market failure

[melflomil]

Lol 92% off. I gave up on crafting for making profit.. Kind of lol. I craft for myself and I don't buy anything of the market board. Only shards cuz I hate farming shards. Instead I do duty roulettes and see wha gil bonuses they are giving for specific classes. I'm a bard but got a pretty decent rank and healer because of duty roulette

[Simaril]

I've been frustrated by the market board; not enough tawny latex listed to make terminus putty, and terminus putty not selling (very low demand and supply). I cut the price on a terminus putty by more than 50%, then went around and shouted in each city just to see if I could sell one, and how the others listed would respond (it sold, the going rate didn't change).


It seems like the markets in general are pretty inactive. Shards are about the only thing that has constant buying/selling, consumable aren't that important for most players, and gear with ilv equivalent to crafted is reasonably reliable and easy to access - and a lot of bosses aren't really gear checks anyway... and when they are you want/need better gear than can be crafted.

[Tirabi]

It doesn't work that way.. they will still undercut you buy a large amount. Not even a hour later I was undercut on a item by almost 30k. Sure if you need a item and its cheap it works out for you but as a thriving economy goes it isn't realistic.

So buy those for 80g and mark them up to 500g, not 1000. Still a hefty profit for no work. I've made a ton of gil reselling undervalued items. I bought 8 stacks of vendor trash last night for 2g each that vendored for 203g each. People are stupid. It's not always gil sellers that are doing it.

[Simaril]

I bought some cheap vendor trash that someone sold on MB for 1,400 last night because I was busy making 800,000 selling other stuf that was more worth my time, effort and attention ;p

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Lol 92% off. I gave up on crafting for making profit.. Kind of lol. I craft for myself and I don't buy anything of the market board. Only shards cuz I hate farming shards. Instead I do duty roulettes and see wha gil bonuses they are giving for specific classes. I'm a bard but got a pretty decent rank and healer because of duty roulette

This. All the way. With the unreasonably high prices and aggressive undercutting/price drops that happen daily, I'd rather just make things for myself or FC mates, utilizing the market only when absolutely necessary. And with regards to the 3-star crafts, while I understand the heightened difficulty in not just making them HQ, but obtaining the mats themselves, I can say I've obtained the larger half of the mats necessary for the ones I want, and have yet to even hit 1/4 of the prices the final products go for. So there's no way I'm paying 4 times as much for something I can (eventually) just make myself.

[Elasia]

Want to hear something just as crazy? On Ultros, Tawny Latex (150 myth) is selling for 80k while Cashmere Fleece (500 myth) is selling for 120k. 450 myth < 500 myth but 240k > 120k, logic where?

This is specifically a marketing problem. I saw this happening early on and used shouts to raise awareness to buy tawny and not 500 items to force myth alignment, also I never buy tawny off the mb, always direct sells via barking in rev toll. If you have enough gil, you can easily force this problem to go away because here is the kicker... those people selling those 500 items at 120 in your case? are just as willing to sell tawny at 36k!

Also I'll edit this and throw this in... I also do take advantage of this opportunity by selling terminus putty for large profits in bulk, I make around 100% profit margins on these... buy 1m in tawny, get 2m back... not a bad deal

[PopeHat]

This, I was the 1st ARM on my server for 4-5 days then the 2nd (and the only) guy comes in and under all of them by 50%. I was like......what r u doing dude? Do u hate gil? Then just don't sale anything at all. I don't mind u under cut me by 10k or 20k each and all ur goods sold and mine tank there, that's fine. But why? why just destroy it when they are saling and we are the only 2 guys who can make them?

Some people enjoy selling for low prices.

[Keikun]

Buying cheap and re-selling is not an option in lamia, I sell earth crystals and they went from 200+ to 95 and still going down, If I buy all those crystals selling for 95 (cheap) 2 days later crystals will be 85 and then wont re-sell at all, one day they could be cheapest in market and 2 days later they become expensive, so yeah not a good idea.

I blame bots and stupid people for going with those ridiculous low prices.

[dspguy]

The market is player driven. Players dictate value. The other day, I dumped 50 craftsman competence III on the broker for about 25% less per than the cheapest listed. I was sick of selling them one at a time and playing the "undercut by 1 gil" game. Someone bought them up and re-listed them in 4s and 5s for about 5% less than the market rate. Point is, that player saw opportunity in my undercutting and selling in bulk.

An item is only worth what someone will pay for it. Just because everyone else is trying to sell an item for 1000 gil doesn't make it worth 1000 gil. Maybe today players are only willing to pay 80 gil. Maybe tomorrow, 5000 gil. You can't enforce what the OP is talking about.

[Wintersandman]

As a buyer:

A: How bad do I really want the item and is it easier for me to find someone to make it for me.
B: How easily is the item replaced
C: Can I just sell the mats and make more of a profit.

As a Seller

A: How long am I willing to hold onto the item. Does it take 30 mins to sell or 13 days to sell.
B: How much did it cost me to make the item
C: How much of a demand is there for the item
D: How realistic is it for someone to be able to afford the item.
E: Is my price promoting people to go to RMT.

I will easily undercut someone if their price is too steep. If the mats cost you 100k yeah I could see 300k for an item. But not 2.5 million. I would have undercut a lot of you here because the demand is high so the item will move faster, it is also more reasonable for the buyer to afford, and I know I am not promoting someone to go buy money from RMT.

RMT exist because the cost of goods > than revenue.