The Market Board makes me sad.

[Hash_Browns]

Stop crashing the market.

Gonna give you a simple answer: NO

Stop competing with people if you don't want to lose money.
That's all that needs to happen.
The more people that compete with me, or anyone who thinks like me, the more the item drops in the non-profit zone.

[Yllania]

I think it's actually good sign there is still a free market / economy going on.
I wonder if you also are sad when your local grocery store reduces the prices...

AH yes, I love making stuff and then going to my local grocery store to sell it, thats totally a normal thing people do.

[AngelCheese77]

This is what I love about a player driven economy. Not prices dictated by a game company.

I admit, I sell stuff lower then others. But for different reasons. Seeing a level 1 gathering belt go for 50k boggles my mind. Or level 15 armor from a dungeon? 40k+. Like people forget there are new players and not just vets with gil out the butt.

[Yllania]

This is what I love about a player driven economy. Not prices dictated by a game company.

I admit, I sell stuff lower then others. But for different reasons. Seeing a level 1 gathering belt go for 50k boggles my mind. Or level 15 armor from a dungeon? 40k+. Like people forget there are new players and not just vets with gil out the butt.

Yea thats fair, its why I try to price fair when I did it because I remember being low lvl and how much gil sucked, especially lvling crafters.

[Hash_Browns]

This is what I love about a player driven economy. Not prices dictated by a game company.

I admit, I sell stuff lower then others. But for different reasons. Seeing a level 1 gathering belt go for 50k boggles my mind. Or level 15 armor from a dungeon? 40k+. Like people forget there are new players and not just vets with gil out the butt.

Mogboard is a good tool to see the price things should be set at in these cases. Usually end up setting my prices a few thousand gil under the lowest mogboard price, as that tends to get things selling quicker, and the mogboard price is usually a good representation at what the items should be set at when selling them.

[Darkstride]

A quick buck isn't the best way to get rich. All you do is slow the rate at which everyone gets rich wich lowers your rate of getting rich even more.

A lot of people likely dump junk from their inventory onto the Market Board just to free up inventory space. They don't care about maximizing it's worth. Selling it is just better than trashing it. They sell it at the lowest price to get rid of it.

[DumdogsWorld]

AH yes, I love making stuff and then going to my local grocery store to sell it, thats totally a normal thing people do.

Well, it is for the farmers, who sell their goods to the grocery store, if albeit indirectly.

The analogy may have been a stretch, but it is by no means invalid.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Its interesting to see that some players don't realize that this game is mostly a buyer's market rather than a seller's market. Outside of newly released items, production often far outstrips demand.

[Mimilu]

What I find really sad is when people sell items cheaper then they can sell them to NPCs, especially with the Doman Enclave giving you 120-200% the price (granted, you can only get 25,000-40,000 gil a week).

[NumenarMithrandir]

So there might be some people clueless about the market,don't care as long as they make a small profit quickly(low profit margins but high volume of sales),as long their item sells,bots, etc.

However, do consider that some people deliberately crash market segments for long-term profits. It's a player driven free market after all.

Some sellers have deep pockets and they're willing to sell items at a loss, if it forces some of the competition out of that market segment. Once some of the competetion has been 'eliminated', they can dominate that market segment and raise prices.

Fortunately, world visit has broken up a lot of such monopolies but it still does happen.

Another example; when I want cheap X crafting mats, I'd do something like throw up my own stock of X crafting mats onto the market board, at a price which is still profitable for me but enough for the undercutters to begin a downwards spiral of undercutting.

When the mats reach a low enough price according to me, I buy them all out.

Undercutting is predictable.

A successful merchant will manipulate the undercutters to her advantage.

This was really well said and put a smile on my face. MB is its very own game and seems very few really understand behind the scenes.