Idea against Undercutting at the Marketboard (The next.. )

[EricCartmenez]

<snip>If I see an item I need/want and the difference is one gil. I generally will buy the highest price one as a lesson to the under-cutter.<snip>

OK, so you're the guy who walked up to the board and bought a South Sea Talisman for 100 gil higher than mine? (I know, you're not on the same server, this happened.) So I put one on the board and I used the average of the last 6 that sold since there were no others on the board. I get undercut by 30k. I stand my ground until 3 more appear under that, so I go under the bottom price. This guys undercuts me by 5 gil. I change my price and go about my business and the guy undercuts me again. I change and it happens again. I go lower and someone buys the higher priced one. To teach me a lesson? I'm not the one who started nerf'ing the price, but someone with an attitude like that buys the one above me. There's no history of who cut who, so why do you think your message is going to work?

Your logic might work for Ehcatl Sealant, because that's an in demand product. Like coke, Potash, Arachne Web, etc, those things are often bought completely out on the market, so eventually, if your price isn't exponentially high, you will sell it. But there are those things that you won't sell if enough people post lower prices, so your 'hold out' method won't always work.

Fact is that there is nothing but supply and demand to control the market. You can't stop people with no sense from posting an item that has 3 million gil in materials or an extremely rare item for rock bottom prices and you can't convince someone with limited gil resources that yours is a 'better' product. Unlike in real life, there's really only two options for product quality - NQ and HQ. Yeah, you can dye or add materia, but for the most part, there's nothing separating your item from the next person's. Therefore, there's no logical reason for someone to buy a higher priced item. You buy the higher price and then someone walks up to a board and buys the cheaper on right behind you. No lesson learned at all.