Undercutting

[dspguy]

Prices don't matter. People buy item x for whatever price item x goes for at that time most of the time. Most players have enough gil to not care.

Yup. I've said it plenty of times. Doesn't matter. It is only a matter of someone deciding to buy the item and THEN walking up to the MB and purchasing it. And the vast majority of the time, they are just buying the lowest priced item, even if it is by 1 gil.

[Craigieboy]

Always a joy seeing FFXIV players reactions to what a free market is.

[Jojoya]

Always a joy seeing FFXIV players reactions to what a free market is.

These same discussions come up in any multiplayer game with a marketboard style buy/sell system. It's not exclusive to FFXIV. It's a natural consequence when players with different goals and playstyles collide in the same content.

I just find it amusing that it's usually the players who consider themselves serious sellers or say the marketboard is their primary gameplay that are the most resistant to adapting to the volatile markets or jumping on opportunities presented by the mass undercutters. Would seeing how rich you can get really be that much fun if everyone was a 1 gil undercutter?

[Prrringles]

It's more that a lot of players (or people in general for that matter) seem to be lacking any form of common sense and completely trash the place for no reason at all. Translate this to any IRL situation you like.

Always a joy seeing FFXIV players reactions to what a free market is.

"Free markets" have rules IRL and that is why it works. The market in games like this have none at all. That's why it's a complete clown show and people get upset. I can just trash players out of spite without any consequences. I wonder if new players trying to enter the market find it "a joy" too once they get absolutely dominated into oblivion.

[UkcsAlias]

"Free markets" have rules IRL and that is why it works.

And this already does happen irl. Sometimes the demand for a product is high, and the prices rise, more companies start to invest into that same product, but at some point either saturation happens, or an alternative becomes significantly cheaper. And all these spare products instantly became effectively useless. Especialy when there also is a high stock, they now want to get rid of this as fast as possible since storage also costs money. And the price drops massively as a result. And that is while irl those products at least do have some value even if they are a significantly lesser quality etc.

This is why for grain and a lot of other farm related products they no longer make purchases based on the current state, they now buy contracts that last for a year as that generaly works based on prediction. Peaks in demand or stock are balanced out acros a year because of that, so there is a lot less risk involved. Otherwise you could end up in a state that in a certain year, double the grain was produced, while demand stayed the same. It wont cause a 50% drop, but more like 80% since initialy its not known that the overproduction is this extreme. And even if they make losses, its better selling it underpriced compared to not selling it at all. Storage costs money and the products also decay, so long term storage isnt viable, as the next cycle it will most likely already balance out, and since the shelf life of those still remain longer, they are more like bought.

In FF there is no such system going on with most items. Only consumables feature this where near patches the price rises, yet outside of it stabilizes towards a normal supply/demand. And even bots cant realy do anything with it, since even if they spam more items on the market, sales do not realy increase with it. So overproducing wont create more sales (yet will cost more with lower profits). Yet for housing items, without any new houses, sales will drop to near 0 regardless of price. An item that normaly would be sold for 200k can easily drop to 40k and still not sell, and there is even the chance they will reach a value of 10k (as retainers will still bring these items at no production costs, there is no bottom limit besides the vendor sell price).

[Jojoya]

It's more that a lot of players (or people in general for that matter) seem to be lacking any form of common sense and completely trash the place for no reason at all. Translate this to any IRL situation you like.

As we keep trying to point out, a single player undercutting by a large amount does not "trash" the market. Prices will bounce back almost immediately as the low priced item sells and the old price become the new low price again.

What trashes the market is players flooding the market with multiples of an item faster than that item will sell.

I think some forget there is no barrier to entry for crafting anymore like exists back in ARR and HW, and to a lesser but still noticeable degree in Stormblood. Best way to bring new sellers into the market is to overprice the items they wanted so instead of just buying the item and moving on, they're now making it to sell for profit.

"Free markets" have rules IRL and that is why it works. The market in games like this have none at all. That's why it's a complete clown show and people get upset. I can just trash players out of spite without any consequences. I wonder if new players trying to enter the market find it "a joy" too once they get absolutely dominated into oblivion.

The free market rules in real life are created primarily to prevent price-gouging and monopolies.

The only rule I can think of off the top of my head to protect profit margins would be patents.

The real difference between free markets in game and in real life is resource limitation, equipment costs/overhead and labor.

In game, there are no resource limitations outside of the rare drop items and even that is circumvented to greater or lesser degree depending on how many players are farming the content where those items drop. In real life, there's a limit to how much can be grown or taken from the ground and how fast those things can be done (not to mention seasonal availability).

Equipment costs in game is basically limited to gear, which can be self-produced. There is no overhead for facilities, utilities, and the like. Real life business has to account for those things.

There is also no wage standard for labor in game. How a player values their time making/acquiring an item is up to them. In real life, you've got minimum wage standards not to mention competition between companies to attract the better workers.

But supply and demand still exist in both. Caution needs to be taken so you don't push those creating the demand into becoming those who create supply.

if my undercut offends you so much you are free to buy all of my listings and post them for a price more suited to your sensibilities.

That only works as far as your preparedness to post more of those same items and in greater quantities.

I've made a lot of gil off players who underestimated or didn't even stop to think about the depths of my material stockpiles.

Honest suggestion to those who want to flip for profit: don't buy on the same world that you plan to sell from if the item is crafted.

[Prrringles]

As we keep trying to point out, a single player undercutting by a large amount does not "trash" the market. Prices will bounce back almost immediately as the low priced item sells and the old price become the new low price again.

What trashes the market is players flooding the market with multiples of an item faster than that item will sell.

Do we even play the same game? A single player can absolutely crash prices. Certain items I was selling steadily now sell for less than half the price I was selling them for because of a single player who undercut me by 50%. Bots match their prices and undercut them by 1g. Bot item sells because clueless person doesn't upgrade prices frequently. Bot restocks the sold item immediately thus keeping said item at the low price. Now have said clueless person do this for 50+ items with bots matching... All you said goes out of the window

[Mostly_Raxus]

if my undercut offends you so much you are free to buy all of my listings and post them for a price more suited to your sensibilities.

[SXTC]

lately I haven't done any crafting and selling on the market because all prices seem undercut where I can't even earn back the invested money for the materials (I have little time so I buy materials on the market).
It feels like I would be wasting my time making an effort... heck buying furniture from NPC's and selling them for a higher price is more effective then selling crafted items which should be the other way around.

I once was at home and updated my prices 10x... it took me 30 minutes to update all prices on my retainers. Know how much it took on average to be undercut again on almost all my items? 1 to 5 minutes every time.

Nowadays I only still update my prices once a month... don't care anymore.

[JohncarterIx]

i see it a lot i sell a lott i got who drops down lots hell when i sell i own half of the food on the 1s i sell lol