What is your ACTUAL reasoning for undercutting?

[Koti]

Normally I will match the lowest price and only undercut if they start to do some crazy "I will go 1 gil under you."
I also tend to operate by rounded numbers, so if someone is doing 2980, I will do 2900, cause that random 8 bugs me. xD Don't ask me why, but it does lol.

[LineageRazor]

I'm undercutting to sell my thing before you sell your thing. That is all.

If you want to sell your thing faster, (Lower the price?)

[Kikoten]

It's just what you do in business. You get undercut, you undercut. All's fair in love, war, and trade.

[Endeleon]

Oftentimes my "undercuts" aren't reallyt undercuts, simply I actually looked at the price it last sold for and list it for that, isntead of the 40,000 gil+ everyone else is currently selling it for that doesn't sell.

[AngelCheese77]

No, this is not a complaint thread.

Everyone undercuts. But can anyone answer this for me? : Are you undercutting out of spite of “elitist” crafters....or do you do it to genuinely bring the price down so everyone can afford it?

By everyone’s definition, I’m a “elitist” crafter but I also enjoy bringing down prices for people to enjoy. What about you?

I undercut drastically when I see a lvl 15 dungeon piece going for 40k gp. I mean srsly people. That goes for all low level stuff really. We aren't all vets with gill out the butt.

[cinnamonoreo]

I undercut stuff like Fish Glue going for 4k+. It's an early alchemist recipe made from vendor mats that shouldn't be more than maybe 100gil each max but the lowest I've ever seen even with multiple people trying to depress the price is 400gil.

[Knahli]

I'll never understand the hostility towards this. Ignoring the city state you are purchasing from, then people are naturally going to buy the cheapest option first and, unless its an item that sells very quickly, then its not beneficial to refuse to undercut... particularly when the person whose item does sell will get a notification that tells them to go restock their listing right underneath yours again.


The bottom line is that everyone wants to sell and to sell asap. I see no issue with people undercutting by miniscule amounts because they obviously just wanted to bump their listing to the top and, when I notice that, I appreciate that they didn't needlessly diminish the going price of the item we are both trying to sell and instead give me and everyone else a chance to undercut in turn the next time we check back - all without having to incur a loss.


Obviously undercutting by larger values has a time and place, but doing so just to bump your item to the top when an item was happily being sold at the current price just seems odd to me.

[Nikolas_Wolfe]

To make money. It's just like real life shopping. You buy the cheaper thing.

Although there are stupid people who undercut way too much.

If something sells for 200,000 and they undercut to 10,000. Well guess what you just lined my pockets. Ill buy theirs for 10,000 and re list it at the current asking price of 200,000.

I only undercut by 1,000 to 5,000.

Selling is so stupid with the vast number of people listing things for only 1 gil. Like how pointless is that XD

[Quelia]

It's all about maximizing what profits you can make out of your "customer" I don't undercut because I want piss people off, I have something to sell and I want to make as much money as I can off of it.

As someone buying they REALLY don't care who is selling (I mean some probably do, but most don't.) They just want the cheapest price and the market board puts the cheapest item first. If I come to the market and am looking for an item and the cheapest is 499,999gil and the next best price is 500,000 obviously I'm going to buy the cheaper one even though it's such a small fraction and I'm not really saving any money. Because it's cheaper, and its first in line.

So as a seller I want to have the "cheapest" item on the board because that's just how you shift units quickly.

Now what actually grinds my gears is when you're undercutting a few people by only 1 Gil and the next guy comes and drops the price by 15%. I get that some people just want to quickly sell the item and just get it over with, but when the next guy comes and undercuts that by 1 Gil, we're all now losing profit.

[XiXiQ]

As someone buying they REALLY don't care who is selling (I mean some probably do, but most don't.) They just want the cheapest price and the market board puts the cheapest item first. If I come to the market and am looking for an item and the cheapest is 499,999gil and the next best price is 500,000 obviously I'm going to buy the cheaper one even though it's such a small fraction and I'm not really saving any money. Because it's cheaper, and its first in line.

This is not strictly true for higher priced items as the tax can be significantly different depending on the retainer location. some might be in a tax free or 50% reduced zone. I doubt many people look at it closely though.