, that doesn't quite put this situation into perspective. What if another player came and undercut this player? Why decrease the value of both entries when you could do it to just one, have the second player's item sell quick, leaving your own to be the two cheapest entries (or just the one) at a higher price.

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It's easy to find out how long things stay on the market by checking the dates the items sold and the players they sold to. If an item's sale history is all (or mostly) that day, and the buyers are more than one or two people, it's pretty simple to figure out the item is selling regularly, and at that particular price range. It's really common sense stuff.

And there was no other person selling for less than them, the cheapest sale entry before that was 60k+.

(Though interestingly, a bunch sold for more gil than his cheapest one in the last 10 minutes.)

1. Item out of stock. One of my retainers selling it for 100k, another of my retainers selling it for 90k (the price I decide I'm ok with). Someone comes along, sees a 10k difference, panics and grabs the 90k item asap before it's gone!

2. Plenty of items on demand. One of my retainers selling it for 100k (next higher entry is perhaps 101k), another of my retainers selling it for 99,999. Someone comes along, grabs the lowest by impulse and perhaps the 100k too cause.... 1k for the next is still a 1k more. Leave it to their brain to do the "logic".

3. Of course, there's people who forget they've listed the same item on their other retainer (or even same retainer cause.... scrolling), only check the lowest current price and undercut (themselves) by reflex. Or.... they just don't care.

Maybe it's not an undercut, when I know something listed for 50k will sell up to 60k, there are only a few listed and I'm going to list several stacks I tend to put different prices within the 50k-60k range, for no reason at all :p

This same topic seems to come up once a week.

It's a Free Market. If you don't like the undercut, buy the undercut product and list it higher or move onto something else while the price normalizes.

The problem is there is no regulations to whats a fair and reasonable price, like the real world. Real world markets are not a gigantic free for all like some think, its heavily regulated by government entities, with rules and stipulation, contracts, fair market values, anyone who knows anything about the housing market or stocks will know what I'm talking about. If someone "undercut" in the housing market, it would be ignored by an appraiser because its a motivated sale that doesn't reflect what a fair market value is - they are suppose to do this to keep the integrity of the housing market.

That doesn't happen in this game - there is no real market integrity, anyone can sell anything at any price. People can sell SavageAim4 for 1 gil and sell 100 of them at 1 gil if they wanted to crash the market. Realistically SE should add in minimum listing price requirements for items we know are valuable, ie can't list SavageAim4 for less then 80k, or something to that effect.

I'll undercut myself but in cases of having 2x items for slightly cheaper per piece than my 1x item I also have up.

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Originally Posted by DenariusJay

That doesn't happen in this game - there is no real market integrity, anyone can sell anything at any price. People can sell SavageAim4 for 1 gil and sell 100 of them at 1 gil if they wanted to crash the market. Realistically SE should add in minimum listing price requirements for items we know are valuable, ie can't list SavageAim4 for less then 80k, or something to that effect.

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They don't need to as scarcity limits the ability to undercut. There isn't a secret goldmine where you can mine SavageAim4 materia for pennies.
Regulations exist because they are needed to close gaps as real world is not perfect - you cannot have universal access to resources, you can be locked out of production due to transport/finance/whatever monopoly, companies have a running costs so they cannot easily stop/resume production (at least without heavy impact on job market) etc. In real world government not only care about quality of economics but also about job situation, quality of living (most of this in FF14 monopolized by SE) and other things that may worsen economy but make country healthier.
FF14 economy does not have all those problems so for it free market is rather good choice for perfectly matching demand with supply.

Sometimes I sell the same item at different prices at the same time. Not just in this game but the other games I have played.

Why?

Because it is fun and I want to.

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Originally Posted by Kiroh

No, this is not a thread complaining about people who price their items low to sell quickly.

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Yes it is, it offends you. You would have not made this thread if you weren't yet another person who thrives off a free market but hates it when it's being free.

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

This same topic seems to come up once a week.

It's a Free Market. If you don't like the undercut, buy the undercut product and list it higher or move onto something else while the price normalizes.

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This thread is not about undercutting itself, its about people who undercut themselves, even through it doesnt make any sense, no matter how hard they try to explain why.

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Originally Posted by Charisma

This thread is not about undercutting itself, its about people who undercut themselves, even through it doesnt make any sense, no matter how hard they try to explain why.

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My gil pouch begs to differ. A lot >:3

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Originally Posted by Nuinn

My gil pouch begs to differ. A lot >:3

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You only have a pouch? I need a wagon now thanks Ehcatl Sealant I knew all that hair pulling out HQ crafting with only 81 CP would pay off some day.

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Originally Posted by DenariusJay

...snip... If someone "undercut" in the housing market, it would be ignored by an appraiser because its a motivated sale that doesn't reflect what a fair market value is - they are suppose to do this to keep the integrity of the housing market...snip...

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That's not exactly true. If it's the only comparable available within the distance parameters given by the lender it will indeed be used in the appraisal and considered in the determining the value of the home in question. Appraisers are required to use comparable houses and homes that are within a reasonable vicinity to the home being appraised. The sale price of the home is indifferent to the goal of the prospective home buyer or home owner refinancing their home.

