Undercutting by 1 gil?

[Clicked]

Like others said, it's better for you that they only undercut by 1g. In the end the buyer may choose you anyway depending on where they are buying from. Besides, it's free to undercut them back unlike other games where you have to pay money each time you post an item for a different price.

[Tint]

i remember i was the first one on the market with a super rare item, i wanted to sell it for 4 mio gil. it took weeks and nobody wanted to buy it. i checked several times per day if someone else was putting the same item on the market too.

so after weeks of waiting someone else put the same item for 1 gil less than me on the market, and sold it withing 1 hour. i was SO salty xD

but however, before that i was thinking i should be fair, not undercut, only set it on the same price, and so on. but since then i undercut everyone by usually 10 gil, because that's just how the market works. people will always buy the item on the top of the list. they will even pay thousands of gil for the taxes jus to save this 1 gil, because they don't understand how the market works.

and to understand that the people don't understand how the market works, is important to understand how the market REALLY works...

[Snow_Princess]

i remember i was the first one on the market with a super rare item, i wanted to sell it for 4 mio gil. it took weeks and nobody wanted to buy it. i checked several times per day if someone else was putting the same itemon the market too.

so after weeks of waiting someone else put the same item for 1 gil less than me on the market, and sold it withing 1 hour. i was SO salty xD

but however, before that i was thinking i should be fair, not undercut, only set it on the same price, and so on. but since then i undercut everyone by usually 10 gil, because that's just how the market works. people will always buy the item on the top of the list. they will even pay thousands of gil for the taxes jus to save this 1 gil, because they don't understand how the market works.

and to understand that the people don't understand how the market works, is important to understand how the market REALLY works...

That is not completely why, though it can hold true in some cases. Its more lazy, FFXIV's whole ecnon is dependent on the lazy, so it makes sense to fit such a personality to have people just click the first name they see.

To the TC, people HAVE to undercut because FFXIV's econ is so slow moving, if you want to sell something, you need be on top of the list. That is why I do not understand people that do it in large amounts, it doesn't magically sell faster.

[Zfz]

FFXIV's whole ecnon is dependent on the lazy

Many people don't realize this, but this is exactly how the Market Board is designed, and it was confirmed by Yoshida himself, that they wanted to reward sellers who check the board frequently, learn the market, and adjust prices accordingly. By extension, the whole market tax system and different markets are there to add a layer of obfuscation as well.

To people who complain: don't complain about 1g undercutters. You can do it as well, and you are expected to adjust your prices frequently on items that move quickly, becuase the whole system is designed to reward that behavior. If you want to list and forget, like most people who don't play the market, then you will not be rewarded as much as those whose end-game consists entirely of the market board interface.

----

As to people who do it in larget amounts, I sometimes do it, too. This is because I set my price based on the selling history, not the outrageously overpriced listings that obviously nobody is buying. In those cases, I will undercut a 130,000 item by listing at 25,000 if the price history says nobody's buying above 20,000. And I believe a lot of people who are not frequent sellers who just want the stuff sold will do the same, i.e. price according to the purchase history, not the current listing. Especially when it's something obviously only a few people are selling because not many people are buying; then they can buy my item and resell it at a profit.

Don't expect everyone to treat the market board as a venue of profiteering. Frankly speaking I don't give a fuck about profits on the market board. When I'm selling, I'm selling to get rid of stuff that has significantly more value than the vendor price, else I'd have just dumped it on NPC vendors. All I care about is that it sells above vendor price and that it sells reasonably quickly to not clog up my retainer's listing. Most times I'll be listing lots of stuff then forget them for weeks if not months before my retainer inventories have filled up too much and I need to sell again.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I mean....seriously? Is there a more annoying thing to do? It doesn't save the buyer any money, it's just some guy going "Give me your gil instead of this other guy". I've been seeing this trend all over the place lately. Does this even work? Seriously, people, you see this? Pick the next seller up on the list just to spite them.

As an Omni-crafter, I love 1gil undercutters. They respect the economy. The people who annoy me are the ones undercutting by massive percentages, who are subsequently undercut themselves and thus bring a market from 500,000 down to 100,000.

[Clicked]

As an Omni-crafter, I love 1gil undercutters. They respect the economy. The people who annoy me are the ones undercutting by massive percentages, who are subsequently undercut themselves and thus bring a market from 500,000 down to 100,000.

To be fair it sounds like the market decided that 100,000 is an acceptable price for the good you are trying to sell. Maybe there are just too many omnicrafters?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

To be fair it sounds like the market decided that 100,000 is an acceptable price for the good you are trying to sell. Maybe there are just too many omnicrafters?

