So, that undercutter won't stop undercutting

[meifumado]

Its not just only RP realms that want boe greens , there is a great market for mog on any good server I have sold green boe plate bikinis for 5-10k on my pve server

[Deleted]

Not when you buy bulk. Certain items that are low-margin slow sellers (any gem that isn't an inferno ruby) that you would usually vendor for instance.

Ah ok then.

Though, to be honest, if I do buy something below market cost, I tend to handle the posting value in terms of market costs of mats.

This is for two reasons:

1. I may not have the mats at that price in the future and I may need the market cost of them

2. The competitors are often on the market cost of mats so it beats them (and some of them think the same way as well)

[Ledonn]

The thing about attempting to buy out a seller is that you don't know there stock. Some people list everything at once just because they don't want there inventory full. Others get impatient and list super cheap to get rid of it. The thing is You can't have the mind set of, "This is how I would handle the AH" cause others who are skilled, experienced or even botting the AH won't be thinking like that.

My ways of dealing with the AH is:

1) All my Competition in the markets I sell in are on my friends list. I can see when they come online while I'm on and I relist when they go afk, log or go outside of a major city. I also pull my Auctions down that I know they will undercut. Specifically the higher sellers. I.E. Enchants and Epic gems. Then I simply relist.

2) Figure out a good nitch of listing times that work with your ability to log on. You wont make every sale so don't plan that you will. Figure out your servers selling times. For example: Cater to the Hardcore raiders; Tuesdays they log on clear the raids. Wednesday-Friday are probably there alt runs. List before there Raids and list every hour after if you can. Find out if there are super late night guilds. Sometimes I make the most gold after I go to bed. So make sure you are the lowest seller before you log off. Likewise before you start your day. Takes 15 minutes to log on and relist your merchandise. Do it while you brush your teeth. I don't use any addons to post, pull, undercut, etc. I do it all manually. You can get really fucked over if you are allowing your addon to list for you and you didn't catch someone listing super low. This also gets you more familiar with who is selling what and what average prices are. Also figure the weekends are a lot of very casual players. Granted you might not get the ideal price for something but you can sell quantities which might make for more income over all.

3) As mentioned above, be aggressive. Nothing in this game allows you to be amazing at it overnight. If you want to be good at something or accomplish a goal, work for it. Nothing is going to be handed to you. The AH has just as much competition as any pvp arena or Raid. If you want to make gold seriously, then you gotta compete for that top listing. If you just want to bitch about how you can't make gold, then go do Dailies.

4) Invest a little. There are other avenues to catch a good sale. The Mobile armory for example. $2.99 and you can list/buy up to 200 listings a day. You can cancel and repost from your phone or Computer. If you don't think it's worth it then you wont be able to compete with the hardcore AH listers. underminejournal.com is another. Make this site your best friend. Learn listing times, highs, lows, top sellers, find good deals and relist them. Buy out mats and make items. Again, if you don't you are just hindering yourself.

There are plenty of opportunities to make gold. You can easily make 100k a week even now while the content is slowly becoming stale. There are guilds on each server that are still progressing with the nerfs every 6 weeks. There are plenty of people leveling alts so heirloom enchants sell for a nice coin. People are even buying out old world mats for profession packages to get ready for MoP. Maybe advertise selling Engineer/Blacksmith/Enchanting/Jewelcrafting profession packages if you don't mind farming for a day. can make an easy 14-20k gold per package.

[Pugbot]

I had a guy on an overpriced market trying to undercut every chance he got. So I started pricing low to cut his lust short. But not too low to start being bought. A sort of "wall", but not too aggressive, not too low to be ridiculous, high enough to be at a profit and still not fill worthless if being bought.

But now it appears he starts undercutting even those.

If I go more low, it's going to start feeling worthless because the profit will be in the vicinity of 5 to 10% while there is also some risk since the mats shouldn't be depleted too fast. I'd rather keep a lot for later.

It's also not easy to beat his camping times because he's almost always online at the times needed.

The only solution I can think of now is to stay firm and not let him be too profitable at those products.

This is very cryptic. "So I started pricing low to cut his lust short. But not too low to start being bought. A sort of "wall", but not too aggressive, not too low to be ridiculous, high enough to be at a profit and still not fill (feel) worthless if being bought. "

Tell us what the items are, what prices you are talking about, and how much money you have. Or else we can't give you any specific instructions.
If you're talking about TBC mining materials then obviously the strategy is going to differ from current rare quality gem cuts because of the varying supply and demand and the different kind of customers you would have for each one.

