Undercutting

[Jojoya]

Normal people walk into a store (or go online) and make a decision to purchase a product for various reasons (emotional and financial). Players in FFXIV likely make the decision to purchase the item before they even see the price. Which means, it doesn't matter what the price history is. And it doesn't matter if the offers listed are 99996, 99997,99998, etc. Most players don't shop around.

You're making a dangerous assumption that the decision to purchase the item was made before the visit to the market board. Much will depend on what the player is shopping for.

Crafting materials? You're probably correct. Recipes require very specific materials so the player is going to the market to get exactly what is needed for the recipe they want to make. Very few would be going to the market board to see what materials are cheap and then figure out what they should make after the purchase.

Same is mostly true for raiders looking for end game consumables. They know what specific consumables are right for the job they will be using.

But I'd say that's where the certainty ends. Players may go to the market board with the intent to buy something but that doesn't mean they will buy something. There are other factors involved. Is it a need or a want? Are there multiple items that could potentially fill the player's desire? Are there other things they also want to be buying so they have to balance the possible costs of those against the one item they're looking at that you happen to be selling? How much is market board convenience worth to them if they have the ability to obtain the item (or similar) in other ways?

How wealthy is the player? How much do they think the item is worth?

Not every player is rich. The higher the price, the smaller the buyer pool. The smaller the buyer pool, the longer it's likely to take for the item to be sold.

Someone undercutting by 1 gil isn't going to increase the potential buyer pool. Someone undercutting by 10k might (depending on the item) and get a sale where higher priced listings would be ignored as the buyer decides to look at other similar items instead because they didn't feel the item was worth the extra 10k. The sellers at the higher price aren't losing out if they weren't going to get a sale at their price in the first place. They're also not losing out if they hold to their price and another buyer comes along that is willing to pay the higher price after the undercut listing is gone.

It's really something that needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Some items are worth undercutting significantly. Others aren't. It's up to the seller to decide what amount they want to get to make the item worth selling. It's up to the buyer to decide if that amount is appropriate for the item they want to purchase.

Personally, I would never undercut by a gil. I'll price match if I'm not going to undercut significantly and take my chances on whether the buyer picks my listing or the listing that was already there. I don't worry about others undercutting me unless my item is still sitting there after a few days, in which case my original price was probably too high in the first place. I don't need to have mine sold first. I just want it sold within a reasonable amount of time.