Learn to use the History function and stop driving prices into the toilet.

See that little thing marked History?

http://i.imgur.com/bls53Bs.jpg?1

Learn to use it. It shows you what things have been selling for. I bring this up because apparently a vast number of people are unaware it exists, or possibly are just stupid. When something has been consistently selling for 10k+, undercutting that price by 4-5k is dumb. Don't do it. Good god.

This morning I found piety III for 1,010 gil. The next lowest price was 10,011 gil. Someone missed a zero... lucky me.

If you have a problem with it, you can simply buy those items and resell at the historical price you mentioned.

Competition keeps prices down :P
That's fundamental economics. If I want to undercut everyone else to guarantee a sale, I usually do. As to how far I go with it depends how fast I want to be rid of that item.

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Originally Posted by Velox

Competition keeps prices down :P
That's fundamental economics. If I want to undercut everyone else to guarantee a sale, I usually do. As to how far I go with it depends how fast I want to be rid of that item.

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That doesn't stop idiots who drive prices from 1k gil down to 2gil because they don't know how to look at the makret history.

Part of this of course is SE's fault for not making the price history button more noticeable. (first thing about making a feature is you have to assume that everyone is dumb)

Why not just have a button that says Price History instead of a notebook icon ?

its every where, people want THEIR item to sell just to make a quick profit so no matter what a lot of time ppl are dumb (as you said) and undercut by a large amount just to make sure that it will sell

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Originally Posted by Velox

Competition keeps prices down :P
That's fundamental economics. If I want to undercut everyone else to guarantee a sale, I usually do. As to how far I go with it depends how fast I want to be rid of that item.

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... no. That's not "fundamental economics". Fundamental economics is keeping the price a) as high as customers are reasonably willing to pay, b) high enough to turn a profit, and c) slightly lower than your competitors, unless you're at the edge of point b, in which case you price match and hope for the best. Fundamental economics is NOT doing fire sales 50% lower than the going price because you're an impatient twit, particularly when the market for whatever you're selling is both active and willing to pay substantially more.

Undercutting is a natural phenom in markets. The point is to sell you item for as low as possible while making a profit. But the problem stems from massive undercutting currently is because:

1.) The game is dishing our crafters and gatherers like halloween candy. Crafting is so easy to level a caveman can get 2 50s in 1 day if you have the leve allowance to do it. This causes an oversaturation in a market that literally has no demand. Why no demand? Because DoM/DoW classes don't need crafting gear they have other cheap ways to obtain gear and in some cases don't even need gear to level. Threfore, without the demand for crafted gear, the demand for gathering items also drop as crafters craft less gear or products.

2.) The second issue is some items are selling below material costs, but for some reason some people think that if they gather the materials then turn them into crafts they're making a profit no matter the costs. So they sell the item below cost.

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Originally Posted by Flarestar

... no. That's not "fundamental economics". Fundamental economics is keeping the price a) as high as customers are reasonably willing to pay, b) high enough to turn a profit, and c) slightly lower than your competitors, unless you're at the edge of point b, in which case you price match and hope for the best. Fundamental economics is NOT doing fire sales 50% lower than the going price because you're an impatient twit, particularly when the market for whatever you're selling is both active and willing to pay substantially more.

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The reason why you see this as I stated below is because there are some crafters out there who farm materials and craft the materials into an item and sell the item for the lowest price which usually falls below material costs. For some reaosn they tend to think they're making huge profits that way.

I do this for quest HQ items. Morons overprice something? I'm going to undercut you. That food doesn't cost 10k you morons. Stop exploiting your fellow crafters.

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Originally Posted by Arale

I do this for quest HQ items. Morons overprice something? I'm going to undercut you. That food doesn't cost 10k you morons. Stop exploiting your fellow crafters.

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The food does cost 10k when the rags you make cost 100k

The game has only been out for 1 month, and as far as I know, no one has payed a subscription fee yet. Things are gonna change A LOT in a couple months. If you hate the market trends today, do what they do in the real world when the market is volatile.

Please: Sit on your product until the prices stabilize. If you try in vain to compete with bots, and impetuous players, new to the game, who are trying to sell quick so they can level cap, you'll just further flood the markets, and make the problem worse.

I'm not an economist, that's just my opinion. I have taken a class in economics, and can tell that all(most) of you have very valid points.

It seems like this is all due to the fact that none of these things cost "real" money, just time. Some people value their time radically different than others, but that will change as people get bored of power leveling, and crafting. Or they leave..

Just remember: It's the Wild West right now.

Well since everyone is allowed to think for himself...