You also sound like you might be in only one market, if that is true perhaps you need to take this time to work on an alts professions or figure out another market to participate in. Instead of stressing about people who keep me undercutting me usually I just ignore the market a few days and come back. If you can't compete, don't try too.

[Deleted]

I wait for a certain point in the day, when people are all putting their auction on, I then proceed to undercut them massively. They typically respond, and then I simply buy the now extremely cheap item, and sell it for a profit. Occasionally it can backfire.

I'm really skeptical about such practices because I tend to think that people that I want to beat aren't that stupid. They will often post below a point [a very low point, mainly below or at cost or around cost] for those reasons:

1. To beat me

2. To be bought

3. To buy me

I mean, most of the time I don't think people will feel losers being bought. They will often feel winners.

I don't mean they are misguided, they may have banks of mats behind them to restart.

[Juni]

I had a guy on an overpriced market trying to undercut every chance he got. So I started pricing low to cut his lust short. But not too low to start being bought. A sort of "wall", but not too aggressive, not too low to be ridiculous, high enough to be at a profit and still not fill worthless if being bought.

But now it appears he starts undercutting even those.

If I go more low, it's going to start feeling worthless because the profit will be in the vicinity of 5 to 10% while there is also some risk since the mats shouldn't be depleted too fast. I'd rather keep a lot for later.

It's also not easy to beat his camping times because he's almost always online at the times needed.

The only solution I can think of now is to stay firm and not let him be too profitable at those products.

So u destroyed the price of it while having competition hoping that he wouldn't undercut u?

GG. u destroyed the market on that item/those items. Blame urself

[Farabee]

3) As mentioned above, be aggressive. Nothing in this game allows you to be amazing at it overnight. If you want to be good at something or accomplish a goal, work for it. Nothing is going to be handed to you. The AH has just as much competition as any pvp arena or Raid. If you want to make gold seriously, then you gotta compete for that top listing. If you just want to bitch about how you can't make gold, then go do Dailies.

Best advice.

[boomkings]

that is an interesting point of view, i agree you dont always have to go into undercutting wars to make money, you just have to find ur spot and stick with it

I'm on a highly populated RP server. I usually just tap markets that are'nt the 'usual' ones. Sure, you can work in gems and such, but when I can farm 20 Thorium in 5 or so mins and sell the stacks for 50-100g because the market is usually only being used by people who're levelling and just came across it anyways, it's big money to make =)

Those who make the REAL money in the game does not follow a specific guide, they read their servers demands and meet them, creating their own market pretty much. I did the same with 3 minor glyphs. Unburdened Rebirth, Slow fall and Blurred Speed each sold for 500g on our market. I set the price to 250g and began crafting 200+ of each, posting them. Earnt me around 250k gold in a weeks time because people on a high populated RP server will ALWAYS be rolling Rogues, Druids and Mages. Sure, once in a while someone comes by and puts up the same glyph for like 100g or less and sell it, but the rest of the time I dominate the market because not alot of people care to consider those 3 glyphs on my server. But they're all quality of life glyphs and if 310% flight speed has taught us anything it is that people are willing to pay big bucks for quality of life.

So yeah. Analyze your servers market (Took me about 2 months to find the perfect stuff) and work with that. It's 'easier' to just settle with mainstream products that sells and go into undercutting wars, but you'd be suprised at how often that's actualy not needed.

Oh, and since it's an RP server, I occasionally farm for RP clothes. Some 30-40 greenies can go for 2-3k gold. But that's pretty exclusive to RP realms.

Edit: Heck, I even had a long period where I flew through Elwynn farming Copper. Laziness of your peers means when someone starts up Blacksmithing, alot of people can't be bothered to work on even the basic copper bars, and same for JC's.. Usually WHEN I farm them now, it's not more than 15-20g a stack, but at one point where nobody bothered farming them, I made around 50g for a stack of simple copper bars and 80g for a stack of ore. ("Why sell bars when you had the ore and could earn more?" you ask. To dominate both markets as a future investment )

[Deleted]

Well, best thing to do is cut low enough until it's a loss for both you.

Seriously though, there's not much you can do about it. Best way would be to find an area of the AH where he isn't dominating. But if he's any good, then he won't let it happen.

[Deleted]

If being annoyed is what drives you, it doesn't help the argument.

You dont understand the ah. If someone like you comes and destroys a profitable market then the others will not like it and treat you accordingly. The guy puts more effort in than you. Either work on ways to make the item for less, compete more or spend your time diversifying and trying easier markets. You are only getting back what you are doing to him. Read and understand what farabbee is trying to tell you.