What you are talking about are homes that have either sold at auction or homes appraised with what is referred to a "subject to" values. The reason it is this way is because there is no real way, other than what homes in the vicinity have sold for, to determine what a home is worth. If homes in a certain area are selling for less than what someone believes is really what their home is worth, that's just tough :( I've ran into that before. It's a jagged pill to swallow at times, but it is the way it is regardless.

But ya, I've undercut my own retainers before in an attempt to encourage impulse buying. I never undercut by very much though. I try to preserve the integrity of the market as much as I can, aaaand I'm a little greedy I suppose :rolleyes:

Fairness is determined by what people are willing to pay for a determined goods. The important is what you determined to be a fair price FOR YOU...the rest is just blabla.

I undercut myself as well at times but is always a price I am willing to place and not because I find it funny

Mei

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Originally Posted by Nuinn

3. Of course, there's people who forget they've listed the same item on their other retainer (or even same retainer cause.... scrolling), only check the lowest current price and undercut (themselves) by reflex. Or.... they just don't care.

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^ I do that all the time when I'm in a hurry. If I've already got one whatsit up, and I'm just clearing inventory, I'll put another whatsit up for whatever the going rate is without worrying about changing the prices on the other ones. I can go through and "fix" everything later, right now I just don't want this Allagan Fish Toupee taking up room.

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Originally Posted by Charisma

This thread is not about undercutting itself, its about people who undercut themselves, even through it doesnt make any sense, no matter how hard they try to explain why.

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Some people like to stagger prices in an attempt to manipulate the market into selling items for a lower price. I was doing this with some food item a while back. It wasn't even a top tier item and it was selling for 1000 ea. on average. And this was an item I could buy from an NPC merchant for, like, 19 gil or something. So I bought a few 99x stacks, sold them in stacks of 10 staggering down in increments of 100 to normalize the price because the price was obscene, inappropriate, and taking advantage of desperate buyers looking for convenience.

I've undercut myself several times over when I wanted to push other sellers out of the market, or at least ensure that they are unable to sell any of their inventory without taking a major loss. I only do this when it's not an unprofitable endeavor on my part of course.

When I first post something for sale, I look at historic prices and what's out there. If something comparable is for sale for 15,000 in Gridania and that's in line with historic prices, then I might post it for 15,000 in Limsa, for the sake of keeping prices up and having a slight separation of markets based on the buyer's paying tax vs. not.

But if someone puts up a 'wall of items' at a price where it's clear my stock is going to stagnate and they're just going to resupply it... at this point it's more like a 1v1 game of chess and rather than simply sell my stuff at their new much lower prices... it's much more fun to flip the board in the air and send all the pieces flying.

Example: when 2.4 hit I was selling easy low level HQ crafts for low level Rogues to people who obviously had Gil to burn, for 15k Gil each as fast as I could craft them. And right then it was worth at because that's what people were willing to pay, and because they could get that item as NQ from a vendor, and because I was spending my time crafting vs. indulging in the new content. So other sellers and I coexisted in that price range selling items nonstop until suddenly they stopped selling. One player posted like a wall of 8 items at 2500 each vs at the 15000 each they were selling at just fine. It no longer became worth my time to craft these, and no point in buying out the 2500 ones because they'd get resupplied anyway.

So, I decided to take my unsold items, and revenge-craft a few more, to show the major undercutters what happens when they want to take me on. They had their wall of items at 2500 each, so I posted a couple for 2250, some for 2000, some for 1750, some for 1500, and on down with a couple at 1250 and 1000. This meant that they wouldn't sell a single one of their items without beating my very lowest price at any time, and would have to either move their entire inventory really low at less than half of what they were getting at the start, or micromanage their sales based on when my lowest priced item at any time sold. And I just moved on to other things satisfied that I'd still make a profit while minimizing theirs. Whenever my lowest-priced item sold they'd still have a slightly higher lowest-price to beat.

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

Some people like to stagger prices in an attempt to manipulate the market into selling items for a lower price. I was doing this with some food item a while back. It wasn't even a top tier item and it was selling for 1000 ea. on average. And this was an item I could buy from an NPC merchant for, like, 19 gil or something. So I bought a few 99x stacks, sold them in stacks of 10 staggering down in increments of 100 to normalize the price because the price was obscene, inappropriate, and taking advantage of desperate buyers looking for convenience.

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That's impressively smart. I've noticed this before as well, but have never been proactive enough to do anything about it.

Kudos to you. I feel like I should try harder now to be honest.

I always undercut myself, especially if there's no one else to undercut.

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Originally Posted by SarcasmMisser

Yes it is, it offends you. You would have not made this thread if you weren't yet another person who thrives off a free market but hates it when it's being free.

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Omg, get out of my head you mindreader you! D=

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Originally Posted by Charisma

This thread is not about undercutting itself, its about people who undercut themselves, even through it doesnt make any sense, no matter how hard they try to explain why.

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This is exactly the point of the thread. I saw something silly on the market boards that didn't make sense to me because the market board gives you all the tools you need to never have to do it.