Undercutting

[Rawrz]

It's not GC related, it's city related. If the retainer selling the item is located in the same city as the marketboard you are using, buying the item will not add a tax to the cost for the buyer. The buyer never sees that money. Unless I'm mistaken about how it works in 3.0, certain cities (or just Ishgard?) get discounts from time to time for the tax on the seller. which is taken directly from the sale price. Sometimes the discounts are complete, sometimes they're half, but in all cases, the tax the seller pays happens regardless of where the buyer buys the item.

Thats nice to know! I always thought it was in the goblet. I also only see non-taxed (buyer side) when in the goblet buying from the immortal flames.

[PirateCat]

Market boards in the housing areas count as being in their respective city-state. Buying something in the Goblet is equivalent to buying something in Ul'dah - if the item is being sold in Ul'dah then there is no buyer's fee. For sufficiently expensive items it's more cost-effective to teleport to wherever the item is being sold and buy it from there.

The symbol and location associated with a market board listing comes from where the retainer is currently based from. By default this is wherever a player was when they created the retainer, though there is also an option to reassign a retainer to a different city. I've occasionally used location as a differentiating tactic if I didn't want to lower the current MB price of an item, figuring that I might make a sale because I'm selling the one that happens to be in the same place as where the buyer is.

As to Nyalia's comment, from what I've seen Ishgard has had the sales tax discount since 3.0 opened. Gridania has also had it for a while now on Balmung at least - it might vary by world. The discount mechanism has theoretically existed in the game since 2.0 at least but there have been stretches where no discounts have been active before.

[LineageRazor]

If any selling method can be said to be morally dubious, it would not be large undercuts. Rather, it would be the SMALL undercuts, of only a few gil. Essentially, when you're undercutting by a few gil, you're not trying to price competatively. You're trying to sell at the SAME price (relatively), but sell faster. You're gaining the benefits without any sacrifice.

Again, this is assuming that morality has any weight whatsoever on the marketboards, which, really, isn't the case. But by the same token, neither can you criticize the large undercuts.

Players can price however they like. You may think them foolish - but if they're stopping you from selling your own product, they may well be on to something. Rather than complain about it, adapt. Accept that the market for that item has dropped in price, adjust your price to match. If the prices are too low for you to make any sort of profit, leave that market until it becomes favorable again. If it stays low, check and see if a new source for that product has opened up - for example, does the item drop from treasure maps, now? Is it a common quest drop?

For example, why won't people pay scads of money for Tier IV Determination materia anymore? Well, for one thing, no one's piling the stuff into their Nexus weapons anymore. For another, the Beast Tribe quests are pretty much burying players in the stuff. An inattentive seller may find that their favored product has had the rug yanked out from under it and come crying to the forums - that is why inattentive sellers don't succeed on the marketboards.

[PirateCat]

If any selling method can be said to be morally dubious, it would not be large undercuts. Rather, it would be the SMALL undercuts, of only a few gil. Essentially, when you're undercutting by a few gil, you're not trying to price competatively. You're trying to sell at the SAME price (relatively), but sell faster. You're gaining the benefits without any sacrifice.

Fully in agreement with this. If I undercut, I'll take it down by at least 1K-10K depending on the current price so it's actually cheaper. A 1 gil undercut says "I want my price to be literally as high as possible while still guaranteeing that it's first in the list." I personally feel like this insults my intelligence somewhat when I'm on the buying side of things. Often I'll buy the 10000 gil item over the 9999 gil item to reward the person who's being honest about their pricing. But that's just me.

[Kakure]

Fully in agreement with this. If I undercut, I'll take it down by at least 1K-10K depending on the current price so it's actually cheaper. A 1 gil undercut says "I want my price to be literally as high as possible while still guaranteeing that it's first in the list." I personally feel like this insults my intelligence somewhat when I'm on the buying side of things. Often I'll buy the 10000 gil item over the 9999 gil item to reward the person who's being honest about their pricing. But that's just me.

I feel exactly the same way! I'll even teleport to another city to buy something for say, 250,000 gil rather than the one being sold for 249,999 gil in my home city. There are times when it's impractical (maybe I'm rushed or distracted or the other one is being sold by a retainer with an obnoxious name or something) but in general I do what I can to avoid buying from people who undercut expensive items by one gil.

[Hanmerreborn]

I play by a simple rule.

Undercut me by a gil, I undercut you by 50%, 50k (whatever is lower). I can play this game all day.

Why yes, Perfect Cloths and Firewood did drop to around 20-30k for about a week.

[TahoeMax]

Keeping in mind that almost any reasonable buyer will take the cheapest option presented to them, undercutting itself is a logical move by any seller. Undercutting by a large margin is a strategy I sometimes will use if I notice that a certain high-value item sells very slowly at the "established" price. The items I make are very high-end most of the time; the pool of buyers is already very small, and if I want to make sales I need to clearly make my goods the best option. I'll normally sell >5% below the lowest set price so that mine will still be the cheapest even if the buyer pays market taxes. If the item is something I can easily make more of, selling volume at a discount will make me way more gil than holding out for a month hoping that all of the cheaper options will sell and mine will eventually get picked up at a higher price.