Market Board Undercutting

Is it just an Ultros thing? Or is undercutting the destiny of all crowded servers? Lich, being a lesser populated server, tends to have prices extremely high (20k glamour prisim) and items you can buy from NPCs be double or triple their worth. But Ultros can have an item worth 20k at the start of the day be reduced to even less than its NPC sell back value at the end of it.

What's the point? There's no profit to be had especially when the cost of selling becomes less than that of making. And this happens on every, single, item possible lest one buys up some additional retainers/alts and holds the MB in a very firm grasp by putting up the max listing, making it impossible for others to undercut you.

Works for me. I'm super cheap when it comes to buying.

Its the reason I stopped crafting here on Odin, its just so frustrating having to deal with undercutters constantly throughout the day just for the hope that something will sell before im undercut again.

-1 Gil. For the win.

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Originally Posted by Clethoria

Is it just an Ultros thing? Or is undercutting the destiny of all crowded servers?.

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there's aggressive undercutting wars here in the jp datacentre also, in my server, masamune which is medium to light population, sometimes people even sell for less than the npc vendor buyout for some arr materials. our prices are generally 2-4x cheaper than NA servers (comparing based on the screenshots i see on reddit, etc.) and i can attribute that partially to people aggressively undercutting each other

Undercutting happens on all servers. Only time I've ever seen it stopped is when a group of us on my server realized that we all knew each other and collectively decided on a price. That stuck for about 2-3 days until someone new came along and undercut all of us. Commence the cycle. I have a ton of Jute and Blood Peppers on retainers because I refuse to sell them for the current market price. I've also stopped gardening at the moment for the same reason...

Because high costing, overpriced items are totally better for everyone. /s

I have had people undercut me by several hundred thousands. And before even mentions just buying them out and putting the item back up. I would, if other people didn't already under that new number. In any case, yes, aggressive undercutting is very common on higher pop servers. People have no patience or know economics.

I personally just wait for the idiots to crash the market while I dip into a new one. They can fight for whatever scraps they can get for all I care, there's other ways to make gil.

The amount some people undercut by is insane. Watching items drop hundreds of thousands of gil over the course of one afternoon gets annoying. I typically just withdraw from that market for a day and its kinda levels out again.

There are many factors involved, so it's not as easy as it happens on every server, though it does. I know for me, when I try and sell something, I look into several things, lowest current price, for the quality I'm selling, rarity, stacks, and demand. If looked at properly this can help you and other players turn a nice profit quickly. If everything is done "effectively" undercutting doesnt effect the sales all that much, because the prices would all be within a certain range, 500-800, 125,000- 150,000, etc.. I don't know much really, it's just what I've noticed seems to happen on my server.

It also depends on how many "free storage" you got. When you have only 2 retainers with their inventory already full, undercutting is the quickest way to get rid of the surplus of items before you reach a point where you can't carry anything anymore.

Markets have been pretty slow... so undercutting has been pretty bad. Next week with update there will be a ton of money to be made and things will sell fast. Those who choose to sell as opposed to do content will make a fortune. I can already see the markets picking up pre-update this week.

Want to see prices act like a rock being dropped in a lake? Then come to balmung.

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Originally Posted by Clethoria

Is it just an Ultros thing? Or is undercutting the destiny of all crowded servers? Lich, being a lesser populated server, tends to have prices extremely high (20k glamour prisim) and items you can buy from NPCs be double or triple their worth. But Ultros can have an item worth 20k at the start of the day be reduced to even less than its NPC sell back value at the end of it.

What's the point? There's no profit to be had especially when the cost of selling becomes less than that of making. And this happens on every, single, item possible lest one buys up some additional retainers/alts and holds the MB in a very firm grasp by putting up the max listing, making it impossible for others to undercut you.

