Undercutting: What do you think about that ?

[Shmiles]

If you're one of those people undercutting by 10g+, you're a moron.
Anyone who plays the AH seriously only undercuts by 1c or 1s, you don't want to destroy the market you're trying to compete in. So when op says he undercuts by FIVE HUNDRED gold on an enchant...wow...just wow.

[Darsithis]

If you're one of those people undercutting by 10g+, you're a moron.
Anyone who plays the AH seriously only undercuts by 1c or 1s, you don't want to destroy the market you're trying to compete in. So when op says he undercuts by FIVE HUNDRED gold on an enchant...wow...just wow.

Read what I wrote. I traditionally undercut by a very small amount, usually no more than 1 gold. When I was being undercut by a copper at a time for a week straight, unable to sell anything, yes, I dropped the price a huge amount in frustration and watched whatever or whoever it was match my undercuts, all the way down to 29g for an enchant that should be at least 400g.

Like the next poster, it probably was a bot, and I remember the name of the person. I've sent in a report on that. I couldn't figure out how they were undercutting so fast.

NVM - You were referring to the OP, not me. But I agree with you - usually undercutting huge amounts is just ridiculous. You ruin the market for yourself.

[Delaios]

I always undercut (obviously), but I never undercut by 1 copper. I undercut so my stuff is visually cheaper than the next item. By how much exactly depends a lot on wether or not I feel like re-listing at a later time. I'd rather sell something for 90 gold within an hour than having to repost it a few days in a row and sell it at 140 gold. Wether it's a rare item (a rare or epic world drop for instance) or a common farmable item (volatiles, herbs etc) also plays a huge roll. If I see a 359 epic on the AH for 1500 gold, I'll put it up for just under 1000 gold. I just want to get stuff sold quickly.

I won't make as much as someone that actually bothers with the AH, but I couldn't care less. I'm self reliant when it comes to potionss, gemming and (most) enchanting mats, I get guild repair, I get guild cauldrons and I rarely spend any gold. Currently closing in on 200k again after buying some mounts (Hodir mount, chopper and Traveler's mammoth). The only big things I'll be spending gold in the future are the Hyjal daily rewards (pets and mount) and the vial of the sands. I'm waiting until I get the recipe for the latter myself, so that's gonna take a long time.

[Buttered Toast]

i undercut all the time, idgaf.

i'm trying to make gold just like all the other people listing items for sale. not make friends.

:3

[Dalantia]

I will actively avoid buying from people that undercut by small amounts of copper and silver. That's my only opinion on it. Also, if I see someone playing the bid price game, I will probably buy the higher bid price.

[r3nd]

I hate those idiots that undercut by so much, like the 30g to 15g you were talking about.

REALLY screws up the economy.

Hardened Elementium usually sells for around 100-130g, but lately there has been a bunch of retards selling them for 50-70g.

Shit pisses me off.

[Bohbo]

Hello

I'd just like to know what you think about undercutting. Many peoples says it's bad, many others says it's acceptable. What about you ?

For my part, i think it is acceptable, but only if it's done by a fair amount. Let me explain:

Not so long ago, i looked at the AH to know the prices of the enchanting scroll that grant +20 stats to chest (peerless stats). There was 2 of them at 1999g each. I made a scroll, and listed it for 1499g. 2 hours later, someone else listed 2 of these scroll for 1299g. This is what i call "fair and acceptable" because they are actualy willing to sell it cheaper than mine. No problem with that.

Another case now. I looked at "delicate inferno ruby", and the lowest ones listed was at 149g. I list 6 of them for 139g 99s 99c. 30 minutes ago, someone else list 10 of them at 139g 98s 99c. I personaly find it very irritating. Should i be that much irritated ?

So, what is your opinion about undercutting ? Is this acceptable to undercut by a fair amount ? and if it is, what is the threshold between a "fair" amount and a "not-fair" amount ?

Another thing: 2 weeks ago, i had about 400x inferno ink sleeping on my bank. I looked at the AH: 30g each. I listed all of them for 15g each, just to get rid of these. Couple of minutes later, i get a wisper from someone who is known to be an "Auction house player" on my server. He told me i was killing the economy by dooing that. I asked him why he didn't just buy all of them and relist it for more, and his answer was some kind of wall of text about how the economy is working.. and well, i didn't understand half of what he meant.. (i know very little about economy, and i'm still trying to understand why the gasoline prices is gooing up these years.. lol).

