Please Squeenix, implement blind bids on the markets...

[BlaiseArath]

Supply and Demand, if you can drop something by say 20k and sell a bunch of them and still make a profit it makes sense to drop the price of an item.

It's all just supply and demand, undercutting is fine.

Unfortunately the supply has gone insane, due to so many crafting.

For some items, Maybe, but definitely not for all of them. Supply and Demand only applies to some of the market board, but for most of the items, there's more to it than that. I can tell you for sure, Sanguine Sceptors or whatever sell consistently and often for 30k~ on Sarg, Yet even with steady demand and quick sales, people will still undercut by 5-10k Just to get theirs at the top of the list and sell it quick. I've had times where I see 6-8 Of them in stock, some HQ, Some NQ, for 31k~40k, I'll put mine up for 31k and wait, 2 hours later theres 3 more in stock... Generally for 29k, then 25k, then lower cause people want theirs to sell first. at 24k its no longer a profit due to material prices being greater than that. Unless they're Minning the Pebble themselves, then they're still losing gil cause they could have sold the pebble individually, likely faster. But to the point, Even after those sell, Mine for 31k will still likely sell within the next 24 hours, Marking clearly there is plenty of Demand and the undercutting was pointless.

Now, If there were 20/40/60 In stock and none of them were moving due to no demand/too high, and people began lowering the price to accommodate the lack of demand or oversupply? That's supply and Demand. sh*t selling consistently then a horde of Derp-Faces undercut by 50% of the AH price just so they can sell theirs first, and in a lot of cases in turn causing others to undercut in frustration steadily crashing a market that was already rather stable to begin with? Not supply and demand. Just pure Grade A impatience and (Sorry for lack of better term) Ignorance/Stupidity on certain sellers part.

I can think of a good Market that crashed due to supply and Demand... Materia and most Farmable objects like materials. Most of the other crashing Markets, Like higher level Craftables, especially ones used in Relic Weapons, are due entirely to the "Lowest price on top, Better put my up for (X gil under the current lowest) So everyone sees and buys it first!" mentality which will inevitably create a cascading effect of lowering and lowering and lowering due entirely to frustrated sellers undercutting because they were undercut, so basically good ol' human impatience and frustration... Not their current Marketable value.

Recap: most markets are crashing from Stupidity, Not Supply and Demand. not even close to supply and demand lol. And for what its worth, not attacking either of you personally, Just simply that economics is not so simple as a blanket term that people seem to be equating it too. Some of market decreasing is S/D, Most of its not, and I support the OP's idea entirely.

Its funny, have these people ever been out in the real world and seen how Shops operate?

I can guarantee you no shops undercuts to the point theres no profit. That'll put you out of Business. You just posted this about the same time I did so you probably not had the chance to read my post. i ask you take the time to read my post as It might help you understand a bit what I mean.

[Sylve]

Its funny, have these people ever been out in the real world and seen how Shops operate?

[Riv]

There's way too much supply and nowhere near enough demand. People have to undercut to sell anything at all.

I mean come on, what did you expect when people can get a gathering class 0-50 in 2-3 days on leves? Couple that with the facts that crafted gear are very largely worthless and spirit binding anything of value takes an extremely long time and yeah....people are desperate for anything to sell for anything at all.

[Kailea_Nagisa]

people complaining about undercutting, when I see items that are sold by NPCs 2-3x their amount in the AH.....ha

[scarebearz]

For some items, Maybe, but definitely not for all of them. Supply and Demand only applies to some of the market board, but for most of the items, there's more to it than that. I can tell you for sure, Sanguine Sceptors or whatever sell consistently and often for 30k~ on Sarg, Yet even with steady demand and quick sales, people will still undercut by 5-10k Just to get theirs at the top of the list and sell it quick. I've had times where I see 6-8 Of them in stock, some HQ, Some NQ, for 31k~40k, I'll put mine up for 31k and wait, 2 hours later theres 3 more in stock... Generally for 29k, then 25k, then lower cause people want theirs to sell first. at 24k its no longer a profit due to material prices being greater than that. Unless they're Minning the Pebble themselves, then they're still losing gil cause they could have sold the pebble individually, likely faster. But to the point, Even after those sell, Mine for 31k will still likely sell within the next 24 hours, Marking clearly there is plenty of Demand and the undercutting was pointless.

That too is an example of supply and demand, you had to wait until demand was higher than the supply in order to sell yours.

Supply and demand vary greatly, especially early on.

[MilkyJoe]

I don't mind the market board system in FFXIV, but I think its something that could be improved. The Auction house they used in FFXI was really fun, it would be great if ARR adopted it as well.

[Ryios]

Undercutting happens so bad here because nothing is worth anything to an NPC. People have so much junk on them that npc's for 1 gil, they just throw it on the AH without taking time to individually price check them all.
Square needs to make items worth something to a vendor so people just npc all their junk instead of throwing it all on the ah for 1 to 100 gil...

This games system's for rmt combatting are just stupid. "Oh let's make everything NPC for 1 gil, that will show them RMT"... No Not really, what it does instead is make players go "WTF am I suppose to do with all this stuff I don't need, I need space, Oh Ill just throw it on the AH for 1 gil so someone else can use it".

[Logan]

I 100% agree. I want to get some fantastic items for 12gil again

[Juz10y0]

We need a listing fee. Badly.

[3Jane]

Well gosh competitors selling the same product for a cheaper price, that's unusual. So we have a variable income that fluctuates with prices. Average prices arise over time which fluctuate with market, undercutting eventually levels out as the prices drop below a certain level and people give up selling, at which point they rise to the average again fairly rapidly. I saw it happen in 1.0 endless times. Short term undercutting flurries occur then the average price reasserts it's self.
I'm fine with it, as a seller I accept it, as a buyer I expect to be able to be able to see how much I'm being asked to pay for an item and not to have to piddle around playing guessing irritating games until I guess the right one.