Selling below cost and locking down the market

[Ishgardian]

Hello everyone!

First a little background.
I am a relativately new *and* returning player. I joined FF 14 in April 2018, I felt in love with the game and tried to do everything at once. By August I had leveled all my DoL/DoH classes up to 60 and my Ninja to 70. But then I felt burnt out and quit.

I came back last April, 2019, finished leveling all DoH, worked hard to unlock all the Master Recipe books and the MQS. However, when I tried to craft glamour clothes to make some Gil I found a certain person on my server, Omega, to have "locked down" all the expensive stuff, including also certain types of windows and wallpapers.

What he does [I use "he" based on the in-game character's sex and nothing else] is that he floods the market with stuff which he sells almost below cost.

For example, the Hannish Wool Autumn shirt: he buys Hannish wool between 140,000 and 160,000 each piece, and then he sells the shirt for 459,000. He does the same with other weaver glamour stuff and wallpapers. When someone tries to sell a couple of pieces, he floods the market and lowers the prices so that it would be impossible for anyone to compete *and* make a little profit. I have visited other worlds in our DC plenty of times to find cheap materials and when checking the history I always see he has bought out everything from cheap to relative expensive - expensive according to his selling prices. Not to mention that a lot of these stuff are bought and re-sold in the other servers for higher prices.

I don't understand why someone would sell below the cost for an extended long period of time. I mean, crafting is for making a little profit and Gil, right? or not? I don't understand what's going on... How normal is for someone to flood a big part of the market without making a profit? Or, is there something I miss?

Thank you very much for reading and for any insight you may have.

P.S. If I hadn't already bought a small house I would really leave that ***hole Omega. Today I found out there are tons of Free Companies with 50-60 bots each. But this is another story.

[JWag12787]

What I find absolutely crazy is the ones that list items at BELOW NPC cost. You lose more on the market than actually selling if you sell the 668 gil material for 600. It blows my mind.


Albeit, I'm stating to get into the resale market because of it XD

[Mew_FC]

Marketboard pvp isn't for everyone...

[Windsun33]

On Coeurl that shirt sells about 3x a month. I can make better money selling shards. And there are about 10 for sale.

[Jojoya]

Hello everyone!

First a little background.
I am a relativately new *and* returning player. I joined FF 14 in April 2018, I felt in love with the game and tried to do everything at once. By August I had leveled all my DoL/DoH classes up to 60 and my Ninja to 70. But then I felt burnt out and quit.

I came back last April, 2019, finished leveling all DoH, worked hard to unlock all the Master Recipe books and the MQS. However, when I tried to craft glamour clothes to make some Gil I found a certain person on my server, Omega, to have "locked down" all the expensive stuff, including also certain types of windows and wallpapers.

What he does [I use "he" based on the in-game character's sex and nothing else] is that he floods the market with stuff which he sells almost below cost.

For example, the Hannish Wool Autumn shirt: he buys Hannish wool between 140,000 and 160,000 each piece, and then he sells the shirt for 459,000. He does the same with other weaver glamour stuff and wallpapers. When someone tries to sell a couple of pieces, he floods the market and lowers the prices so that it would be impossible for anyone to compete *and* make a little profit. I have visited other worlds in our DC plenty of times to find cheap materials and when checking the history I always see he has bought out everything from cheap to relative expensive - expensive according to his selling prices. Not to mention that a lot of these stuff are bought and re-sold in the other servers for higher prices.

I don't understand why someone would sell below the cost for an extended long period of time. I mean, crafting is for making a little profit and Gil, right? or not? I don't understand what's going on... How normal is for someone to flood a big part of the market without making a profit? Or, is there something I miss?

Thank you very much for reading and for any insight you may have.

P.S. If I hadn't already bought a small house I would really leave that ***hole Omega. Today I found out there are tons of Free Companies with 50-60 bots each. But this is another story.

So don't sell those items. Sell something else instead. There are thousands of crafted items to be making and selling. Don't obsess over a specific handful.If you have the Hannish Wool, list it on the MB for the other player to buy.

You also don't know he's selling it below his cost. If he's buying the bulk of the wool at 140k, he's still making a profit since the other materials are easily farmed so there's no cost (or little cost if he's buying them from other players). Just because it's not a large enough profit in your eyes to make it worth your time doesn't mean it's not large enough to him.

As for FCs filled with bots, that's a problem you're going to find on every world. You're going to be sadly disappointed if you expect things to be better elsewhere.

[ForteNightshade]

If someone is that obsessed over "their" market, you can often bait them into making you money. I know someone on my old server who was so obsessed with what they considered their markets, they often spent more money buying me out than they made in profit.