I will sell an item for what I think is correct. If I see a fire/wind/lightning cluster for sale for 2k, I will sell mine for 200.
Because I think 200 is a correct price for someone who will craft something & 2k is retarded, and the greedy bastards should stay in their cave.
Granted, some rich guy may buy all they cheap things I sell and then sell them back at a price 10 times greater.
Still.
If I think that I will help some guy level his DoH or get his new piece of armor, then that makes me feel good, and I will chose not to get rich.
I currently have ~90k gil.

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Originally Posted by gigi_frana

Well since everyone is allowed to think for himself...

I will sell an item for what I think is correct. If I see a fire/wind/lightning cluster for sale for 2k, I will sell mine for 200.
Because I think 200 is a correct price for someone who will craft something & 2k is retarded, and the greedy bastards should stay in their cave.
Granted, some rich guy may buy all they cheap things I sell and then sell them back at a price 10 times greater.
Still.
If I think that I will help some guy level his DoH or get his new piece of armor, then that makes me feel good, and I will chose not to get rich.
I currently have ~90k gil.

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That is exactly what i done with some leftover fleece. Sold about 40 off for cheap then another 30 off for cheap. Someone may have managed to buy it in time (they sold straight away) to help their crafting or someone bought it to sell it for more. I hope it was the former.

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Originally Posted by gigi_frana

If I think that I will help some guy level his DoH or get his new piece of armor, then that makes me feel good, and I will chose not to get rich.

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I do the same thing, I made most of my gil from selling green armor from dungeons, but I won't sell a level 15 piece for 15k gil because I want to gouge someone. I remember having limited gils at level 20 and trying to pinch gils to stay updated with gear and personally I don't feel a level 15 green should be 15k I think a more reasonable price is between 3-6k depending on the market.

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Originally Posted by EvanderStoneguard

I do the same thing, I made most of my gil from selling green armor from dungeons, but I won't sell a level 15 piece for 15k gil because I want to gouge someone. I remember having limited gils at level 20 and trying to pinch gils to stay updated with gear and personally I don't feel a level 15 green should be 15k I think a more reasonable price is between 3-6k depending on the market.

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Nice. Economics is about playing people, community is about helping people.

I just wish they would make it a blind auction like XI was... Seeing the current prices just makes it to tempting to go 100 or 1k under their price. Sure, it will sell faster, that is until the next person comes and repeats the cycle.

(And I agree that they made leveling crafts to easy)

That item I made while leveling my crafting, which has low turnover due to the usual high price, I don't want to be stuck with it for a week. I'm fire sale-ing it to recoup at least mat costs and moving on. Those items I've tried matching or slightly undercutting on are the ones sitting on the market for the last week.

I do also like that your argument seems to be that people both do and don't use the history button. If they don't (hence the need for a thread), then the price shouldn't be crashing from a fire sale. Just buy it out (or wait it out) and relist at your price. People don't use the history to think you're gouging at that point, right? :)

So, I'm trying really hard to understand what the point is.... Beyond repair costs of gear, an whatever other character upkeep there is, what is the point of Gil in this game? Why are you so upset about not being able to earn cause you don't have the lowest price? Also, what cost is there for crafting beyond item upkeep? I know this cost probably goes up at higher levels, but if your farming all your own materials it can't be worth enormous prices. If your buying materials off the market and adding that to your costs, then that's your own fault. Don't assume you can tell everyone what things can sell for just because you want a profit. Some people dont care about such things, or are just unloading what they have made leveling up, profit or not

*ahem* for instance...

http://i44.tinypic.com/1zprtp1.jpg

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Originally Posted by Flarestar

... no. That's not "fundamental economics". Fundamental economics is keeping the price a) as high as customers are reasonably willing to pay, b) high enough to turn a profit, and c) slightly lower than your competitors...

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Fundamental economics says nothing about that. It is about the effective distribution of resources in view of scarcity. It also describes the relationship of price and demand. You then make use of that knowledge as a firm/seller to optimize your profit, in which the risk appetite of the firm/seller has a great impact on the final selling price.

If I know that you are going to undercut me after I post, I will post at a way lower price that I think you won't (and probably come complaint at the forum) so that mine will guarentee a sales.

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Originally Posted by ACAardvark

Nice. Economics is about playing people, community is about helping people.

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Economic studies the behaviour of people in a way. It doesn't play people...people does...and community is filled with people too.

Before I would have bothered with these things, but as of late, when I am selling mats, I just undercut who ever is at the top by around 20%. My mats sell fast and I don't have 20 items clogging up my sales list.

