How do you deal with constant undercutting?

[Liam_Harper]

Undercutting by 1g is just childish...

I'm not sure why people dislike this. You are going to be undercut regardless, that's how markets work. A 1g undercut means the market value of the item hasn't really dropped. That's a good thing. If the buyer is on your market (let's say your retainer is selling in Ul'dah and your undercutter is Limsa) your item will sell. Not worth teleporting to save 1gil. Also good.

A 10-30% or more undercut significantly drops the market value of your item. Undercutting is a bigger loss to you, but the only other option is to wait until they sell. If other sellers undercut the new guy, the market for that item crashes.

The most difficult sellers to compete with are the very frequent relister and the guy who undercuts 10-20% but is a consistent seller on that market long term. Anyone else, including 1g undercutters and the guy selling at half price to clear his bags are perfectly fine and no more than a bump in your sales.

To be honest, I've never had big issues with undercutting. Markets are bonkers sometimes and people sell at odd prices, but they're entitled to, just as I am and I take it in my stride. Very often markets stabilize later. Over time I'll still take in a consistent profit too, so it's all good to me.

[CainCrimson]

Being undercut by several people all dropping 1gil lower than the last quickly make your item less appealing.
Saying it's simply going to happen in markets or "that's business" doesn't make it any less cut throat.

We're all climbing over each other to grab gil.
Some of us choose to simply knock you down and run past, while others will slit your throat from behind then set you on fire and charge people a fee to watch the body burn.

[Nixxe]

others will slit your throat from behind then set you on fire and charge people a fee to watch the body burn.

Now there's someone I can respect.

Pass me the gasoline.

[Lunafreiya]

I usually just give it a few days and if it doesn't sell just check price and adjust if needed

[BluntGamerChick]

Not really sure if this belongs here, but I figure others who are into crafting would have the best idea of how to handle it.

There's not much you can do. It is frustrating, i know but, the competition for sales in the market place is ever bit as cut throat and competitive as it is in the real world. There are a few things you can do but it takes a lot of work to get it going. As one person pointed out you can try selling items that your competitor doesn't sell or you could make more of the item and sell it at a much lower price. Cutting down your time/overhead can be accomplished by using retainers and your spare time while in que for groups to gather the items you need using your land skills and hunting drops. Once you have have the materials gathered to make a lot of the item then you flood the board with your wares at a lower price and in that way corner the market on the item. Make sure you place the items in as many of the cities as you can while maintaining superiors numbers. Also know your market. On my server most people seem to gather in Limsa and Uldah in order to raise their skills or catch up on skill leveling so there is a lot of need for lower to mid level items like Ore, gems stones, Alchemy and weaving materials. So i tend to gather as many as i can of all materials not sold on merchant NPC's and i usually make a decent profit doing so. You can also make a good profit by gathering up stacks of 99 of the harder to find items such as hidden items from mining and botany. Lots of people dont want to or haven't the time to put in the time to gather these items and it sells well and if you have the max number for a stack its more likely to sell. people are looking to level up their skill asap. the m,ore mats they can get at a decent price the more they will buy.

[ch4rliehorse]

If I see MB listings like:

119,996gil
119,997gil
119,998gil
119,999gil
120,000gil

I'll probably buy the one at 120k (assuming there's not another one above it at 120,001 gil). I try to take another couple seconds to see if the top of the list item is only a few gil less than something further down. I almost always make it a point to buy an item a little further down, provided it's only 1-10 gil more. I know just me doing this doesn't really make any difference, but I do it to occasionally give sales to the people who don't have the time (or better yet, don't consider it worth the time) to sit by their retainer bell and get an e-rection every 2 minutes when they undercut someone.

I get that it's one of those "If everyone could just do _____, the world would be a better place" scenarios and it's not a reasonable solution for the same reason that if someone accidentally early-pulls an S rank and several people yell to reset it, the whole swarm of people wanting to get their credit will just burn it to the ground anyway. But I can't help but wonder...if enough people bought things that way, could it possibly lead to the people who 1gil undercut every minute getting confused as to what actually sells and maybe even deciding it's not worth remaining retainer bell-vigilant every minute of their day to get things sold.