You find it irritating that someone undercuts you by 1cp? rather than 200G? Undercutting gems by more than 3 silver is completely stupid because the market will pay what you post to save time. After 4.2 I was selling Inferno's fror 300g a cut in the AH until someone comes along and undercuts by 100g on a gem!. I tell him he is losing 100g a pop doing this as I had already sold over 100 gems at this price. I get the standard reply that they will "sell faster" or I don't care what I make on selling gems. Both reponses are ignorant. People buy gems as they get gear so price doesnt dictate how fast gems will sell. I like the last response best because I tell them to post them all at 25g ea if they dont care and I get silence so they obviously want to make gold. Just doesnt make sense to undercut gems by more than a cp or a silver cause it is all lost profit the more you undercut.

---------- Post added 2011-07-08 at 01:03 PM ----------

I hate those idiots that undercut by so much, like the 30g to 15g you were talking about.

REALLY screws up the economy.

Hardened Elementium usually sells for around 100-130g, but lately there has been a bunch of retards selling them for 50-70g.

Shit pisses me off.

Seems to be 90% of the AH users these days. Totally agree with you.

[RyanRetnolds]

If you're cancelling your auctions, you lose the initial deposit. Lets say you're selling ore, and have 10 stacks up. Someone throws a single stack up for 1C less. Should you cancel and undercut him? Of course not! Just wait it out, if they buy it at his price they'll be willin gto pay that extra 1C. Now, if he undercuts by 30g, you buy it yourself and flip it. Realistically, you can list an item at the EXACT same price as someone else, and it will come up as the same % as if you undercut by 1C, meaning people buying by % won't even notice/care.

Undercutting is a viable strategy if you're trying to corner a market and kick people out: drop prices so low they can't compete and leave, then you jack them up later. Lose money now, make money later.

[slimj091]

Same here. What gets me are the people who undercut by 20-50%, at a time when items are selling (rather than someone posting an outrageous price on an item). I'm talking about when enchanting mats start to go up, etc. Drives me nuts.

i have to agree.. nothing gets under my skin more than putting five or six inferno ruby cuts up for (what is a reasonable price on my server) 120g on the lowbid. only to have one of the jewelcrafting barons of my server chime in with 30 gems of the same cut priced at 40g. and then getting sucked into buying his gems, because he has a stock of a thousand, and will just keep putting more up draining your bankroll. auction house trolling...... I HATE IT!

[Stringer]

The undercutting is ridiculous. Just 1 copper puts you out of the running and sitting on your stock for weeks is just lost income.

See, the thing is, that isn't true. Being undercut by 1 copper doesn't 'put you out of the running'. Just wait. Be patient. If there is enough demand for your product people will buy out your competition and then buy out your own product. This really isn't a problem, and you most definitely shouldn't spend your time canceling auctions and trying to be perpetually 1c under any competitors.

Just wait.

@the people bitching about large undercuts: The product obviously isn't worth as much as you thought it was. If there are a large number of people willing to sell a commodity at 60% of what you think it's worth chances are your appraisal of the commodity is off. There are two possibilities here.

1) They were able to get the product cheaper and are still making money while selling it at a low price.

2) They are selling it at a loss, in which case you should buy their product and turn it around for more. People won't be able to sell at a loss indefinitely, and farmers selling at a low price are constrained by the amount of time it takes to produce raw materials.

Stop bitching and adjust your strategy.

[Taraxacum]

I cant see anyone NOT UNDERCUTTING given normal conditions. It's quite rare for people to post materials on the AH for not the cheapest price. Usualy this only happens on high volume/quick selling items.

I think the real question is by how much people undercut you by. To me any value of undercut is fair, you may not like it but sure being undercut by 1c is a good tactic. For me though I dont undercut by 1c, I'll often do it by a whole silver on cheaper materials and sometimes by a whole gold if it's some worth over 500g.

I'm sure some people will find this annouying as well but whats does get me are people who undercut by large amounts (with no specific goal). This is, in my view, often done by someone who thinks the item is to expensive at the higher price and they set a more 'realistic' price. The problem here is quite simply that 'expense is just a opinion'. Just because your not able/prepeared to pay 1.5k for a leg armor, does that mean everyone else on your server thinks the same? Of course not!

