Undercut Hell

[Felessan]

Undercutting by massive ammounts is really stupid guys why do you do it.. it infuriates me and I am sure alot of crafters agree.

You are a margin trader - you trade relatively small amount of items with high margin and it's understandable that you become upset when someone undercut you heavily, eating away your margin.
The problem here is that there are also a volume traders and for them volume is important and for this they a) need a better demand, that achieved at lower price and b) want to get into a better selling position on a market to ensure that all of their volume will sell. Undercutting helps with both at once.

Large undercuts skip over this value and over time end up lowering the maximum fair market price. Lower it far enough and those people responsible for supplying the item will leave the market and you've created a scarcity. So now, not only have you made the economy less over all, which hurts everybody, but you've also made it harder to find those items you are looking for.

Economy is cyclical. Lower price spurs a much higher demand - thus by proxy a much higher demand in components. What is bad for crafters (working at breakeven prices) is good for consumers and gatherers (as high demand in craft leads to high demand in components thus price for them picks up). And vice versa - high prices means low demand and prices for components become depressed.

Everyone undercuts b/c their dumb and do not know the meaning of the word patience...you playing an mmo but are in a hurry.

I usually craft one day inventory of food and want to sell it in one day. For this price is manipulated so 80% of inventory could be sold in one day, and if there is oversupply or lack of demand - price is undercutted easily to prevent building up of inventory.
And if there is too much of a price war, I just leave this particular item market for several days as price will come back from breakeven spot eventually, no one want to work without profit for a prolonged period of time.

If you want to undercut a product just do it by smaller increments, maybe 1-3% of the previous value. So you can get yours on top and possibly keep the value of the item in question.

If you want demand to really picks up, undercutting by 1-3% will do nothing.