Quote Originally Posted by Knahli View Post
Hahahaha, well I can't argue against that. We all have our pet peeves and I'd be lying if I said that I couldn't exactly see where you were coming from. In some sense it can be perceived as "disrespectful" almost. I know I used to see it that way before I got into crafting myself and realised that I appreciated when people undercut me by as much.
The trouble with undercutting by one gil is that it creates the "illusion" of a competitive market without actually being competitive at all. A crafter has two sometimes competing goals: They want to sell for a good price, and they want to sell fast and often. Large undercuts satisfy the latter desire at the expense of the former. Crafters pricing to compete with other crafters are what keeps the market healthy and fluid; crafters undercut one another until customers are buying product fast enough that undercutting is no longer necessary, at which point prices start to rise again.

Undercutting by small amounts, though, gives a crafter the benefit of fast sales without paying the penalty of reduced cost (well, meaningful reduced cost). You're not participating in the market, but instead leeching off the efforts of those who do. They've taken the effort of finding a good price to sell at - and then you've taken that good price, shaved off a piddly amount to put yourself at the top of the seller list, and stolen the fruits of their labors.

Don't get me wrong - all's fair on the markets, so there's nothing WRONG with this kind of pricing, persay. But anyone that claims there's some kind of moral superiority in undercutting by one gil is fooling themselves! It's the lazy alternative to competitive marketing. Thankfully, there's plenty of sellers out there willing to take REAL action which ends up leaving the 1-gil undercutters in the dust. Well, at least until the 1-gil undercutters start piggybacking on them, as well...