Undercutting

[Jojoya]

It's more that a lot of players (or people in general for that matter) seem to be lacking any form of common sense and completely trash the place for no reason at all. Translate this to any IRL situation you like.

As we keep trying to point out, a single player undercutting by a large amount does not "trash" the market. Prices will bounce back almost immediately as the low priced item sells and the old price become the new low price again.

What trashes the market is players flooding the market with multiples of an item faster than that item will sell.

I think some forget there is no barrier to entry for crafting anymore like exists back in ARR and HW, and to a lesser but still noticeable degree in Stormblood. Best way to bring new sellers into the market is to overprice the items they wanted so instead of just buying the item and moving on, they're now making it to sell for profit.

"Free markets" have rules IRL and that is why it works. The market in games like this have none at all. That's why it's a complete clown show and people get upset. I can just trash players out of spite without any consequences. I wonder if new players trying to enter the market find it "a joy" too once they get absolutely dominated into oblivion.

The free market rules in real life are created primarily to prevent price-gouging and monopolies.

The only rule I can think of off the top of my head to protect profit margins would be patents.

The real difference between free markets in game and in real life is resource limitation, equipment costs/overhead and labor.

In game, there are no resource limitations outside of the rare drop items and even that is circumvented to greater or lesser degree depending on how many players are farming the content where those items drop. In real life, there's a limit to how much can be grown or taken from the ground and how fast those things can be done (not to mention seasonal availability).

Equipment costs in game is basically limited to gear, which can be self-produced. There is no overhead for facilities, utilities, and the like. Real life business has to account for those things.

There is also no wage standard for labor in game. How a player values their time making/acquiring an item is up to them. In real life, you've got minimum wage standards not to mention competition between companies to attract the better workers.

But supply and demand still exist in both. Caution needs to be taken so you don't push those creating the demand into becoming those who create supply.

if my undercut offends you so much you are free to buy all of my listings and post them for a price more suited to your sensibilities.

That only works as far as your preparedness to post more of those same items and in greater quantities.

I've made a lot of gil off players who underestimated or didn't even stop to think about the depths of my material stockpiles.

Honest suggestion to those who want to flip for profit: don't buy on the same world that you plan to sell from if the item is crafted.