As has been said here above - it's these heavy undercutters that often enable the AH players to make the a fair chunk of gold, so in someways I dont really mind.

[Legionnaire]

Hello
Not so long ago, i looked at the AH to know the prices of the enchanting scroll that grant +20 stats to chest (peerless stats). There was 2 of them at 1999g each. I made a scroll, and listed it for 1499g. 2 hours later, someone else listed 2 of these scroll for 1299g. This is what i call "fair and acceptable" because they are actualy willing to sell it cheaper than mine. No problem with that.

Another case now. I looked at "delicate inferno ruby", and the lowest ones listed was at 149g. I list 6 of them for 139g 99s 99c. 30 minutes ago, someone else list 10 of them at 139g 98s 99c. I personaly find it very irritating. Should i be that much irritated ?

Sorry but you're an idiot, plain and simple.
If you're an enchanter and you fucking see a scroll listed for 1999g you list yours for 1998g, not 1500g, you're fucking up your own market retard.. You wan't the scrolls to be as expensive as possible not fuck up their value by listing it for half price. I'd much rather have people undercut me by 1 copper then idiots like you listing shit for half price. Idiot. Go back to fucking primary school.

[User was infracted for this post]

[announced]

its quite fair to do so. however u should know to undercut by a few gold. not a few c.
and the gasoline price is just a conspiracy by the oil companies. there never was a shortage in the 70's and there never will be. why do u think the government staged 9/11 and went over to Iraq?

anyway i digress. do whatever u feel works. but some1 will always try to undercut you. or buy you out. unless their stupid.


btw how is hardened elementium gonna sell for 150g each? all it is is some elementium ore + a few volatile earths. think about all the guilds that hit 24 and have bountiful bags perk meaning every node they pick gains them a chance for extra ores/mats? or how about all the nubs running ZG/za that kill the troll mini bosses and get Giant's sack filled with 20 elementium ores? things add up lol. plus elementium is common as hell so i dont see why it'd be any higher with all the botters/ farmers/ sellers getting it.

[pocky_rin]

Undercutting by a small amount is fine, usually I focus on high demand items such as gems etc, so even if I'm undercut mine usually sell even if I'm not analy watching the AH, scanning for undercut and reposting. I remember the first time I got an AH mod and some spare time, I sat on the AH posting gems and scanning for undercuts, cancelling them and putting them back up. I did this for about 4 hours and then the next day a guy messaged my friend in guild saying he had a fun war with me, watching me run towards the mailbox then putting his up.. XD made me giggle since even by fast undercutting me on high demand items, i still made a sizable amount of gold that night, and so I'm sure did he. What I have a problem is, is say inferno rubies are selling for 150g, I'm putting them up for that much and theyre selling faster than I can put them up. Then someone decides to put them up for 50g, and then a ton of people get in there before I notice and undercut all the way down to 30g, even though they were a garenteed sell of 150g moments before. This really pisses me off because yes, I could buy every single one and relist then, or horde until prices go back up, but then I've gone from garenteed profit to a dodgy gamble, and far more work for me. So I just don't bother, unless they are stupidly cheap. Sometimes there are simply too many and then the economy crashes to gems for 30g for 3 weeks at a time sometimes, and I loose time/money either way because 1 stupid person went, Oh, I want a fast sell I'll just throw it up for anything even thoguh I could make 3 times as much. This is even worse the more expensive the item because even the silly undercut prices are still expensive so its an even bigger gamble to buy them all yourself and resell. I really hate those guys tbh so i refuse to buy their things.

[slimj091]

Sometimes I undercut market prices significantly, precisely because I know it will deflate the market. Farmers and auctioneers are always trying to game the system and control (artificially inflate) the markets. Occasionally it gets a little out of hand and somebody has to come in and poke it. Otherwise I could really give a crap. Whatever gets me the quick sale is where I'm going. If somebody wants to buy that auction and flip it for whatever he thinks it should have been listed at... I still win.

so what makes you feel entitled to cause other players to lose gold, or time? the market will always find the right price without your help. if something is priced too high then no one will buy it. just because something is priced higher than what you think it should does not mean it is not a fair price. now i'm only saying this if you are one of those people that flood the market with wares 75% lower than the basement price 24 hours a day.

