The markets, stalls, price listing and undercutting. (A suggestion)

[Xenor]

There are always amethyst and garnet raws on the market. Ripping and flipping doesn't really deserve very much profit at all. Again, NQ amethyst and garnet rings should be worth less than the cost of a raw amethyst and garnet. If the market were adequately supplied and perfused, they would be. Only by taking advantage of imperfusion, vanity, or stupidity can you turn a profit on the profitless.

Honestly people trying to scrounge as much as they can should thank undercutters. For every one product they figure is actually worth the time it takes to sell it, there are ten that they don't and they're the reason you can essentially treat most gear like a consumable as you level what you want. If everyone were penny pinchers, everything would be annoyingly priced instead of priced to move. I want rank 30 **** priced to move.

Price gougers just care too much about money, so they call everyone else undercutters.

If I intend to sell a lance I've outgrown, and there are 4 of them on the market at 170-200k, I'm putting mine up for 130k. No offense, but I don't give a ****. It's called a USED lance. I'm not bothering with you or it any more. I want it out of my inventory and gone to the very next lance buyer. I don't care if that's "your" market. For that one lance, it's mine.

They're priced as they are because it's a pain in the ass to go out and get Amethyst and Garnet gems when you could be out mining valuable gold at Halatali. This increases their value. The supply of those gems in the wards is lower than the other T2 gems so they tend to be priced higher when they are on sale, this means people aren't likely to skill up on them.

If we used the kind of logic you're using then all NQ items would cost less than the total cost of materials. Problem is items reach a value where no one bothers to make them because they aren't worth the bazaar space or the effort of synthing it. For Garnet and Amethyst rings I place this at 50. If the price drops below that I stop making and move on to something better. If the price drops lower then others stop making them and you end up with none up for sale.

Ok your lance. What if people come along and list those four at 100k? You have to go even lower which means you're getting at least 70k less than you could have. Then they go lower than you again etc. You're better off NPCing it if you don't care about the gil to save yourself the trouble. Back when we had that undercutting issue with electrum ring +1s I ended up giving them to LS members because it wasn't worth the effort any more.

[Peregrine]

They're priced as they are because it's a pain in the ass to go out and get Amethyst and Garnet gems when you could be out mining valuable gold at Halatali. This increases their value. The supply of those gems in the wards is lower than the other T2 gems so they tend to be priced higher when they are on sale, this means people aren't likely to skill up on them.

If we used the kind of logic you're using then all NQ items would cost less than the total cost of materials. Problem is items reach a value where no one bothers to make them because they aren't worth the bazaar space or the effort of synthing it. For Garnet and Amethyst rings I place this at 50. If the price drops below that I stop making and move on to something better. If the price drops lower then others stop making them and you end up with none up for sale.

Ok your lance. What if people come along and list those four at 100k? You have to go even lower which means you're getting at least 70k less than you could have. Then they go lower than you again etc. You're better off NPCing it if you don't care about the gil to save yourself the trouble. Back when we had that undercutting issue with electrum ring +1s I ended up giving them to LS members because it wasn't worth the effort any more.

How much do you pay for a market raw garnet and amethyst? 12k? Come on. Ripping and flipping simple rings for at elast a 40k profit for NQ and 340k profit for a lousy, pointless +1 is making out like a bandit.

If there's someone willing to put that lance up for 100k, more power to them. I'm tired of seeing gougers waste their and my time by running bazaars that aren't worth anyone's time.

Electrum ring+1s are ****. Garbage. You didn't stand a chance. You never will in worthless pieces like those and rings. They're grinding materials. Who are you kidding trying to sell them for 80k? I made so many that not only did I give them away to people I knew, but I made more than sold on the market. There will always be someone grinding on those.

You all want paid unreasonable wages. Why that is, I don't know. Doesn't really matter. Not gonna happen. They have you by the balls. They're an undercutter to you, you're a price gouger to them...and honestly you either play by their rules or you quit.

Undercutting is reasonable. It's the people who think their products are worth more than they actually are who are unreasonable.

I don't give a damn what you make selling lances to lowbies "because it's a pain to gather the mats." This lance is moving, because it's not a pain to buy a used hand me down.

[TheVedis]

How much do you pay for a market raw garnet and amethyst? 12k? Come on. Ripping and flipping simple rings for at elast a 40k profit for NQ and 340k profit for a lousy, pointless +1 is making out like a bandit.

If there's someone willing to put that lance up for 100k, more power to them. I'm tired of seeing gougers waste their and my time by running bazaars that aren't worth anyone's time.