I don't mind undercutting, it's part of the system and it's obviously going to happen - I do it plenty. But specifically the MB ninjas who relist every couple minutes make it really hard to sell things sometimes - and a lot of times those are the same people who are so used to winning MB struggles since they're always on, that they get really butthurt when someone starts relisting anywhere close to as often as them, and decide to tank the market. That needs to be addressed. In my small, insignificant way I try to do that by spending 5-10 more gil here and there. But honestly would a relist timer be a good idea or a bad one? Like some sort of "Heyyy we see you've relisted that same item 2 times in the last hour - time to chill for an hour (no idea how it'd work, just an example). Seems like anytime someone has a good idea, there are 1,000 repercussions they haven't thought about that actually end up making the system worse somehow - therefore I'm asking rather than saying (saying your opinion usually ends up with someone yelling at your "dumbness" in a reply, whereas asking lets them instead share their wealth of knowledge with you and everyone else.) But I think with enough thought something like that could be put in place and it would at least help alleviate that issue without creating too many new ones.

[BluntGamerChick]

Not really sure if this belongs here, but I figure others who are into crafting would have the best idea of how to handle it.

Sorry, I never know how much i can type in a reply so i split my response to two posts. Another good way to make many, and i'm sure you have heard this term before, Diversify. Make sure that you are supplying the most variety of items on the market. You can never tell just what the public is going to be in the mood to buy and or when. Some items alot of people are buying mats for crafting other times they are looking for stacks of items to hand in to the provisions NPC for the grande companies hand it exp and seal boost. Other times people want decorations for their houses. One of the best sellers when it comes to items is making High quality items that are used in the guild quest for the disciplines. For example if you make high quality potions used to hand into the alchemy guild masters quest then it will sell cause many people are catching up their crafting buy chain questing. they put off leveling their crafting skills in favor of leveling their characters and now are taking time to go back and catch up. So while they do have money to spend but not the skill to make these items they will most likely buy your high quality quest item to hand in and speed through their quest lines.
Make everything you can. furniture, indoor out door items for houses, potions, quest hand in items for every quest you can find, materials for crafting in both large stacks for leveling and smaller stacks for individual item creation. Never let your retainers slack off. make sure they are constantly on ventures and make sure your handing in all unneeded item drops and or old gear you don't need into the provisioner to get seals to buy more venture coins. Once you build the momentum of your money making machine it will be easier to maintain your in game business.
once last thing. While hunting and or gathering materials do not forget to do the hunt boards because they give you money for each marker and while gathering be sure to do all your treasure maps because they drop many materials and money. Every Gil counts. Never forget that. Also if you are lucky enough to get the portal from a dragon skin map be sure to have a friend or two standing by before using the map in case a portal appears. You will need help to finish that rare dungeon and the pay out, if you manage to succeed, is very nice.

[Thamorian]

With the constant undercutting, I do wish there was a like a lock-in timer preventing someone from constantly updating their prices to undercut. Doesn't have to be long. Maybe like 30 minutes or an hour. You put up an item for sale, set your price, then when you dismiss the retainer, it locks in the item and you can't retrieve it or change the price until some time has passed. Probably not gonna be a popular suggestion but would prevent the undercutting bots and the no-lifers who do nothing but sit at a retainer from undercutting every 5 minutes.

[Nixxe]

Probably not gonna be a popular suggestion but would prevent the undercutting bots and the no-lifers who do nothing but sit at a retainer from undercutting every 5 minutes.

I don't see why people feel they deserve to get the same results as players who invest more time and effort into it. If someone wants to undercut something every five minutes, let them. They'll spend all of their time doing that, while you're presumably having fun and getting your money's worth for your sub off doing other things. The game already puts a pretty huge limitation on players in the form of retainer slots, even if you buy extra retainers. This generally ensures there is a niche for everyone to occupy in your server's economy.

Furthermore, it will prevent people who make a mistake in their pricing from correcting it as soon as they realize it. I'm sure the people who spend all their time watching the market board will be thrilled for that though, since it means more cheap goods for them to keep undercutting you while still turning a profit.

[Thamorian]

I don't see why people feel they deserve to get the same results as players who invest more time and effort into it. If someone wants to undercut something every five minutes, let them. They'll spend all of their time doing that, while you're presumably having fun and getting your money's worth for your sub off doing other things. The game already puts a pretty huge limitation on players in the form of retainer slots, even if you buy extra retainers. This generally ensures there is a niche for everyone to occupy in your server's economy.

Furthermore, it will prevent people who make a mistake in their pricing from correcting it as soon as they realize it. I'm sure the people who spend all their time watching the market board will be thrilled for that though, since it means more cheap goods for them to keep undercutting you while still turning a profit.

And how many of these "people" are actually human? When I see the same few people undercutting no matter the day or time, then I think we need some kind of limiter. And people can check their prices before closing the retainer.