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It's Impatience and Greed. a case of "must have money and must have it now"

it's crazy though as on a lot of items people don't even take a few seconds to look because there so impatient.
As an example if i'm selling hardsilver ingots at 10k for 1 and have maybe 4 listed at that price. but I hae a stack of 99 listed at a price of 600k (6k each) 9 times out of 10 the next guy to come along and sell a couple of ingot will put them up for 5,999 gil for 1. when if he took just a few seconds to look he would see that he could quite probably still sell his first even if he listed it at 9,999. but again it's just impatience. so he puts his up without looking for 5999 and the next guy comes along and does 5900, and just like that the price is slashed in half.

personally I tend to make a decent bit money off the smaller items with just a little bit of thought it's quite easy. send my retainers out gathering skins and stuff through the week and right about earlier today (few hours before scrips reset) put up loads of leathers cloths inks etc. sell em for a higher price than the rest of the week because of ppl rushing to get there scrips done before reset. and again to people capping there scrips right after the reset. hell even quick synthed nqs.

usually find by time I log on tomorrow theres not much left on my retainers. where if I listed those items every day the prices would be tons lower.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Markets have been pretty slow... so undercutting has been pretty bad. Next week with update there will be a ton of money to be made and things will sell fast. Those who choose to sell as opposed to do content will make a fortune. I can already see the markets picking up pre-update this week.

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Don't think they'll do much in 3.5. there wont be new crafted gear, the 250 only came in 3.4. maybe a couple of new glamour looks (no idea though)
Materia will probably go up a bit for a few days when ppl start upgrading there 260 gear to 270

Ahh, the marketboard. The crafters version of PvP. Undercut competition is fierce, and there are no rules or etiquette. Seeing prices cut to below the NPC value isn't any worse/better than those who sell items obtainable through shops at 3-5x their value. Though I am inclined to believe that those who undercut below NPC value have NO clue what that value is, and hence have no idea how to work the MB.

If an item I want to sell drops this low, my only choices are to sell to the NPC at a loss, or hold on to the item until prices go back up. It just depends on how much an inventory slot is worth to you, and if the item you want to sell is worth more or less than that. Gains AND losses are to be expected when playing the MB. If you're at a point of frustration, take a break from selling high demand items that sell like hot cakes in favor of expensive items that sell slowly. The payout over time can be nearly the same, and you save yourself the trouble of constantly monitoring the boards to adjust your prices.

If its a hot item you want to get rid of fast, but don't want to deal will continuous undercutting, you could also try selling it via PF. Sure, I advertise it as less than MB price, but by the time I sell it, the rapid undercutting on the market board has already dropped the price significantly lower than what I sold it for in PF.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

It's Impatience and Greed. a case of "must have money and must have it now"

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It's simple economics. The extra 10k is worthless to me if it takes 10 hours to get instead of 1 hour. Sale slots are limited and the faster your items move, the faster you can move more items. People undercutting below vendor sell are pricing people out of markets. They can eat the losses and know newcomers can't. Discourage the weak and control the price of your items.

I also do the -1gil start for quick sales. May be a dick move but that's the economy for you.

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Originally Posted by viewtyjoe

It's simple economics. The extra 10k is worthless to me if it takes 10 hours to get instead of 1 hour. Sale slots are limited and the faster your items move, the faster you can move more items. People undercutting below vendor sell are pricing people out of markets. They can eat the losses and know newcomers can't. Discourage the weak and control the price of your items.

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This 100%, it's no different than real life economics.

the market is a backwards auction, undercutting is just the way the market works here in FF14. i would prefer another system myself, because gathering materials, crafting the item and then playing the market game is a bit much for the seller, while the buyer just click one time on the cheapest item.

but however, i have only 2 retainers. that's only 40 items i can list on the market. the faster i can sell an item, the faster i can free one item slot and can list a new item and sell it, so undercutting leads to a higher profit in the end.

The market in this game is completely awful. Not a single good thing can be said about it. Undercutting is one thing, but there is also the people who increase the amount an item is worth by leaps and bounds. I've seen here on Jenova, old ARR primal crafting mats go for millions, and even in some cases almost as high as the items they're crafted into. There is even the case here where two players have gone on record and said their only goal in the game is to have complete control of the market and max Gil. At one point one of those players bought ALL 250 gear on the board, sold it for much higher, went to the crafters and mocked them with a custom emote throwing Gil at them.

Player to player sales are also ridiculous here and subjected to undercutting. Really anything that allows for a free market in video games is going to be more abused then anything, without having a structured market nothing will however change and everything will continue the way it has.

Market under cutting was the original pvp in xiv.