[Deleted]

So u destroyed the price of it while having competition hoping that he wouldn't undercut u?

GG. u destroyed the market on that item/those items. Blame urself

The price is profitable. As I said it's fine. I won't go lower easily.

---------- Post added 2012-07-12 at 05:22 PM ----------

You dont understand the ah. If someone like you comes and destroys a profitable market then the others will not like it and treat you accordingly.

I'm sorry but it's not my problem my practices annoy them and make me gold.

[Deleted]

3. Try to fight tooth and nail against him, and lose.

The main problem with that is not loss or winning, is that the time it takes is a loss:D

[Deleted]

Play undercut chicken
Win ( hopefully )
Reset the market

[Ledonn]

I'm sorry but it's not my problem my practices annoy them and make me gold.

No see, that's where you are wrong Fateswarm. It is your problem. You are fresh to the AH business. When I mean fresh, I mean that there are veterans to playing that aspect of the game. You aren't anything new to them. Players like you try to come in and change the way the AH is played. But you don't change the rules of the game that have been set for a lot longer than you have been playing.

You cause a ripple effect. You attempt to flex your muscles on the AH with how you can undercut and how often. As isaid in my previous post, you don't know how deep the pockets are of your competition. You don't know the risks they are willing to take to continue making the most possible. Once you undercut others who want to sell only a few items will undercut you, then you will them, then the AH elites(for lack of a better term) will come in and do the same. Until someone resets the market.

I've sold cut blue quality gems on the ah for 3 gold cause it's still more after I get my deposit back then vendoring. I buy in such huge bulk that selling only one attribute of what I sell breaks me even. Everything else is icing. From what it sounds like, you don't buy like that. But I would wager some do on your server. If they absolutely wanted to they could undercut where you wouldn't be able to list until there entire supply was bought out.

[Deleted]

That's my point. He doesn't care about time. You do. That's why you'll lose.

Well, I tend to think of it not so black and white, more of a grey area. i.e. unless it's a bot, they are human and they may get annoyed about relisting. And beyond annoyance, it's bad for profits.

There are times I think too much undercutting would bring more gold if some common mobs were farmed instead at that time.

---------- Post added 2012-07-12 at 05:37 PM ----------

You are fresh to the AH business.

I'm not going to respond to posts that include such baseless inflammatory assumptions. I've played this game for so many years, I doubt you're older in it.

[Ledonn]

You took what I said completely out of context. You could of been playing since Beta doesn't mean you know every facet of the game and are amazing at each one. You posted here to get advice about one of those facets.

Even though you are a 6+ year veteran to the game, you are in fact fresh to the AH business aspect of it. Or else you would know how to play it and wouldn't of posted here for advice.

[Deleted]

You took what I said completely out of context. You could of been playing since Beta doesn't mean you know every facet of the game and are amazing at each one. You posted here to get advice about one of those facets.

Even though you are a 6+ year veteran to the game, you are in fact fresh to the AH business aspect of it. Or else you would know how to play it and wouldn't of posted here for advice.

Or, I'm not a Narcissist that thinks he knows everything about the game.

[mmoscreenshotproof]

Other people have different costs associated with crafting products. Some farm the mats themselves, thus 0 cost. Others have many different characters on possibly several accounts each with professions to reduce costs that way as well. Some people will take losses to drive you out of their market and if they have enough gold can do this for a long period of time out of principle "That's my market!"

[kymmico]

I wait for a certain point in the day, when people are all putting their auction on, I then proceed to undercut them massively.

You. You are one of the people I can't stand. I'm all for competition - and I'm cool with being undercut -as someone else said, it's part of playing the AH. But I HATE it when I stand to make a large chunk of change and someone comes along and undercuts me by more than 35% (more often than not - it's closer to 50%, but whatevs). I mean - if you played nice and undercut by 5-10% like everybody else - EVERYBODY could make a bunch of $$, but noooo.

I'm mad. Yes, I am.

[Deleted]

You. You are one of the people I can't stand. I'm all for competition - and I'm cool with being undercut -as someone else said, it's part of playing the AH. But I HATE it when I stand to make a large chunk of change and someone comes along and undercuts me by more than 35% (more often than not - it's closer to 50%, but whatevs). I mean - if you played nice and undercut by 5-10% like everybody else - EVERYBODY could make a bunch of $$, but noooo.

I'm mad. Yes, I am.

It's not their problem you're annoyed and they make gold.