lets talk about undercutters.

[Zojha]

So don't buy it?
Or craft it by yourself?

And that attitude is why crafting shouldn't be relevant to anything but other crafters. So that crafting it yourself is an actual, viable option. But then you go around and complain that you can't make a profit anymore because people can realistically use that option and in fact even do so.

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

Am I the only one who lists and sells items NOT at the lowest price viewable on the MB? Undercutting will always be a thing, but I don't sweat it. I typically put my items up for the average price they sold for in the sale history, and I will check on them periodically to make sure the market hasn't drastically changed for that product. If the pricing drops, I don't feed the mob and floor my price. I will either pull the product off the shelf, or adjust the price to be reasonable - but not the cheapest.

What makes me giggle is when people think that undercutting on an item that doesn't really move will make people want to buy the item. If an item's purchase history dates back 6 months and there are 2 sellers that list around the previous average sale, why do people think that if they cut the price in half, it will move any faster? It's apparent the demand for the item barely exists in the first place. (this excludes super rare items or items that become more readily available for any reason)

As with anyone, I do occaisonally have a "sell everything that isn't nailed down" period - usually due to lack of retainer inventory. I list things right at the average to the top 3-5 lowest prices, but this is purely to clear inventory issues. It's like popping a potion in raid - gives me a very short burst of money making and fades quickly.

[PirateCat]

I typically put my items up for the average price they sold for in the sale history, and I will check on them periodically to make sure the market hasn't drastically changed for that product. If the pricing drops, I don't feed the mob and floor my price.

This works fairly well as a strategy if you're simply trying to offload some stuff. If you're actively crafting for profit, though, you usually want your stuff to sell as soon as possible so you can make and list more of them. On Balmung, pretty much everything in the high-volume high-end market (glamours etc) follows the rule of: Set your price and check back in 24 hours. Either yours has sold or it'll be 3/4 of the way down the page due to undercuts. I've had items sit on my retainer unsold for weeks, knocked 5K off the price to become the cheapest one, and had them sell within the hour. (Note, I certainly don't want to discourage you from using the "hold at this price" strategy, just pointing out it's not always effective depending on what you're trying to do.)

For the lower demand items, I'm guilty of occasionally doing a drastic undercut as a way of sending a signal to competitors. If a primal weapon (or similar low-volume item) takes 200K worth of mats to make and I and another person are listing them for 1.2 mil, if we've been jockeying for first listing with small undercuts for a while I'll sometimes slash 200-300K off the price. The message I'm sending is "I'm not in the mood to play Babysit the MB. You can either let mine sell first or take a big hit if you want to keep doing this."

[aesteval]

The message I'm sending is "I'm not in the mood to play Babysit the MB. You can either let mine sell first or take a big hit if you want to keep doing this."

Yeah...I've been known to do something similar at times. If they persist after that cut in price I'll typically make more, drop the price again, and then put up one on each of my retainers as a warning. If they persist yet again I'll drop the price again and flood the market so as to destroy it. There are some things that I put up (glamours, barding, etc) with the intent to use profits to cover the expense of making one for myself. I can make back my gil by selling one or by selling twenty, I don't care and I don't have an interest in having a long term presence in these markets.

Otherwise, my pricing is based upon q variety of factors. I try to keep early game gear priced reasonably for new players, but I try to scale the cost of higher level gear and glamours higher.

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

....

I guess at this point I would need to evaluate my definition of profit to yours, and then adjust for server size (though I employed this same philosophy with success on a medium pop server, nothing like balmung mind you). I do enough to profit about a mil a week, but I am not married to one method, which is probably the reason that I do have success. I craft, mine, fish, botany. I split stacks, I buy the absurdly cheap and relist, I put vendor items up for the uber lazy. This flexibility allows me to adjust to undercutting, and with practice I have gotten better at reading how much of X to obtain and not be left with a ton of leftover inventory clog.

Take all of this with a grain of salt. I play first to kill things, I don't play the majority of the time as a crafter.

[Lujan]

For the lower demand items, I'm guilty of occasionally doing a drastic undercut as a way of sending a signal to competitors. If a primal weapon (or similar low-volume item) takes 200K worth of mats to make and I and another person are listing them for 1.2 mil, if we've been jockeying for first listing with small undercuts for a while I'll sometimes slash 200-300K off the price. The message I'm sending is "I'm not in the mood to play Babysit the MB. You can either let mine sell first or take a big hit if you want to keep doing this."

This is me i often list for same or just a but lower like 1gil but if someone comes along and undercuts me i just slap 500k of the price and force their item down it happened to me last night i forced a guys item fown to 1.8mil when he could have got at least 2.7 yeah his sold first but it's a point you need to make the return was worthless

[FunkyBunch]

What I don't get are the people selling things for the same or lower price than what you can sell to a vendor for...
Especially on things that are expensive-ish to make for that level (I'm looking at you heavy armour).
If you can sell it to the vendor for 147, why are you selling it on the MB for 67? And selling 6 of them?

Do people not know that the default MB price is the amount you can get from a vendor? SMH.

At least if you sell to a vendor instead, you are generating money for the economy. If you sell to the MB you are causing a 5-10% less of economy.

[Malicewolf]

Its mainly because people want gil, dont matter if its 50% less than what they couldve got in 3 days, fast gil.

A funny story about an undercutter, i was trying to sell my kingly whisker for 10 mil, there was always 1 other guy that undercut me, not by a huge amount, but i noticed eventually he would undercut me no matter how low i went, so i tried putting my whisker at 2.5 mil, an sure enough he put his for 2.3mil. So i bought his whisker and repriced both at 10 mil and they sold within a week.


Just shows some people dont want the most gil, they want the fastest gil.

I love when I find those people. I do the same thing, drive down the price low and when they follow suit, I buy it off them and then sell all of it at the price I was intending But I usually do this with fish xD They aren't the largest sellers, but they do sell fast if you focus on the right ones ^^

I tend to match people's prices though. Sure it means that it could be either of us getting the sell, but then we don't end up going into a bid war with one another and drive ourselves down into making nothing.

[aesteval]

What I don't get are the people selling things for the same or lower price than what you can sell to a vendor for...
Especially on things that are expensive-ish to make for that level (I'm looking at you heavy armour).
If you can sell it to the vendor for 147, why are you selling it on the MB for 67? And selling 6 of them?

Do people not know that the default MB price is the amount you can get from a vendor? SMH.

At least if you sell to a vendor instead, you are generating money for the economy. If you sell to the MB you are causing a 5-10% less of economy.

One thing you have to be careful of is when adjusting the price of something you already have for sale. People who get into serious undercut wars may end up pricing lower than vendor price without realizing it because the vendor price is information that is one step away.

[aesteval]

I love when I find those people. I do the same thing, drive down the price low and when they follow suit, I buy it off them and then sell all of it at the price I was intending But I usually do this with fish xD They aren't the largest sellers, but they do sell fast if you focus on the right ones ^^

I tend to match people's prices though. Sure it means that it could be either of us getting the sell, but then we don't end up going into a bid war with one another and drive ourselves down into making nothing.

Matching prices works fine until someone wants to insist on being the first one in the list and undercuts by an irrelevent amount of gil.