The prices fluctuate crazy on my server. They dip down from 100k-50k and back up again in a week or 2 weeks time.
I've just gotten used to it and I can wait people out

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Originally Posted by Lexia

Want to see prices act like a rock being dropped in a lake? Then come to balmung.

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Lol and even that's an understatement some days. Course there's always profit to be made

Same thing happens in Odin pretty often.

The perceived problem I have seen is the fact that some people seem to undercut irrationally, and a lot of people tend to follow up with lowest offer. There have been cases where an item has been selling for a steady price X, but suddenly people just get super impatient (or just don't care?) and undercut everyone else by a huge margin. If other people undercut the said person, the item may get completely devalued for a long period of time.

But then again, I think this is the nature of Market Board. It is always fickle and sometimes even irrational. If something gets undercut way too much, I might just save up the items and sell them at a better time anyways.

I am annoyed by people who undercut 200k each time and they do that multiple times a day.

always -1 when i unfercut
if i have tons of some items i undercut up to 80% within certain limits to gain even 1 gil profit cause, yes, i dont give ademn of gil, i get enough from roulettes to repair and teleport lol

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Originally Posted by Mirch

always -1 when i unfercut
if i have tons of some items i undercut up to 80% within certain limits to gain even 1 gil profit cause, yes, i dont give ademn of gil, i get enough from roulettes to repair and teleport lol

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Eh to me -1 isn't enough also due to different areas. If I am in Gridania, paying 800k is the better move vs the 799,999 from Limsa or another location due to tax which would put me at about 820k or so. I would actually like to go back to the blind auction of 11, just bid what you feel it should be and if anyone has it marked for that price, you get it. Least to me it seemed items sold more regularly at the same price. When it comes to pricing though, I am not one for shoving the market up to an insane amount. I got a Night Pegasus whistle and saw they all had sold for about 20-22mil, the only one available was set for 40, so....yeah, I undercut by 20mil.

I don't know why people do the -1 gil thing.. It just seems so.. pointless to me. If something is selling for 18,000. I'mma put mine up for 18,000. People always buy it.

I also never sell in stupid 99 stacks. Soooo annoying.

Prices are hiiigh in Gilgamesh. You can make a TON of money just selling GC mats: Dubbin, Borax, Raziqsand and Scheelite for example.

I recently sold 11 Woolen Chausses(lv46 or something) for 77k each. I was a happy lady.

I used to do the -1 gil whenever I listed items up (like... a year ago), but Ultros' market has gotten so terrible that even just doing that seems to set off a giant undercut war and it's frankly ridiculous. Now I just meet the lowest price of whatever I'm listing, as that tends to stabilize things for a bit... before someone comes around and starts up another war due to -1ing something. -.-

At this point, I don't even bother adjusting prices right away. If an item remains at a crashed price for more than two weeks (and my own hasn't sold), I'll reprice my items. But if the market fluctuates too much for all that relisting to be worth it? Nah, I can wait for a bit on something to sell. Undercutters give me a bloody headache.

I'm one of the ones where I have moments where I just want to crash the price of something, I have been known to do 95%+ undercuts. Other times, I try to be more reasonable in my pricing to try and stay steady. As I don't play that often anymore it isn't such a big deal (I am trying to ween myself off this game and onto others, as well as IRL projects). It's as someone said, it's marketboard PvP. You either sink or swim.

Ah, yet another undercutting complaint. Let's sum up the same stuff that has been rehashed again and again.

Did your stuff sell at your desired price, in spite of the undercuts? If yes, the undercutter was foolish. If no, then you're trying to hold the item at a price that is no longer viable, so YOU are the fool.

Markets shift and change all the time. There is no "correct" price for any product. If the bottom drops out of the market you're in, this is perfectly natural. Roll with the punches; either reprice your product to match the new market, or pull out and wait for the market to be favorable again (which may not happen for quite a while).