Electrum ring+1s are ****. Garbage. You didn't stand a chance. You never will. They're grinding materials. Who are you kidding trying to sell them for 80k?

if its not selling the price gets lowered

thats the law of supply and demand

if someones willing to pay it, then it is worth the time
if they arent buying them for those prices, thats when its overpriced

[Peregrine]

if its not selling the price gets lowered

thats the law of supply and demand

if someones willing to pay it, then it is worth the time
if they arent buying them for those prices, thats when its overpriced

And I'm not going to bother negotiating with you as an iron lance maker because I have better things to do than to keep checking the bazaar to see how you react, hustle, and ball. Your product is just as good used as it is new. It's a midlevel piddlydink piece of gear. It's not worth 170k. It's not worth 130k.

It's a used lance. It's worth whatever I say it is. I don't care what you think yours are worth, and I'm not going to waste my time considering your bazaar sales rates.

130k tonight is worth more than 155k after three price resets five days from now. You're not worth my time to negotiate fair market price with, and I don't care what happens to that market. That's why I undercut you.

Stop whining. Call my bluff and buy my lance, then put it back up for 170k if you think you're right.

You're wrong, which is why you just complain.

This is a yard sale, fellas. You seem to think you run a retail store. Ten dollar toaster? Try a dollar fifty.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

And I'm not going to bother negotiating with you as an iron lance maker because I have better things to do than to keep checking the bazaar to see how you react, hustle, and ball. Your product is just as good used as it is new. It's a midlevel piddlydink piece of gear. It's not worth 170k. It's not worth 130k.

It's a used lance. It's worth whatever I say it is. I don't care what you think yours are worth, and I'm not going to waste my time considering your bazaar sales rates.

130k tonight is worth more than 155k after three price resets five days from now. You're not worth my time to negotiate fair market price with, and I don't care what happens to that market. That's why I undercut you.

Stop whining. Call my bluff and buy my lance, then put it back up for 170k if you think you're right.

You're wrong, which is why you just complain.

While I think the example you give is actually fair in terms of how much you lower the price when you want to rid of items you are no longer using, there is a different issue that really is not in anyone's control. That being the sales person whirlwind people go into when ANYONE undercuts them. Using your example, instead of waiting for your 130k Lance to sell, I've been seeing people pull a, "Oh no you di'eh!" and quickly lower their lances below your price. This will go on till it's not even profitable anymore.

These situations don't have anything to do with supply and demand or items/materials being over priced. It has to do with the proud crafters who take a "If mine won't sell, yours won't either" approach. It's extremely foolish.

You're right, you shouldn't care. At all. Ignorant players with poor market skills shouldn't be on anyone's shoulders. Unless they immediately drop the price by a terribly low 60-70% of what it actually costs. That's really more due to laziness, but if you're reasonable about your pricing when undercutting it should be a non-issue.

[Shai]

While I think the example you give is actually fair in terms of how much you lower the price when you want to rid of items you are no longer using, there is a different issue that really is not in anyone's control. That being the sales person whirlwind people go into when ANYONE undercuts them. Using your example, instead of waiting for your 130k Lance to sell, I've been seeing people pull a, "Oh no you di'eh!" and quickly lower their lances below your price. This will go on till it's not even profitable anymore.

You know, I see what you're saying here and I agree this is an idiotic way to do business.

People seem to take undercutting personally and do ridiculous things to "get ahead" like take a 50% loss and also set a new standard price inadvertently. At this point, though, the smart thing would be to buy the 2-3 offending lances yourself and just resell all 4 of them (including your own) for marginal profit.

The risk is whether you can sell all 4 lances before these same shenanigans pop back up again and you're forced to buy 3 more lances when you have only sold 1. This is why you should just pick and choose your battles wisely. Things that move fast are better to quibble over than things that only sell 1/week or 1/month. If that's the case, I probably wouldn't have bothered listing it to begin with or I'd list it cheap to get rid of it (like the original offender).

[Peregrine]

While I think the example you give is actually fair in terms of how much you lower the price when you want to rid of items you are no longer using, there is a different issue that really is not in anyone's control. That being the sales person whirlwind people go into when ANYONE undercuts them. Using your example, instead of waiting for your 130k Lance to sell, I've been seeing people pull a, "Oh no you di'eh!" and quickly lower their lances below your price. This will go on till it's not even profitable anymore.

These situations don't have anything to do with supply and demand or items/materials being over priced. It has to do with the proud crafters who take a "If mine won't sell, yours won't either" approach. It's extremely foolish.

You're right, you shouldn't care. At all. Ignorant players with poor market skills shouldn't be on anyone's shoulders. Unless they immediately drop the price by a terribly low 60-70% of what it actually costs. That's really more due to laziness, but if you're reasonable about your pricing when undercutting it should be a non-issue.