[Ishgardian]

On Coeurl that shirt sells about 3x a month. I can make better money selling shards. And there are about 10 for sale.

On Omega all these glamour stuff sell many pieces on a daily basis.

You also don't know he's selling it below his cost. If he's buying the bulk of the wool at 140k, he's still making a profit since the other materials are easily farmed so there's no cost (or little cost if he's buying them from other players). Just because it's not a large enough profit in your eyes to make it worth your time doesn't mean it's not large enough to him.

Oh, I do know. Every 3 days or so he visits all the servers, sometimes twice a day and buys out all the materials. I always check the history of materials and I can certainly say that when he buys the Hannish wool 160,000 per piece this means 480,000 only for the wool (not counting the rest of the materials). Now he lists the shirt for 459,000, which means -21,000 from the get go; substract Limsa's 5% tax and there, you have your answer.

Did I mention that some people make money by buying out all his raincoats and reselling them much higher on other servers?

If someone is that obsessed over "their" market, you can often bait them into making you money. I know someone on my old server who was so obsessed with what they considered their markets, they often spent more money buying me out than they made in profit.

Well, this one is very specific: he never buys out anything; instead, he lowers the prices to make sure you won't make Gil at all.

Thank you everyone for your input and commends. They are highly appreciated.

[Edax]

I don't understand why someone would sell below the cost for an extended long period of time. I mean, crafting is for making a little profit and Gil, right? or not? I don't understand what's going on... How normal is for someone to flood a big part of the market without making a profit? Or, is there something I miss?

John D. Rockefeller became the wealthiest American of all time and one of his tactics was to price his products below the manufacturing cost to destroy his competition. He had the money to weather the short-term profit loss and by out spending his smaller competitors, he was able to maintain his extremely profitable monopolies.

[Ishgardian]

John D. Rockefeller became the wealthiest American of all time and one of his tactics was to price his products below the manufacturing cost to destroy his competition. He had the money to weather the short-term profit loss and by out spending his smaller competitors, he was able to maintain his extremely profitable monopolies.

Yes, Edax, it is a very clever move to destroy competitors and create monopolies, no one has ever doubted that. I am sure, though, Mr. Rockefeller didn't use bots to do his business.

Update:

Same FC, (small FC with 11 "members") different Miqo'te -have I mentioned this FC has only Miqo'tes, all starting from Gridania?- buys out the cheapest cloth mats now. She has a single class leveled up, White Mage/Conjurer, and all DoH and DoL up to 70.

So, if they -he and someone else in his FC- are botting there is no suprise he never buys any other basic mats [at least during the period of time I have been tracking this crafter's behaviour on the market board, which is approx. the last three weeks] and no wonder he can take hits regarding profit loss. Apparently, he makes up for the profit loss by having bots gathering and selling mats, shards, whatever.

Another indication he is botting, in my opinion, is that the bulk of different products he and his gf/bf/whatever put up for sale would require them to not sleep at all. In short, I'm fighting a battle against someone who is probably botting, but I can't prove it unless he is caught red-handed.

[Edax]

Yes, Edax, it is a very clever move to destroy competitors and create monopolies, no one has ever doubted that. I am sure, though, Mr. Rockefeller didn't use bots to do his business.

Update:

Same FC, (small FC with 11 "members") different Miqo'te -have I mentioned this FC has only Miqo'tes, all starting from Gridania?- buys out the cheapest cloth mats now. She has a single class leveled up, White Mage/Conjurer, and all DoH and DoL up to 70.

So, if they -he and someone else in his FC- are botting there is no suprise he never buys any other basic mats [at least during the period of time I have been tracking this crafter's behaviour on the market board, which is approx. the last three weeks] and no wonder he can take hits regarding profit loss. Apparently, he makes up for the profit loss by having bots gathering and selling mats, shards, whatever.

Another indication he is botting, in my opinion, is that the bulk of different products he and his gf/bf/whatever put up for sale would require them to not sleep at all. In short, I'm fighting a battle against someone who is probably botting, but I can't prove it unless he is caught red-handed.

I don't buy basic mats because my retainers can fetch things for me. On the weekend, I can just afk and still get a full stack of mats from 1 retainer in just 2 hours. I also maintain huge stockpiles of mats so I could meet an unexpected demand for a product instantly. So your evidence seems really thin since I can fit the bill.

Another indication he is botting, in my opinion, is that the bulk of different products he and his gf/bf/whatever put up for sale would require them to not sleep at all. (

I'm not sure what the accusation is here. They're putting too much for sale? Or that their suspiciously putting things for sale every hour of the day? Also, the buyer of mats would have their name listed, not their retainers, so I don't know you'd you even pin down that a buyer and seller are related.