Overflowing stupidity

[ApolloGenX]

Yet another post whining about undercutting.

The truth is that there are very few "rare" items in this game. Those items have low supply and will remain at high prices. The reason other items get undercut and devalued is because there are lots of crafters, tons of materials, and HQs are not hard to make. So why do people undercut? Why do you see prices plummet?

Because crafted items are all common. High prices on crafted items are just a result of new servers or supply that hasn't caught up to demand. Crafters can't really make anything "special" it is all the same stuff... and a lot of it is easily replaced by vendor/quest stuff.

It was never worth those ridiculous prices.

[Leon_Stormrage]

But meanwhile player 1 is gaining 50k player 2 is gaining 150k and selling it easier...

[scarebearz]

But meanwhile player 1 is gaining 50k player 2 is gaining 150k and selling it easier...

The mats themselves sell faster than the crafted 2 star items, so player 2 would in effect be paying 50k to sell his stuff slower.

In terms of selling easier, no 2 star stuff on Odin sells very fast, price has little effect on the rate these things sell, as long as they are sensibility priced.

So a 2 star 9 mat item on my server priced at 300k would sell at about the same speed as if it were priced at 200k.

[Zigkid3]

in some cases its better to sell for less if it increases your inventory turnover rate.
Say someone can gain a net profit of 20k at price point A, or or gain a net profit of 30k at price point B. Price point B is higher which will result in getting 10K more out of the sale but it'll sell less often.
Say after 24 hours, at price A you were able to gain 20k for each sale and sold 5, so 100k total. In the same amount of time of 24 hours if you sold at price B and gained 30k each you may only sell 3 and gain a total of 90k.
So in 24 hours, it was better to sell at a lower price and gain less profit per item, but you sold a lot more in the same time frame.

[Niwashi]

Lets say mats are worth and sell for 200k.

...Player 2 farms his own mats and crafted the same item and lists it at 150k.

Player 2 is in effect losing 50k when it sells, as he would have got 200k just from selling the mats.

That's only relevant if selling the raw mats would have gotten him what he wanted. If gil is the only motivation, then yes, he could have gotten more gil by selling the mats. Doing so, however, would mean he gets no crafting XP. A lot of the items that get sold on the market boards are the by-products of leveling crafting, and any gil they may or may not make is secondary. In that case, the goal isn't to maximize the amount of gil, but to maximize the speed at which they sell, so you can free up inventory space for making more items.


Overall, I think ApolloGenX got it right, with:

It was never worth those ridiculous prices.

Just because someone overpaid more for mats than a finished product is reasonably worth, doesn't mean that everyone else needs to artificially jack up the prices of the finished products in order to match.

[scarebearz]

That's only relevant if selling the raw mats would have gotten him what he wanted. If gil is the only motivation, then yes, he could have gotten more gil by selling the mats. Doing so, however, would mean he gets no crafting XP. A lot of the items that get sold on the market boards are the by-products of leveling crafting, and any gil they may or may not make is secondary. In that case, the goal isn't to maximize the amount of gil, but to maximize the speed at which they sell, so you can free up inventory space for making more items.

You obviously know little about crafting, no non-50's would even be trying to craft 2 star items. (Or have the stats to even try)

For other lower level items, yeah you are probably correct, but that's not what I was talking about.

[Niwashi]

You obviously know little about crafting, no non-50's would even be trying to craft 2 star items. (Or have the stats to even try)

For other lower level items, yeah you are probably correct, but that's not what I was talking about.

But this thread isn't discussing 2 star items, at least not specifically. It's discussing how the market works in general for crafted items. (You're the only one here to have even mentioned 2 star items, and that sounded more like an example than an indication of the scope of the discussion.)

For levels 1-49, people buying mats are presumably those who want to level their crafting, or perhaps just craft something for their own use, when they don't feel like taking the time to do their own gathering as well. They'll often be willing to pay a premium for that convienience by spending more on the materials than the finished products are worth.

At level 50 the incentive changes, as you no longer need crafting XP, but the economics aren't all that different. Mats still tend to be expensive because there's still relatively fewer people taking the time to gather them. For some players, that doesn't matter. They still want the convienience of being able to craft without gathering so they can make gear for themselves or their friends. For those trying to make a profit at it, however, they're going to have a hard time doing so if they're paying a premium for the convienience of avoiding the gathering part of crafting.

[scarebearz]

But this thread isn't discussing 2 star items, at least not specifically. It's discussing how the market works in general for crafted items. (You're the only one here to have even mentioned 2 star items, and that sounded more like an example than an indication of the scope of the discussion.)

This thread has been discussing 2 star crafts since post#10 and most of the following posts have been referring them and using them for examples.

I may have been the first to use the term "2 star", but everyone else knew those were the items being referred to.

[Wulfies]

I agree, my example does not take into account all factors, but it was used to hopefully illustrate the foolishness of someone selling an item cheaper than they could sell the mats.


In terms of 2 star items being sold way below cost due to silly undercutters, I believe this is the main reason:

A crafter has been selling a lot of 1 star items and other things fast on the MB, they gear up and think "I'm going to make and sell some 2 star items!".

They list the item and expect it to sell as fast as their other items.

After a few days or less they get worried that it's not selling and a large part of their gil is tied up in this item.

They keep dropping the price / undercutting in large chunks because they are desperate to get back whatever gil they can ASAP.

I want to try and tie this back to the OP's posting regarding "Overflowing Stupidity" (as he so aptly puts) so here goes:

It is the crafter's responsibility to find markets which are or are not profitable. When I decide on a market to sell stuff I look not only at the going prices for the product(s) I will be making but also at the history to see how fast said product is moving. The transparency with being able to see profitable markets helps me make very informed decisions in how I spend my time crafting. This is why I am vehemently against implementing the blind bidding system that FFXI has.

A lot of these threads seem to be made by people who feel they are entitled to large profit margins.

+1 billion to this sentence.

People should be treating selling crap stuff on the MB like opening a "mom & pop" at the corner. Just like with any business, without the proper research and information you are bound to fail.

[scarebearz]

We can make many examples of people gathering their own mats, to argue against market stupidity. But the fact is there is a lot of market stupidity out there.

E.g. I used to check history for who had been buying tomb mats, out of curiosity. I've often seen new crafter's buy mats for a 18 mat item (560k in at the time + 15k for other mats). Craft the item that sold slowly for 900k (back then), then undercut their competition by 100k a time until around 500k.

This type of silly undercutting did get them their sale though, but more than a 75k loss. (tax)