Undercutting

[dragonfire8974]

Yeah, but this also grants credence to another idea I brought up. And that's how this practice ends up ruining the prices on some items. This tends to happens with items that take longer than a couple days to sell. I've seen it happen, and sure I understand the market will reach an equilibrium price at some point. The seller either settles for the smaller sale price or forfeits selling that item altogether...

another Cogent point. But I don't see a resolution to this problem unless there is some market regulation limiting the range of prices of an item around a certain standard set by the company.

Maybe a more interesting fix would be making items wait a week before they are posted, thus everyone has the play a longer game while selling things instead of trying to grab immediate gold.

[DefendPopPunk]

another Cogent point. But I don't see a resolution to this problem unless there is some market regulation limiting the range of prices of an item around a certain standard set by the company.

Maybe a more interesting fix would be making items wait a week before they are posted, thus everyone has the play a longer game while selling things instead of trying to grab immediate gold.

That's interesting. I've also seen mention in the past of there being a listing fee as well, which might help to reduce the tit-for-tat pricing wars that tend to occur. These types of fixes would require some will on part of the dev team though, which I'm all for if they even consider the issue.

[Niwashi]

My big deal is undercutting by massive amounts for no good reason (like in the OP's example).

Yet the OP's example sounds like exactly the sort of case where a large undercut does in fact make perfect sense. It's big ticket items like that which get the biggest boost in demand when the price is lowered to a point where more people can afford them. It just indicates that the seller is in a hurry to sell so is expanding their potential customer base. (A similar drop in the price of an already cheap item might qualify as being "for no good reason" but there are plenty of people who won't spend over a million gil on something.)

[Typhon66]

I will agree to a point. Some prices for some things are just...wtf. Map minions come to mind. Other things though, that have gone through a "standardization" period, such as ores, ingots, jewlrey etc., what is the point of marking it down a few thousand just to get the quick sale?

Why you ask undercut on items with "standard" prices? To crash the market of course. Now you probably ask, why would i want to do something like that? If i do that, an prices fall, then nobody makes money right? Wrong.

[Typhon66]

What i do, when i first get into a market (won't be sharing any details here, trade secrets and all), is assess how much it costs me to produce said item. Whether it be a gil amount for items that i craft, or a time investment for farmed items (i have a conversion to say how much time it worth). I will then obtain a massive amount of the item in question, after doing all the research, thousands of them. The first step is to completely kill my competition. In a world where all of the products are the "same' and i can't provide better service or higher quality items, i am left with only price as my option. So, i crash the market. I sell 1000 or so of this item (obviously less for the really rare), for a lower rate, until people realize i undercut and start undercutting me. Then i undercut them again, and the battle begins.

[Typhon66]

Eventually, because of MY goals and mission, as well as my supply and persistence, i will win the battle. I will be happy selling an item for weeks at a time with no profit, or even at a loss if i really want into that market. Because of this, people will eventually give up.

Now, my competition is gone, i have no competition, i am now the singular provider for this item on the server. Because of that, i can set prices however i want, generally this period will only last a few days or so, but for a few days, i can generally sell stuff for 10 or 20 times the original cost, making more than if i had just "played by the rules" and only undercut by 1 gil and having competition for sales. Then, i repeat the process all over again once the market stabilizes.

Crashing the market, that's why you undercut so much.

Stupid 1000 character limit....

[NyneAlexander]

What i do, when i first get into a market (won't be sharing any details here, trade secrets and all), is assess how much it costs me to produce said item. Whether it be a gil amount for items that i craft, or a time investment for farmed items (i have a conversion to say how much time it worth). I will then obtain a massive amount of the item in question, after doing all the research, thousands of them. The first step is to completely kill my competition. In a world where all of the products are the "same' and i can't provide better service or higher quality items, i am left with only price as my option. So, i crash the market. I sell 1000 or so of this item (obviously less for the really rare), for a lower rate, until people realize i undercut and start undercutting me. Then i undercut them again, and the battle begins.

Ladies and Gentlemen? Wal-mart is here.

[Niwashi]

Eventually, because of MY goals and mission, as well as my supply and persistence, i will win the battle. I will be happy selling an item for weeks at a time with no profit, or even at a loss if i really want into that market. Because of this, people will eventually give up.

Now, my competition is gone, i have no competition, i am now the singular provider for this item on the server. Because of that, i can set prices however i want, generally this period will only last a few days or so, but for a few days, i can generally sell stuff for 10 or 20 times the original cost,

Selling for weeks at a time at a loss with high volume in order to try for big markups for a few days that will have little if any volume may occasionally come out ahead, but not usually. That strategy only works in situations with a high cost of entry, where eliminating your competition would actually mean something. In this game, where there is no cost of entry, and competition isn't eliminated but only put off temporarily while you're still selling at a loss, it won't help you. Your competition will be back again as soon as you try to take advantage of it being gone by raising the prices.

[LineageRazor]

Now, my competition is gone, i have no competition,

Always entertaining to see folks who feel like they can actually control a market in the game like this. The steps you describe will control a market for, I dunno, maybe a week at best, more likely only a day or two. Once an item becomes profitable, the competition will come back, and you're right back where you started and have to spam thousands of items again. You are doing ALL of the work in this endevour; for your competitors, there's no effort at all.

This kind of market flooding works in the real world because once a businessman is ruined, they stay ruined. Starting up a business, getting loans, what have you is expensive work, and if you go bankrupt it becomes that much harder to start over since fewer will trust you with a loan. In this game, starting up a "business", as it were, is completely free. The method you describe will drive everyone out of a market, certainly; they have better things to craft than compete with your crazed flood of product. When the flood dies down, though, getting back into the market takes no effort at all, so what's to stop them?

In all likelihood, your competitors don't even realize what you're doing. They just see that a particular item is overstocked, and so move to greener pastures, possibly dumping stock first. Once your pasture turns green again, though, there's absolutely nothing keeping them from coming right back. They aren't afraid of you or what you can do, because they don't even know you're doing it. (This all also applies to the guy with "infamous retainers" a few pages ago; I highly doubt his retainers are as well-known as he boasts.) If you can actually make a profit in this way, that's great! More power to you. But don't make the mistake of believing you have any lasting power over the market. The complete lack of negative consequence for failure means that the market will always be open to anyone who wishes to participate.

So-called "crafter PvP" is a joke, and entirely an illusion created by the participants. If you find it fun, though, there's no harm in it! And the buyer market makes out like bandits whenever a shark decides to "weed out the competition" in this way, so they're happy, too!

[NyneAlexander]

So-called "crafter PvP" is a joke, and entirely an illusion created by the participants. If you find it fun, though, there's no harm in it! And the buyer market makes out like bandits whenever a shark decides to "weed out the competition" in this way, so they're happy, too!

It is a joke. A very funny joke