What is your ACTUAL reasoning for undercutting?

[Aylis]

I don't exactly undercut per say, but I do match the lowest even number price the item is selling at. I do this because plain and simple. If I have something I don't need, I just want it gone from my inventory. If an item is selling average at mid tier at 1500 gil and the lowest price is around 1000 gil. I'm not losing sleep over a 500 gil difference.

My buying habits are pretty much the same. If an item I want at the lowest price is selling for 1000 gil followed by 999 gil and 995 gil. I'll always go for the 1000 gil selling price. For much the same reason, am not losing sleep over paying a whole whopping 5 gil more for an item.

My reasons basically come down to gil is pretty much useless to me in terms of what I need to play the game. I buy the occasional outfit, minion or housing item yes, but it's not something that's really needed to play the game. There's nothing game play wise that I need to maximize gil making for or cut my spending to save as much as I can.

[DumdogsWorld]

Rather than asking why, I usually ask myself "why not?"

First thing's first - I try all the time to be "fair". Matching the lowest price instead of going lower. Waiting my turn. I try pretty hard to not be "that guy". In the end, though, I always fail. Then I throw my hands up in the air and say "screw it!"

When I sell things that I crafted, I almost always have gathered and crafted all the materials myself, crystals included. Unless I'm selling for less than my teleport fees, I'm technically making a profit. Sure, I might not be tempted to try selling that specific item on the market board anymore for awhile, but at least I got more gil back than I put in.

[Hash_Browns]

Fast money, lowering the items price.

Sometimes I undercut so I can buy out the item stock.
I cut an items price in half, and then buying out everything.

To be fair, I usually use Mogboard now, but when that didn't exist because we didn't have cross-world, I would flood the market with an item, on occasion, and lower the price by a giant sum to have materials flooded my way at a low price.

Either I get the stock & get to keep my own, or I lower the price and lost some of my stock, but get gil to invest in other things. Either way I win because of people who panic sell items, or try to sell items for 1 gil lower then me.

[Mistyregions]

Mm well

First I dont overvalue my product, I realize 92827929282 other players can provide the exact same service for a cheaper price. So I price to move products.

Second I also realize people are greedy AF for some basic stuff, so I provide the same product to people for real prices, thus filling my wallet and filling their souls with happiness.

Thrid I provide my product in a manner that seems simple and dumb but give multiple types of people access to my product thus increasing the speed and volume.

Also to be a prick about it to the old salty market board people who value themselves to high . I'm doing my part to attract more people by not gatekeeping with stupid stuff like silver ore, and then increasing the player base, thus increasing my probable market base, thus making my wallet phat yo.

The true meaning of capitalism is to make those around you richer so you can make yourself even richer.

[Barraind]

If its housing stuff, I undercut by (some amount based on a formula that takes into account cost of the materials and current list prices) to ensure I have the lowest on the MB.

If its not selling well, i tank prices to move it.

If i dont like the other person selling things, I undercut them by 1 as often as possible.

For current topend gear, its usually 5 gil below the whole thousand gil amount lower than the lowest seller.


I have a floor on every item that I will never sell below. I havent ever hit that floor on anything.

I keep detailed spreadsheets because MMO economies are fun for me.

[JackHatchet]

I like to do it to clear out my inventory quicker. The logic is, is that I open up my supplies to additional customers. The people wanting the product to begin with, and also newer customers who play the 'buy low and sell high' game. So by opening up my product to additional customers--I create more sales.

I also enjoy annoying entitled crafters. Because some of these people are incredibly short-sighted. They'll literally cry to me that I'm doing it wrong, and that I'm hurting their margins, and call me 'greedy." The irony is I'm not the only greedy one if they're goal is to soak fat margins off the public. They LITERALLY want to extort the player-base for as much money as they can get, and when I counter their extortion prices--they'll cry that I'm the greedy one for tanking the economy for the lolz.

I wouldn't loathe these people as much if they were honest with themselves and just grumbled about losing a profit margin because they like money like Mr. Krabs. But It absolutely triggers me that they'll cry about the morality of the market, and how I'm the sun of Satan by selling things at a loss. As If'm chaos incarnate. And that it's morally wrong for me to disrupt the system. And that only if I let them price-gouge the player-base would things be right. But honestly, no one is entitled to price gouging the player base. And those people who legitimately feel they're entitled to that, and cry when under-cutters ruin them--they have serious mental problems.

[Brill_]

Right now, I'm having a fire sale to clear out my inventory for ShB

[ChocoFeru]

I usually do the opposite. I don't undercut stuff that doesn't get outdated, and I don't mind if they get sold in 1 minute or 1 year. I always end up selling them and getting full profit, instead of an undercutted profit. In the end you get more gil for the same, instead of farming/crafting the triple and wasting time.

I only undercut stuff that gets outdated fast, like a new minion that everybody wants right now, or new raid food/potions etc... and I always undercut them 1 gil only, because I don't want to break the market.

[Barraind]

They'll just rock bottom down to cost and out produce you until you go away then raise prices again.

Theres a phrase I like to use when my friends call me cheap about spending gil.

"I dont have hundreds of millions of gil because I'm stupid with how I spend it, I have that because I'm not".

[Edax]

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?

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. As such, I see no reason why I cannot adopt such methods to make gil.