I usually undercut by 5%. The economy is not a rule system, it's cause-and-effect. Why should I maximize my profits? It's a lot easier to just get things sold, as long as I'm not losing gold. I also like saving people gold on items that have grown out of control because someone tried to control that item or the supply is low enough that players are left with greedy sellers, so I stay within 50% of global prices even if listed stuff is 200%+.
I despise 1 copper undercutting, and maybe I'm alone here, but if I need to buy something from the AH, I will make sure the cheapest one wasn't undercut by 1 copper. Otherwise, I buy the next cheapest one.
I consider it scumbag undercutting if you're selling something, especially something expensive, and you undercut by such a small amount. You should probably consider there are more people like me that do this, when you're posting that rare mount for 499,999g 99s 99c below the guy that's selling his for 500k.
You might be perfectly right, but what would you have me do?
Set up an alarm clock for a middle of my sleep or take a half day off work so I can put up flasks on the AH?
I am not an AH player, I make most of my gold from selling boost runs during farm (I enjoy raiding and don't enjoy playing AH, other people might prefer other things).
Typically I only sell mats that I randomly collected doing world quests and stuff and vendor them if they don't sell on the first try.
How am I losing gold?
There is pretty much only one instance when I'm selling stuff for profit (rather than to free up bag space) and that's when the prices are way high.
Let's say (just an example) that the cost of making a potion is 200 gold and they are selling for 1500.
Under normal circumstances I don't make pots to sell, because it's just not something I enjoy. But when the prices are that crazy, I don't want to spend 100k to stock up for a weeks raids.
You might find this strange if you are an AH player, but I don't consider crashing prices to price of mats + 5 % a bad thing. It just means I can go back to what I enjoy while spending 2 minutes buying consumables rather than wasting time making them myself.
I put my stuff in 1c cheaper than everything else if its a mat, if its a green or blue item, I tend to shave a shit ton off it,
There are all kinds of reasons. Maybe he bought a huge pile of mats cheaply and is trying to price his competition out of the market. Maybe he is listing one item at a loss to try and cut into his rivals profits as their auction add-on automatically undercuts it.
Selling on the AH is just another form of PvP and this is just another strategy people can use.
OP, it was me. I do this all the time. My reasoning is simple. I don't like to get items back from the AH. I do not like playing pricing games to maximize profit. There is very little I need gold for. Having said that I slap down a price low enough to sell but higher than the vendor value. If by some fluke it doesn't sell I vendor it. Either way I get gold and keep playing the game. The auction house is a quick pit stop to post something, nothing more. Hell sometimes I just vendor everything anyway.
Point 1: Some people value things other than pure profit e.g. time, fun, convenience, griefing the profiteers. And for people who value those things more highly than all profit, substantial undercutting works.
Point 2: Demand is elastic. Demand for most things, even in WoW, will go up if the price is lower. So if I significantly undercut you I can almost certainly sell more than if I undercut you by 1c. This is known as making your profit on volume. Wal-Mart uses this strategy. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the world by revenue.
Point 3: People don't care about all profit even with real money. It's why not everybody shops at Wal-Mart.
Last edited by Kushana; 2016-12-15 at 03:12 PM.
Totally understandable. I'm playing on EU and agree that token price is high - however it's a side effect of extreme gold availablility after the huge influx due to WoD garrisons.
Basically now everyone has lots of gold to spend for little effort and i'm milking on that. Also bots and people buying gold will keep the flow steady.
Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.
cuz people are playing a GAME.
you got endless gold and are complaining people undercut by more than a copper? good grief
Which is exactly what they are counting on. They value their item/time at a certain amount and they know that if the undercut by a certain amount, either regular customers or an AH player (of which I dabble) will snatch up all their supply and they wont have to deal with it anymore.
I have found myself on both sides of this fence (depending on time I have and my current drive to make moolah) and can see the appeal of both.
These kinds of threads need to stop, it only shows immaturity to think that the economy is going to do what you want it to do for your own benefit.
I will undercut everyones prices and I will look for the cheapest prices when I buy. That is the way economies work. I don't care how much you want for it. I don't care if it costs you 500 to make it, if I can spend time getting resources my overhead is time and 0 gold, then I sell it for 400. That means I make 400 profit.
whining in internet forums isn't going to change reality of supply and demand. If you can't handle that I suggest getting another game to play.
Grow up and put on your big boy pants.
If you push a button that finds you a 'random group' and it gives you a random group of people with random skill and random knowledge then you have no right to complain that a 'random group' button did what it was designed to do. The fault lies in your inability to make friends to play with instead of relying on a button designed to be random. It is a 'random group' button, not a 'best of the best' button.
What happened to the free market ? Can't people sell stuff at the price they want ? If I got 20.000 felslate and I want to sell it cheap, instead of its market value, so I don't have to wait ages to get gold, shouldn't I be allowed to do so ?
Well, totally on point. Though:
- you're losing gold because instead of getting 2000 you're getting 1500 (random numbers). That's a 500 loss. The whole point is that selling the same goodie for 1900 or 1999 is entirely possible and happens the whole time. It's not like trying to sell something usually priced at 2000 and putting it at 3000. Anyway i can cope with the fact that you simply don't care and getting those 1500 is fine for you. Nothing wrong with that.
- i also don't play the AH. I dont shuffle/resell/have an AH too. I simply put the stuff in AH though my phone which automatically undercuts by 1c and retrieve the gold from my mail when i log in game after returning from work. i don't play very much, i usually do the daily emissary and if i'm able i pug normal raids and that's it.
Also, there's some distinction to be done.
- raw materials/consumables have an extremely fast turnover. Heavy undercuts there have no reason to happen because until you're putting 3k roses in the same round nearly everything gets bought; only suprlus gets returned and the price have less meaning due to a lot of people shuffling the entire market.
- the occasional rare item/mount and in general high-cost but scarce goodies: there it is where the market and price commands. There are usually one-shot purchases so heavy uindercuts may giveyou an edge on competitors. Putting that nice mount for 5k or 10k less over 100k will still net you a nice amount and the market isn't saturated anyway; people tend to just monitor them a little bit to see the min/max prices to get the best deals.
I'm not saying all of this because i want prices to stay high so i can farm more gold. I'm saying that a lot of people is just missing opportunities without realizing it.
Then if they don't care it's not my problem
Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.
I undercut most of the time because I just want to get rid of some stuffs. But most of the time, I only sell the high selling items. Not mainly for profit, just want a quick buck I make money semi-passively.