---------- Post added 2011-07-16 at 08:54 AM ----------

: ---------- Post added 2011-07-06 at 08:34 AM ---------- Only if the raw gem is below 65g.

one thing you have to remember about these kind of people. they do not buy anything off of the auction house. i can not speak for the guy you quoted, but my server's JC market is ruled by two people. both are notorious botters. well... the toons they use for botting are notorious botters. anyways. so they go to uldum and let their bots run. it is all profit for them. they could sell for 1g and it would still be profit. when they put their gems up for 70 gold less than everyone else. none of the other JC's buy to resell because you'll end up buying 20k gold worth of gems before they stop putting more up. once in a while a fool will get tricked into it, and you'll never see his name as a seller again in the gem market. because he probably switched profs or quit playing. it's great for the buyer as they are constantly getting cheap gems. for sellers.. especially people that take the time to farm their own gems it's depressing. because you go from a promising market that even a casual seller could make a bit of gold on. to a market that has less of a return than farming raw elementium to sell.

[bigbuddt]

I don't know what's fair competition but there's a guy recently that appeared on my server and places all his glyphs for 25g (glyphs usually sell for 70-100g+). He makes every glyph, 4 at a time and replenishes them 2wice a day. I figured he's trying to drive out the competition but it's definitely annoying. The dilemma is do I waste my time undercutting him for that min profit or not. Definitely frustrating when there's plenty of market for quite a few ppl yet now it's pretty much dead due to him.

[Deleted]

What people need to understand is that Undercutting will always happen, in virtual markets such as WoW's economy or Real Life markets. also. Markets in real life are often undercut on much slower than in this virtual market, knowing that undercutting WILL happen, people should take advantage of this to get the most gold out of the products demand, and like you said in the entry post, you saw 2 +20 stats on chest scrolls for 1999g each. and you undercut this by 500gold. thats 25% profit you've just lost out on, also, if someone else wants to sell the same item, they have no choice but either wait untill yours sells, or undercut you further, again if you have to repost you will loose even more gold from the item. in short, If your going to undercut, which lets face it everyone will do. undercut by 1 copper! it gets you to the first product on the ah and is just as likely to sell as undercutting by 25% will do. Undercutting by massive amounts like this destroy's markets untill eventually there are no product's on the auction house and can be the price can be determined by the first seller. PLEASE STOP UNDERCUTTING BY LOTS OF GOLD WOW ITS KILLING MY FARMING EFFORT :O

[Mustakrakish]

Tbh, I don't get what all the hubbub is about not buying the 1c or 1s cheaper item ... Fark, if it's cheaper then buy it out?

[Giantfoamhat]

If Bob Barker allowed it, I'm ok with it.

[Deleted]

I thought I'd try again this week. Made a few +75 Greater Stamina enchants for the chest, selling for 800g on my server. Within minutes of putting mine up, I'd get undercut by extremely small margins. So this time, I started undercutting them by huge ones...799...599...399. Finally I put all of mine up for 29.99.99 and watched everyone else undercut me...but mine sold. They threw away the costs of the Maelstrom Crystals in a ridiculous attempt to continue undercutting me with no concept of ROI (I farmed the mats and spent no gold to acquire them).

Are you really in a position to talk about people not understanding the concept of return of investment when you say that mats you farmed are free?

---------- Post added 2011-07-16 at 12:45 PM ----------

If you're one of those people undercutting by 10g+, you're a moron.
Anyone who plays the AH seriously only undercuts by 1c or 1s, you don't want to destroy the market you're trying to compete in. So when op says he undercuts by FIVE HUNDRED gold on an enchant...wow...just wow.

Your kind of thinking is exactly why people with a little sense make huge amounts of gold on the AH. (No, not you)

---------- Post added 2011-07-16 at 12:46 PM ----------

I don't know what's fair competition but there's a guy recently that appeared on my server and places all his glyphs for 25g (glyphs usually sell for 70-100g+). He makes every glyph, 4 at a time and replenishes them 2wice a day. I figured he's trying to drive out the competition but it's definitely annoying. The dilemma is do I waste my time undercutting him for that min profit or not. Definitely frustrating when there's plenty of market for quite a few ppl yet now it's pretty much dead due to him.

Ever heard of the words margin and volume?