Undercutters

[Bloody]

Actually, despite it being a dick move and seemingly dumb, destroying a market isn't. The reason many people think that in the english forums is because Americans tend to think short-term gains instead of long term. In the mid term to long term, destroying a market drives out competition, thus resulting in allowing a monopoly to reset prices back to the highly profitable levels (hence legislation to prevent that IRL). With luxury items like orchestrion rolls, the supply is only limited by drop rates, so valuation is a combination of how much someone wants an item versus how badly all the impatient sellers want to make those few extra gil.

[Elamys]

I don't know if you've played on Balmung but it's nearly impossible to sell or make gil there because of people undercutting by massive amounts. Items such as Ironworks or 250 gear that go for over a million each on smaller servers are worth between 150-350k here. People undercut in huge chunks and the market -never- recovers; maybe for rare items that don't drop as much, but for common(er) items like gear, it doesn't happen.

[Clethoria]

Actually, despite it being a dick move and seemingly dumb, destroying a market isn't. The reason many people think that in the english forums is because Americans tend to think short-term gains instead of long term. In the mid term to long term, destroying a market drives out competition, thus resulting in allowing a monopoly to reset prices back to the highly profitable levels (hence legislation to prevent that IRL). With luxury items like orchestrion rolls, the supply is only limited by drop rates, so valuation is a combination of how much someone wants an item versus how badly all the impatient sellers want to make those few extra gil.

Last I checked English forums included EU as well as players world wide who spoke English in general.

[AmalonStar]

So long as the market board lists the items currently on it with the selling price the seller has set there will always be someone that will under cut everyone else, and when someone undercuts them they go back in and undercut even more.

I think the best way to deal with the whole under cutting thing would be to not list prices beside the items. Rather remove the sellers price on current items and leave the price history for items that have already sold to base pricing off of, that system worked in the auction house in ff XI yes there was still undercutting but you didn't see prices drop from 10k for an item down to 4k or lower in a couple hours.

[Zojha]

In the mid term to long term, destroying a market drives out competition[...]

Uhm...except that there are no costs of entry into the market. People can re-enter the market anytime they like, whereas in RL, when a company is broke, it's broke, they can't just come back whenever they feel like. That's why undercutting cannot drive the competition out of this digital market - they can take their products off the market, wait for you to raise prices again, then get back in. That's not an option of RL companies.
Likewise, the only way to make real losses in the game market is to buy the mats off the MB and sell the finished good for less than the combined cost. Otherwise, the only losses you can make are opportunity costs.

It is rather funny to read, though, how people view the game's market from a company point of view and end up supporting the same practices that they would likely curse and condemn IRL. Just imagine internet providers and gas stations (i.e. luxury goods not necessary to live) would make pricing collaborations as many advocate here *shudders*.

[Ageofwar]

on Hyperion I find dragonskin maps go for between 10,000 gil to 50,000 gil in an avergae week

I put my dragonskin maps on the MB for 31,000 gil and oddly given enough time they tend to sell

I just laugh to myself to all them people that put them on the market for less than 30k gil

[Rinari]

I put my dragonskin maps on the MB for 31,000 gil and oddly given enough time they tend to sell

I just laugh to myself to all them people that put them on the market for less than 30k gil

It's good to know your market! Dragonskin maps are tedious to store due to their nature, so players don't stockpile them. As a result, the market's maps will be bought up in big streaks when groups get together to run maps. I'm on the buying end of this, as I fairly often run maps with friends. I usually keep 1 opened (bought at a cheap price), but when the group is going, I'm buying maps for practically anything in the 20-60k range for as long as we keep going, and so is the rest of the group! We go through a lot of maps at once. Even if maps were 60k all the time, I'd still turn a good profit running them in groups where everyone is bringing maps.

[Bloody]

Last I checked English forums included EU as well as players world wide who spoke English in general.

Yes, but Americans tend to be very short-term planners, especially in business. I'm not going to blanket the statement to other english-speaking groups because not all of them exhibit the same tendencies, and I don't exactly have a laundry list of which do or don't (to my knowledge) in my head, hence why I stuck with Americans, despite us not being the only users of the English Forums.

Uhm...except that there are no costs of entry into the market. People can re-enter the market anytime they like, whereas in RL, when a company is broke, it's broke, they can't just come back whenever they feel like. That's why undercutting cannot drive the competition out of this digital market - they can take their products off the market, wait for you to raise prices again, then get back in. That's not an option of RL companies.
Likewise, the only way to make real losses in the game market is to buy the mats off the MB and sell the finished good for less than the combined cost. Otherwise, the only losses you can make are opportunity costs.

It is rather funny to read, though, how people view the game's market from a company point of view and end up supporting the same practices that they would likely curse and condemn IRL. Just imagine internet providers and gas stations (i.e. luxury goods not necessary to live) would make pricing collaborations as many advocate here *shudders*.

There are some barriers to entry: how much gil does it take to acquire the raw mats to make the item in question? How much time does it take to acquire said mats if you don't have the money? How about the crystals to craft? Are you capable of farming the instance for that rare drop? It's all about commitment and effort. Yes, unlike real life a marketeer can recover quickly and re-enter the market if he or she so chooses, but many people who are driven out won't. They will just change markets.

Now, for that final point, I advocate for smart market management. I am not the kind of person who has the bankroll or desire to try and corner a market. But like the map seller, I don't bother with these undercutting wars. I pick a reasonable price that has a decent chance of selling soon unless the market crashes. As a professional, I do not endorse nor condone price collusions. In FFXIV, the transparency involved in supply pricing and somewhat vague demand valuation generally keeps the price of any given good in check, and that's what I follow to turn a profit.

[craized]

An under utter complaining about undercutters. Go figure. How about you don't undercut and put it at the same price as the current lowest instead? Undercutting by the smallest increment is worse than undercutting by a large amount. I would have bought the one for five mil.

[Commander_Arcturus]

Buy on weekends, sell on weekdays. I've learned to accept that it's ok to pull out because when I put it back up, all the undercut prices have been sold during the weekend, and I can put it up right back even higher than before and get a sale. Kids will be in school, and most adults will be at work.

This seems to be a problem for bigger servers because I remember glamour prisims running for 20k+ on a quiet EU server whereas on Ultros, they're constantly 2k or less. No undercutting on a smaller server, or not as much, cause no one's there to buy it.

A slap fight, I am now gonna use this term, will only make the other person giggle and buyers happy. Just gotta learn the MB or dominate it.

I'm right there with you. On Greg if you try to sell anything for a good price Fri-Mon...good luck. I leave my product up and just wait, because I know by Wednesday everything will be sold.