Players may have many reasons for undercutting. Perhaps they came across a surplus of product for some reason (for example, someone makes a hundered stacks of lumber while leveling up), and they want to sell low - possibly even lower than the cost of production - just to clear inventory fast. Perhaps they got the product from a treasure chest or something, and so their cost of production was essentially zero, so selling below cost doesn't bother them. Maybe they were quicker to pick up on a market shift than you were, and are unloading fast to prepare for the inevitable crash. Perhaps they are just a drooling moron. Whatever the reason, folks always have a reason for selling low. If their reason was a bad one, you have nothing to worry about; their product will sell, and so will yours. If your product doesn't sell, then YOU were the one to make the mistake, not them.

There is never a good reason to complain about undercutting. The proper price of an item is whatever sells. If your item isn't selling, it's priced too high - even if the price it IS selling for is lower than the cost of ingredients. When THAT happens, that's your cue to get out of that market, pronto. (The recent massive market shift for Replica Allagan gear is a good example - folks that didn't pick up quick on the fact that Replica Allagan gear had become available as Palace of the Dead drops took some heavy losses when that market tanked.)

Also remember, no one person can alter a market for long. They may make ripples, but if the demand is there prices will return to the way that they were fairly quickly, no matter how dramatic the ripples are. If the demand is not there, the prices will settle at a new, lower level, and that's perfectly fine.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

I don't know why people do the -1 gil thing.. It just seems so.. pointless to me. If something is selling for 18,000. I'mma put mine up for 18,000. People always buy it.

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i was like you. then i had this one rare glamour item. i was the first one on the market, it didn't sell in weeks. then within one hour i checked the last time someone else put the same item for 1 gil less on the market and it did sell instantly.

since then i don't care anymore. i undercut by 1 gil just to be on top of the list because that's the only way to sell things. that's just how the market works. and even when people have to pay a lot more for taxes, they will buy the item wich is on top of the list to save this one gil...

I'm sitting on almost 300 STACKS of lumber right now and trying to sell it without crashing the market is very difficult!
I try my best to match or 'underquantity' others trying to sell theirs cheaper. I keep it spread across different city-states for tax reasons and it helps a lot. Smart players buy local!

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Originally Posted by Canadane

I'm sitting on almost 300 STACKS of lumber right now and trying to sell it without crashing the market is very difficult!
I try my best to match or 'underquantity' others trying to sell theirs cheaper. I keep it spread across different city-states for tax reasons and it helps a lot. Smart players buy local!

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That wouldn't happen to be Cassia, would it? I have so many stacks of those that I've just started storing them on my alt. Which is 1 step short of throwing them away. Give my logs more purpose!

hmmm made around 80-90 million on this patch so far. Here is the trick folks, if there are multiple items of the same type do not undercutt it. Reduce your stack count instead. The sell the smaler stack counts at a higher price,and it will always sell. I was pulling 1 million plus just on crystals on a daily bases,my botney was pulling 3-4 million daily from noids. Worst mistake anyone can make in this game is under-cutt the market,lower your stack counts,make smallers stacks for a higher price,makes things very very profitable.

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Originally Posted by Melondra

hmmm made around 80-90 million on this patch so far. Here is the trick folks, if there are multiple items of the same type do not undercutt it. Reduce your stack count instead. The sell the smaler stack counts at a higher price,and it will always sell. I was pulling 1 million plus just on crystals on a daily bases,my botney was pulling 3-4 million daily from noids. Worst mistake anyone can make in this game is under-cutt the market,lower your stack counts,make smallers stacks for a higher price,makes things very very profitable.

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This sounds like someone who pays for six retainers for a total of eight. But yes if I need one I prefer to buy 1 instead of 99 even if I can resell 1 for the same cost as 99.

Also 14 is a weird market resources are literally unlimited. Other games resources are shared here you could have a whole server gathering iron ore making it worthless or only 1 person selling it for twice as much as the vendor two feet away. So if it takes the same amount of time to gather and make a lvl 5 item as it does a lvl 55 item the price is completely arbitrary. It is the stuff like woolen tips that are limited that actually retain a certain value.

I typically just leave my prices as they are, the price usually drops then goes back up again, at least when it comes to pretty expensive items. Cheaper ones I can just flog on and get rid of easily.

I gotta admit, undercutting by 1 gil is really petty, put it up for the same price, reduces the risk of causing a market collapse and you usually get your sale.

If you wanna sell something so badly then lower your prices. The higher the stock the lower the price.