Crafting price negotiations, or lack thereof. A small rant.

[SwdVengeance]

I'll open with stating this is a rant on my part, I'm aware I might not be exactly level headed currently about the subject, but wanted to try to start a small discussion to see if I perhaps am the one being odd about this.

So to the point, do crafters generally feel somehow slighted or offended if I try to haggle a price with you? I'll try to be brief, but let me add some context to why I ask. Recently I've been doing catch up with the relic as I've long put it off. Upon reaching the need for the sets of 4 HQ items I figured I could find a crafter willing to make them for sub MB prices. So, I proceeded to make a PF listing asking for a full set and my willingness to negotiate a price.

This is where I've been for over a week and have become somewhat baffled with what I've experienced. Almost every single whisper went one of two ways. A: Person asks me my price, I respond with a 20% markdown of MB prices as well as quoting the MB price, person does not respond nor return a follow up /tell when they didn't respond for several minutes. B: Person gives me a price straight away usually ranging from slightly below to above MB prices, I respond I'm looking for something more sub MB prices and counteroffer at like 15% markdown, person does not respond nor return a follow up. I've done this dance with a couple dozen people at this point or more. There have been the handful that did discuss prices or just politely refused my attempt to negotiate and I'm fine with that, but I can count on one hand those people.

This isn't my first rodeo when it comes to haggling prices in MMO's and have also generally found it something common in previous games. It's a practice I've grown fairly comfortable with doing on just about everything that doesn't have a predetermined price (ie vendor prices). I've not had to engage in this often since playing XIV, but the few times I have resulted in similar results, I've just never gone through so many people at once doing it. Am I somehow drawing ire by doing this? Is this not common and people just don't bother? Even beyond the specifics of my story, in general, what are others experience selling/buying things outside the MB? This week has just left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth and wanted to see if I'm somehow breaking an unwritten rule here or not.

[AskaRay]

Everytime I want to buy something cheaper than on the MB...I buy all the mats myself and ask for someone to make it, usually including a tip. This ends up WAY cheaper than MB prices for me.

Example: the new Ramuh crafted weapons. The MB price was like, 5 mil or something. I wasn't paying that. I went and bought/gathered all the mats that were required to make it, which came to maybe about... somewhere between 2-3 mil, can't remember. I then put up a PF to have someone craft it for me. It was answered in about 20 minutes and they were fine making it for me. I gave them a tip afterwards. All in all it was much cheaper than the MB price.

I think most people in this game figure if you're just going to buy it, then buy it on the MB....especially if you aren't offering materials or anything.

[Galactimus]

I haven't really run into this problem.


When I look up an expensive specialist recipe on the market board (that I can't make myself) I'll take note of the crafter's name. As soon as I mention "Avoiding Market Board Taxes" to them they happily agree to a discounted insta-sale price. For cheaper items though some may not find it's worth their time to run all around for little profit. That's the point where you pop into your FC's and Linkshells and ask for a '♥ Quicksynth Please? I'll tip ♥"

[Khalithar]

I'm going to make a guess here OP, I could be wrong but this is my opinion:

It's more due to the fact that you are asking them to provide all the items/crystals for you that's turning them off. Gathering the items needed to make the 4 sets of HQ items is a pain in the ass, requires a few specializations, and it's possible they might not HQ since RNG can be a thing while you craft. I would say, try gathering the materials yourself instead THEN start looking for a crafter. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm sure most crafters aren't keeping those sets of items handy.

So I'll say this: Farm/buy the mats yourself and ask individually for the type of specialist you need, say something along the lines of "need leatherworking specialist to craft the 4x HQ items for relic, my mats, will tip." That's a lot more appealing than what translates to "looking for crafter to provide all the mats, all the clusters, and make me relic items for less than they could get on the MB."

[RyuSaarva]

as a crafter I started to buy items from others after this specialist system but I never haggle and I might give a bonus depending if he makes high number of HQ items or uses many emotes.

[SwdVengeance]

Maybe I didn't clarify what my actual issue was. I'm absolutely not upset over someone wanting near MB prices or even declining to haggle any. That's all perfectly reasonable and I have no problems there. What baffles me was the lack of responses and flat out just ignoring when I attempted to haggle. There's the handful that reacted rudely and the other handful that were perfectly polite about it, but 80% just flat out wouldn't respond to inquires when I either offered, what I would surmise, below what they wanted or counter offered. I've never been so nearly universally ignored when I attempted to do so elsewhere, hence my concern that the crafter scene here generally acts different than I'm used to. I've got no misgivings as to pricing or why someone wouldn't want to haggle, just be the general, what I consider, unsociable behavior when attempted to negotiate.

[Laerune]

It depends on who is providing the materials, are you providing the materials and the crafter only has to craft it or are you expecting the crafter to farm those items and craft the item?

* If you are providing the materials, then the 15-20% Marketdown is very reasonable.
* If you are not providing the materials, why would any crafter, craft the item and not sell it at the 80-100% market price themselves?

It realy depends on who is providing the mats.

[Khalithar]

Snip

I can understand why they'd act that way actually. As I stated in my post above, your request was in fact unreasonable, very unreasonable. Making an offer like that, I'm guessing they thought you were either trolling or your request came across as so absurd they didn't even want to bother responding.

[SwdVengeance]

Snip

Maybe that is telling then. I'm aware 20% markdown is unreasonable, 5-10% markdown isn't considering that's not much even beyond tax saving. Asking 20% as an opening offer isn't unreasonable, expecting 20% is. That's the essence of negotiating, I'm not going to open talks with what price I expect to get, just as I don't expect sellers to be asking literal MB prices either. If what you're saying is correct it would just mean negotiating isn't common practice here, which what originally worried me.

[Genaxx]

Like a few others have said, it depends on whos supplying the materials. If you were, I would do it way cheaper than the MB price, If I had to supply them I would figure out the total cost of buying whatever is a pain to gather and see how much profit I would get. Perhaps your offer is too low for crafters to make anything from it.