Undercutters are the divine wind of the market long overdue for a correction. They're the bursting of the bubble and the end of decadent greed. They're the recession that such a population could have avoided if they'd have lived responsibly and within their means. They're the answer to the problem of price flippers, market speculators, middlemen, and manipulations, monopolies, and markups.

That's why when an undercutter shows up, oh how they rage. They know the gig is up.

I'm not going to lie and say I don't enjoy finding a market that's being manipulated for way too much profit than what it's worth and cutting it down to size. I shoot the cook. It's a service to the server really.

I want lancers to have access to good weapons more than I want gil.

[Shai]

I want lancers to have access to good weapons more than I want gil.

I'm reposting this in the Lancer forum and Wutai forum. Just so you know. ^^

[Rentahamster]

130k tonight is worth more than 155k after three price resets five days from now. You're not worth my time to negotiate fair market price with, and I don't care what happens to that market. That's why I undercut you.

Stop whining. Call my bluff and buy my lance, then put it back up for 170k if you think you're right.

Indeed.

people need to get used to undercutting in general
its the natural order of all MMO economies until you hit the bottom end

also, leveling recipes will never sell worth a damn so people need to get over trying to profit on those too

Yep.

I want lancers to have access to good weapons more than I want gil.

Well said.


In this thread: Some players think their stuff is worth more than it actually is.

One of the characteristics of a good crafter is being able to produce stuff as cheaply, quickly, and efficiently as possible. If others are able to do it better due to being able to gather their own mats, having other people do it for them, having their friends and LS work as a team to create cheap goods, etc, then so be it. Try harder.

This is the same principle behind why battle classes who party advance more than those who just solo. Cooperation makes everything easier.

[Xenor]

How much do you pay for a market raw garnet and amethyst? 12k? Come on. Ripping and flipping simple rings for at elast a 40k profit for NQ and 340k profit for a lousy, pointless +1 is making out like a bandit.

If there's someone willing to put that lance up for 100k, more power to them. I'm tired of seeing gougers waste their and my time by running bazaars that aren't worth anyone's time.

Electrum ring+1s are ****. Garbage. You didn't stand a chance. You never will in worthless pieces like those and rings. They're grinding materials. Who are you kidding trying to sell them for 80k? I made so many that not only did I give them away to people I knew, but I made more than sold on the market. There will always be someone grinding on those.

You all want paid unreasonable wages. Why that is, I don't know. Doesn't really matter. Not gonna happen. They have you by the balls. They're an undercutter to you, you're a price gouger to them...and honestly you either play by their rules or you quit.

Undercutting is reasonable. It's the people who think their products are worth more than they actually are who are unreasonable.

I don't give a damn what you make selling lances to lowbies "because it's a pain to gather the mats." This lance is moving, because it's not a pain to buy a used hand me down.

I've not been buying the gems, just trying to get rid of my stock of gems that I've had for ages. But they do seem to go for around 10k each, and then the electrum nuggets are worth around 4.5-5k each so let's say 22k to make when you factor in the shards. I don't think adding 28k for the time it took to make the synth and the effort of going to Dragonhead or Treespeak is a bad thing. I'd probably make more money mining Halatali and selling the gold. So you've got to add compensation for your time spent in those other areas vs what you could spend in Halatali or no one is going to want to make those rings. You seem to be over looking this factor. I once went up Dragonhead specifically for Amethyst rings. There's some gold up there but not as much as I'd get spending that time in Halatali. So I've got to add some profit to the Amethyst rings I make.

You probably had a point with the electrum ring HQs because you get gold mining anywhere and HQs are a side effect of skilling up on them. But you aren't going to choose to skill up on Garnet or Amethyst rings because you're better off mining Halatali for its gold. Plus I stand by skilling on electrum is like throwing gil down the toilet. I got off it at about 50k to rank 48 and I estimated franciscas would save me about 2 million gil per rank in those final ranks. Scale glue mats are easy to farm, ash hafts come in 16s and you can get someone to skill up on the heads. But let's try and convince people to keep buying that gold sand/ore we mine otherwise it would be worthless lol.

But at the end of the day I'm going to charge a price people are willing to pay. I normally base my prices off what I have sold things for in the past. Garnet and Amethyst rings have always been in the 50-70k range so if I can get that I will. If no one buys them because they're over priced I'll happily lower them. Just like no one is buying my 10k walnut logs right now I'm probably going to lower them to 9k tomorrow. I've let people undercut me on those because I have sold them for 10k in recent past. But the market has decided they're worth 8-9k so fair enough I'll cave in.