Undercutting by 1 gil?

[Claviusnex]

At any given point, the player with the cheapest item is in the most likely position to get the sale, largely due to laziness (people don't want to teleport to the right city and/or don't care about tax) or ignorance (many people don't even know there's a city tax).

That is only the case when quantity is not a factor. Someone with 10 items at half the cost is still more expensive if you only need one or a few. It will apply somewhat to high cost single piece items but I think most people aren't going to be enticed to buy just because the is a 1-100 gill difference on a 500K gill item (at least I'm not).

[Snow_Princess]

I personally undercut by the approximate tax price.
1g undercuts are rather pointless. You are basically banking on the item being inthe same region as the retainer you're undercutting, and/or the same region the player is buying from, or the player who is buying is oblivious to the tax system.

Undercutting by the rough tax amount does a few things - it opens your item up to be a higher priority in all regions to those who actually know how the tax system works and it also puts your item at the top of the list for those that are oblivious to taxes or are in the same region as your retainer. Finally it doesn't completely tank the price because tax is a small percentage of the item value..

Huge undercuts are unnecessary though, unless the item itself is just flat out overpriced to begin with and is stagnant.

However if undercuts get you salty, then you shouldn't be in the crafting business. Because it's going to happen - in every game and every market where prices are visible. Just have to accept the fact that people are going to undercut you - by 1g or 100k gil.. It happens. Just learn to adjust the items you focus on.

I tested this with different retainers and so on, people buy the first listed, higher tax 90% of the time (really large amount) it is rare to see people paying attention to where the seller is and paying less overall.

Though logic tells me people do on very high priced items, they may just teleport to the cheapest listed, I am not sure. I am not motivated enough to make large investments in a poor econ system like ffxiv's is. Reason being is I do not want to have a big loss when someone crashes an item.

[Welsper59]

I don't mind 1 gil, that makes sense, because it puts your item at the top of the board. But F#%$ the people that tank the prices into the ground.

There are those rare occasions though where tanking prices is a necessity. In particular, I'm referring to material costs of certain frequently consumed high demand goods, like low level mats. 8-10K for one Effervescent Water tends to not sell well at all...

[Mysticales]

If you are a career merchant like I am.. then yes, undercutting by 1 gil is perfectly fine. Its the rewards from ACTIVELY checking the MB and your stock. If others cant do that... oh well. No offense, but Im out to see my stock sell 1st. I dont need to "crash" the market like this post would suggest to undercut by MORE then 1 gil.

[Vahlnir]

I tested this with different retainers and so on, people buy the first listed, higher tax 90% of the time (really large amount) it is rare to see people paying attention to where the seller is and paying less overall.

Though logic tells me people do on very high priced items, they may just teleport to the cheapest listed, I am not sure. I am not motivated enough to make large investments in a poor econ system like ffxiv's is. Reason being is I do not want to have a big loss when someone crashes an item.

I might be in the minority, but who knows, but I will always teleport to wherever the cheapest option is to buy an expensive item (aka something in the millions of gil). If it's something like a glamour prism I'll just snag the cheapest I see most of the time regardless of the item location.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

It lends itself to people aimlessly going back and forth undercutting each other by 1gil just to stay on top, there is no cost for doing so.

By charging a tax to list it, as opposed to sell, would vastly change the Market place

That will only lead to larger undercuts. Instead, people will just subtract the tax, plummeting the price markets more than has already happened. If the devs want to stop undercutting, they need a system similar to FFXI, where it's more like an auction. You can't see what list prices are just sale history. Buyers put up their best offer and are asked to increase it if no items are listed at or below their initial price.