Extreme Market Board Undercutting is a Problem. Who ultimately benefits from this?

[TwistedTea]

They probably collected their items themselves, and then chose to sell the end product, rather than the mats, so that it might sell faster. Technically still get full profit if you collect the items yourself, rather than buying them.

It's not full profit.

There's opportunity cost. The time spent farming/gathering something yourself could have been spent buying the mats from someone else and doing something more profitable.

This applies to retainer ventures as well.

However, there are people who don't value their time or might find farming/gathering themselves as fun, so they see mat cost as 0 gil.

[DumdogsWorld]

It's not full profit.

There's opportunity cost. The time spent farming/gathering something yourself could have been spent buying the mats from someone else and doing something more profitable.

This applies to retainer ventures as well.

However, there are people who don't value their time or might find farming/gathering themselves as fun, so they see mat cost as 0 gil.

Possibilities and profit are not the same thing. Sure, they could have made more gil by just buying the mats and selling the item at a higher price, but the person hasn't lost any gil by farming the mats themselves and selling at an arbitrary desired price.

Not making some theoretical currency you may or may not have made if you had done <x> =/= A loss of currency you currently have invested in some endeavor.

[TwistedTea]

Possibilities and profit are not the same thing. Sure, they could have made more gil by just buying the mats and selling the item at a higher price, but the person hasn't lost any gil by farming the mats themselves and selling at an arbitrary desired price.

Not making some theoretical currency you may or may not have made if you had done <x> =/= A loss of currency you currently have invested in some endeavor.

I get where you are coming from but to clarify I'm not referring to selling the finished product at a higher price.

For example if X is selling for 100k consistently,multiple times daily.

I bought the mats from other players for 50k and I sold my item at 100k as well, I'm making a 50k profit.

However, since I didn't spend that time farming/gathering items and instead did this for many items like X but with higher profit margins.

As opposed to someone, who spends hours farming/gathering themselves for a few items like X.

The person who farmed/gathered themselves has lost the time/opportunity to diversify into many/more lucrative markets.

Even though, my profit margins in terms of gil may be lower on individual items but collectively on multiple items, I'm fairly confident that I'd make more gil/hour.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I get where you are coming from but to clarify I'm not referring to selling the finished product at a higher price.

For example if X is selling for 100k consistently,multiple times daily.

I bought the mats from other players for 50k and I sold my item at 100k as well, I'm making a 50k profit.

However, since I didn't spend that time farming/gathering items and instead did this for many items like X but with higher profit margins.

As opposed to someone, who spends hours farming/gathering themselves for a few items like X.

The person who farmed/gathered themselves has lost the time/opportunity to diversify into many/more lucrative markets.

Even though, my profit margins in terms of gil may be lower on individual items but collectively on multiple items, I'm fairly confident that I'd make more gil/hour.

Not everyone places the same value on their own time nor do they make judgements based on gil/hour rates. Some people enjoy the process of gathering all the materials needed for a craft or crafts, crafting those items and then putting them on the market.

Some people like playing the market while others like crafting and selling stuff. Both sets of producers sell stuff on the marketboard alongside players who just post the random stuff their retainers bring home.

[hiedra]

It's not full profit.

There's opportunity cost. The time spent farming/gathering something yourself could have been spent buying the mats from someone else and doing something more profitable.

This applies to retainer ventures as well.

However, there are people who don't value their time or might find farming/gathering themselves as fun, so they see mat cost as 0 gil.

I also want to add that the items they are selling use mats that come from the new tomes. So even if they're self sufficient it still takes a considerable amount of effort to craft those particular items that they then ended up severely undercutting.