Nope. I have checked the sale histories and items consistently sold at a high price before someone decided to tank the market. When enough people undercut this new price, it's not worth buying them out. Regardless, the whole point is to let the market recover. It benefits all crafters to undercut by very low amounts lest you make significantly less. What usually prompts enormous undercuts is impatience or someone arbitrarily deciding it "isn't fair" to sell things at such and such a price.

[MyaValentine]

Nope. I have checked the sale histories and items consistently sold at a high price before someone decided to tank the market. When enough people undercut this new price, it's not worth buying them out. Regardless, the whole point is to let the market recover. It benefits all crafters to undercut by very low amounts lest you make significantly less. What usually prompts enormous undercuts is impatience or someone arbitrarily deciding it "isn't fair" to sell things at such and such a price.

funny coincidence I just got someone who doesn't have a mother because it would be too good for him undercutting everyone in the market by over 500k item was selling for 1.4mil with everyone steadly undercutting 1-1k this person comes and puts a nice of 800k price drop other followed and now we had an item selling for 1.4mil selling for a mere 750k and dropping... damn those 1 gil undercutter are the WORST!

[Zojha]

It benefits all crafters to undercut by very low amounts lest you make significantly less.

Or more generally put:
It benefits all sellers of a good to engage in price collusion, rather than allowing competition to create a socially desirable equilibrium in which the price equals the marginal cost of production (Which equals the value of the time needed to procure and process the materials which, given perfectly competitive i.e. efficient markets, would equal the rate at which a person can generate gil from the system times the time needed, as all goods on the market would have the same price relative to the time needed to create them and time arbitrage therefore impossible), because it increases the producer surplus at the cost of the consumer surplus and creates a deadweight loss.

That leads to an allocatively inefficient market, which even a diehard free market economist like Adam Smith would deem undesirable.

Fact is: If someone can consistently undercut by considerable sums, the price is still higher than their marginal cost of production, otherwise they would have to close business. That means either that the price so far has been set wrongly and competition has failed to produce socially desirable results, i.e. allocative efficiency, or that this competitor has innovated and now is more efficient than the others, therefore has all the rights to crowd the others out of the market if they fail to keep up. Unsustainable undercutting, i.e. selling below your marginal cost of production is only possible for short periods for reasons stated above. And that's no issue at all in this game, because even if the person crowds everyone out of the market with aggressive undercutting to then install monopoly prices, people can just re-enter the market at will. As a result, undercutting cannot cause actual harm in this game, as it cannot have a lasting negative effect.

The only negative effect it has is on the profits of sellers. Note: Profits. Profits are what you have left when you subtract the costs from your revenue. Since profits are going to be very little if the marginal cost of production equals the price and the market is efficient, every seller is going to tell you that this is bad. Bluntly put, that's propaganda. It has nothing to do with allocative efficiency, it has nothing to do with social surplus, it has nothing to do with welfare economics or the benefit of the economy to society, it has nothing to do with economic health, the only tangent to economic theory is the desire of a producer to maximize their own surplus by abusing market failures.

[Alleo]

Fact is: If someone can consistently undercut by considerable sums, the price is still higher than their marginal cost of production, otherwise they would have to close business.

I am really not sure if we can use real life market logic in there. Not only do people get some items for "free" by having it drop in their inventory as loot but also because we have way enough people that sell it for less than what you would get at a NPC. (So I am not sure that they do it out of any logical reasons..) Also wouldnt that mean that its completely fine if someone that got it as a drop or present just throws it in for 10 gil, even though it would normally cost much more to make? And unlike real life where its really not possible to gather every single item you need for production yourself (and for free), you can do that in this game. One can just gather everything without paying a single gil so does it really have a cost? (Other than time)

IMO its just bad that people undercut for a great deal if the product sold a lot in recent time. Even if it did not cost him anything he would lose profit by undercutting a lot simply because the market would have bought it for the higher price too.

Also seeing how the main reason that people are even selling goods, is for making Gil I would say that a market crash will hurt those. Also there is truly no real harm in any way in this game. People could simply sell all their goods for 1 Gil only and it would bring no harm because you can get Gil through other ways too and it will just take a longer time to get to your aim. This also means that one could theoretically not go out of business even if they undercut way too much, since they can just farm Gil through other means.

It still more than annoying to see people undercutting and destroying markets that were going well..I mean if no item was sold for a long time then maybe its better to have a decreased price but not for those that are sold constantly.

So imo one cant just put real life market logic on this. We simply dont have limited items that are needed for crafting (other than time), people can craft every single little thing for free and they could get it as loot for free too so no cost behind it.