Undercutting

[Synestr]

So let me get this straight..it's ok to oversell something at a ridiculous price..but once someone undercuts you, it's a bad thing?

I will agree to a point. Some prices for some things are just...wtf. Map minions come to mind. Other things though, that have gone through a "standardization" period, such as ores, ingots, jewlrey etc., what is the point of marking it down a few thousand just to get the quick sale?

Price and acceptability of price is perception. i70 HQ pieces were the cat's meow back in the day easily netting a few mil not to mention the melding of said pieces. Today they go for much, much less.

Same with the current state, new crafting stuff is wanted. SO supply and demand kick in.

WHat OP is talking about is a drop, so yea there might be an issue with that. As mentioned things get ran more so and abundance of rare items become available. That is different though from farmed, gathered, crafted items.

I am sure there have been times where you have gotten something good to sell and were like yea!!!! Then put it up, and a day later its there because 7 a$$hats decreased the asking price by 5 each. If not then lucky you. It happens and is annoying at times.

In general undercutting is unwelcome and bad form.

[Typhon66]

I will agree to a point. Some prices for some things are just...wtf. Map minions come to mind. Other things though, that have gone through a "standardization" period, such as ores, ingots, jewlrey etc., what is the point of marking it down a few thousand just to get the quick sale?

Why you ask undercut on items with "standard" prices? To crash the market of course. Now you probably ask, why would i want to do something like that? If i do that, an prices fall, then nobody makes money right? Wrong.

[Typhon66]

What i do, when i first get into a market (won't be sharing any details here, trade secrets and all), is assess how much it costs me to produce said item. Whether it be a gil amount for items that i craft, or a time investment for farmed items (i have a conversion to say how much time it worth). I will then obtain a massive amount of the item in question, after doing all the research, thousands of them. The first step is to completely kill my competition. In a world where all of the products are the "same' and i can't provide better service or higher quality items, i am left with only price as my option. So, i crash the market. I sell 1000 or so of this item (obviously less for the really rare), for a lower rate, until people realize i undercut and start undercutting me. Then i undercut them again, and the battle begins.

[Typhon66]

Eventually, because of MY goals and mission, as well as my supply and persistence, i will win the battle. I will be happy selling an item for weeks at a time with no profit, or even at a loss if i really want into that market. Because of this, people will eventually give up.

Now, my competition is gone, i have no competition, i am now the singular provider for this item on the server. Because of that, i can set prices however i want, generally this period will only last a few days or so, but for a few days, i can generally sell stuff for 10 or 20 times the original cost, making more than if i had just "played by the rules" and only undercut by 1 gil and having competition for sales. Then, i repeat the process all over again once the market stabilizes.

Crashing the market, that's why you undercut so much.

Stupid 1000 character limit....

[Niwashi]

Eventually, because of MY goals and mission, as well as my supply and persistence, i will win the battle. I will be happy selling an item for weeks at a time with no profit, or even at a loss if i really want into that market. Because of this, people will eventually give up.

Now, my competition is gone, i have no competition, i am now the singular provider for this item on the server. Because of that, i can set prices however i want, generally this period will only last a few days or so, but for a few days, i can generally sell stuff for 10 or 20 times the original cost,

Selling for weeks at a time at a loss with high volume in order to try for big markups for a few days that will have little if any volume may occasionally come out ahead, but not usually. That strategy only works in situations with a high cost of entry, where eliminating your competition would actually mean something. In this game, where there is no cost of entry, and competition isn't eliminated but only put off temporarily while you're still selling at a loss, it won't help you. Your competition will be back again as soon as you try to take advantage of it being gone by raising the prices.

[LineageRazor]

Now, my competition is gone, i have no competition,

Always entertaining to see folks who feel like they can actually control a market in the game like this. The steps you describe will control a market for, I dunno, maybe a week at best, more likely only a day or two. Once an item becomes profitable, the competition will come back, and you're right back where you started and have to spam thousands of items again. You are doing ALL of the work in this endevour; for your competitors, there's no effort at all.

This kind of market flooding works in the real world because once a businessman is ruined, they stay ruined. Starting up a business, getting loans, what have you is expensive work, and if you go bankrupt it becomes that much harder to start over since fewer will trust you with a loan. In this game, starting up a "business", as it were, is completely free. The method you describe will drive everyone out of a market, certainly; they have better things to craft than compete with your crazed flood of product. When the flood dies down, though, getting back into the market takes no effort at all, so what's to stop them?

In all likelihood, your competitors don't even realize what you're doing. They just see that a particular item is overstocked, and so move to greener pastures, possibly dumping stock first. Once your pasture turns green again, though, there's absolutely nothing keeping them from coming right back. They aren't afraid of you or what you can do, because they don't even know you're doing it. (This all also applies to the guy with "infamous retainers" a few pages ago; I highly doubt his retainers are as well-known as he boasts.) If you can actually make a profit in this way, that's great! More power to you. But don't make the mistake of believing you have any lasting power over the market. The complete lack of negative consequence for failure means that the market will always be open to anyone who wishes to participate.

So-called "crafter PvP" is a joke, and entirely an illusion created by the participants. If you find it fun, though, there's no harm in it! And the buyer market makes out like bandits whenever a shark decides to "weed out the competition" in this way, so they're happy, too!

[NyneAlexander]

So-called "crafter PvP" is a joke, and entirely an illusion created by the participants. If you find it fun, though, there's no harm in it! And the buyer market makes out like bandits whenever a shark decides to "weed out the competition" in this way, so they're happy, too!

It is a joke. A very funny joke

[Typhon66]

Always entertaining to see folks who feel like they can actually control a market in the game like this....

I only just started using this strategy in this game, so to be fair, i haven't amassed much wealth yet, but my account on WoW with literally millions of gold on it (made in Lich King expansion) That was actually banned for "selling gold" and then promptly unbanned when they realized i simply gave gold to guild mates and personal friends is laughing at you. I literally owned the entire endgame market, from enchanting, potions, flasks, glyphs, gems etc. Nobody could compete with my volume and eventually everyone just gave up and stopped fighting and i became the sole supplier on the server of endgame consumables. Occasionally someone would try to push themselves into the market, but i had so much gold that i could easily compete at a loss in the market for months if not years and still be fine.

All of that was built using this same idea.

[Typhon66]

Also, i'm not trying to be rude in anyway, i am simply explaining why some people undercut so massively, yes there are people who do it not realizing why, but there are others, like me, who actually play MMOs to do this very thing, and own the market on something. This is the "character" i play in an MMO, i play someone who owns markets, and has massive amounts of money. And that's okay

[CYoung187]

Always entertaining to see folks who feel like they can actually control a market in the game like this. /snip

In all likelihood, your competitors don't even realize what you're doing. !

100% agreed. It take no effort to adjust what market you can cater to. The guy who actually think his retainers are notorious made me LOL as well. Like anyone even looks at the retainer name. Owning a small market in this game where what is in demand is constantly changing and leveling a crafting skill takes little time and effort just doesn't seem in any way efficient.