If you don't want people like me to drive down the price of an item into worthlessness, then purchase our items.

I like players like you that doens't want to hold a large inventory (in a good way, not as an insult)...but I usually look for a bigger discount to minimize my risk unless I know the market very well...so I LOVE UNDERCUTTERS!!! They are the main reason that allows me to turn a profit in the market.

I also love undercutters. The NPCs are always happy to buy the stuff I sell them for profit after buying it from AH.

Seriously. If you want to support a legit crafter by selling cheap materials, why don't you just do a shout and sell directly? Or support your FC by supplying materials?
If you put in on the AH the chance is high that some RMT or some other id*** will buy and resell.

Prices will regulate without you undercutting. If there is low supply prices will go up, but thanks to the history players can see what's the usual price is and just don't buy it till the price lowers. Or buy at the higher price if they really need it.

Why would I invest materials and time and all the lv50 crafting and gathering classes that took me a long time to get to sell everything for peanuts when people are willing to buy for a reasonable price?

I guess it's a matter of how much your time is worth for you.

Every time I read a post about undercutting it makes me want to leave work early and rush home to undercut someone right now!

Seriously though, I almost always undercut by a 20-50% margin depending on how often an item is selling. I also rarely have anything posted on the board for more than a couple of hours before it sells.

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Originally Posted by Kyana

I guess it's a matter of how much your time is worth for you.

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This hits it on the head, I could put more thought into it and squeeze out more profit, but I've just plain decided I don't like spending time trying to play the market. It's not worth my effort trying to wait out a 7500 gil profit when I know I can sell it almost instantaneously at 5000 gil. Or 3000 gil. Or hell 1500 gil. Either way, gil in my pocket, item out of my inventory.

That might be the underlying issue, people are crafting to make a profit off the Market Boards but they're competing against people like me that only craft to provide for themselves and their FC mates and anything that I stick up on the board I'm usually more concerned about clearing my inventory than making bank. The best thing they can do is find something else to sell, buy up the stock and repost or trash it, or undercut us yourself. If they want to spend the time trying to squeeze out more profit on the boards though, the effort is on them to figure out how to do it, not on me to have to raise my prices to match theirs.

Only time I put something up on the board with the express purpose of making a profit is shards(which I will undercut you without a second thought and sell within literal seconds of posting) or when I see a crafting material up for a ridiculously over inflated price(saw NQ Aldgoat leather at 800 a few weeks back, I undercut that and sold about 100 broken up at 400 a piece and still felt like I was ripping people off).

There's two basic problems:
a) Not enough storage space, so I'm going to dump things that don't stack and I can't use later. Not surprisingly many of these things are already at 1gil
b) Between the dungeon drops and main/side quests you already have at least one set of good gear and don't need the crafted gear.

And unless you're making materia, you're not going to buy it either unless you're in a rush.

I also laugh every time I see an item that an NPC sells, being priced like the NPC didn't exist.

If someone farms an item through animal drops, BTN, or MIN, then the only "cost" of those mats is the price of gear repair/items used in obtaining said mats. Time isn't worth anything because gil isn't real money. From my experience, it averages around 300-500 gil for 99 fleece or diremite webs (as an example). With this in mind, selling said mat for what people consider outrageously cheap (again, example = diremite web for 300-350X99) gets me a "large" (opinion) profit and most importantly, clears my inventory. I'm also decent in keeping my mobs so it only takes a couple of hours to accomplish. My NEW main character is one in which I progress ALL crafts and so my inventory and retainers become full quickly. As a non lvl 50 player, those mats are how I make money and I want a house so it is born out of necessity. As it has already been pointed out, there is a reward in higher sale prices for patience so everything is balanced. I'm happy making quick sales for quick gil.

No.

Buy it up and sell it yourself if you don't like how others operate.

honestly why all the hate, I think undercutters are needed in a stable market, I actually sell more due to undercutters. They drive oversaturated stock down by bring the price down ( most of the time there are 20-30 plus sellers of said item) this brings supply down thus allowing me to price said item at a high rate again due to there being less sellers (as they are in the process of gathering and crafting said item again) normally ppl are't willing to wait for a price drop again and shell out for the item!

this is good because it stabilizes the market for items based on the basic's of economics SUPPLY AND DEMAND if you have many competitors selling and item you undercut it to drop the market for that item once all of the item has sold you raise the price again as the market is no longer high in stock!

this way you make more money than what you would have made originally (and you would be right for charging more as there are now less of said item)

undercut AS MUCH AS YOU WANT!