Undercutting and relisting

[ablib]

People who sit at the AH forever and constantly cancel auctions and relist are just bad. They're defeating the purpose of making easy gold for the time spent with that method of AH playing.

To sit there for hours, constantly canceling and re-posting auctions (losing deposits, and time), you're just as bad at gold per hour as someone who farms. Might as well go out mining, if you're going to spend all that time doing the work, instead of letting the AH do the work.

[endersblade]

I remember about a month or so after MoP came out, I was attempting to sell two sets of the crafted PvP leather stuff - one melee, one caster. I put each piece up for about 50s less than the others, but these things were selling so fast I figured it wouldn't matter. At the time, each piece was going for about 2-3k each, depending on slot. My auctions didn't sell, and I went to relist...only to find out that one person had reposted like 5 sets worth of armor up on the AH for about 2g less than I had. So I did the same to him, posted my two sets up for 2g less. About an hour later, he whispers me and, long story short, basically said he has enough leather to control the market on these things, there's no point in me trying to sell mine.

So I spend about 2 solid days farming leather. Probably a good 8+ hours a day just grinding and grinding. I made 16 sets of PvP gear, posted 8 of them on the AH for 200g, and waited. The outcome was a bit more than I expected...people were exploding in chat lol. Apparently some other people just started relisting for less than 200g a piece, and by the end of the day, they were selling for about 100g each :-P This is what happens when lazy people just hit buttons on Auctioneer instead of paying attention :-) The guy who whispered me earlier flung a slew of curse words at me, and I ended up getting him suspended. But I basically killed the market for a while for the leather PvP gear lol.

There's a right way and a wrong way to play the AH. Do it the wrong way and you most certainly will get burned. It seems to me that the 'AH etiquette' from ye olden tymes has gone away, and it's nothing but ADD kiddies trying to price gouge as much as they can. There's just no honor anymore. While what I did was neither honorable or smart, it just proves that anyone can do whatever they want on the AH and just fuck everybody else.

Typically, if it's a hot-selling item or an item that doesn't usually have many listings, I will post prices identical to whatever is up there, preserving the price. If there are pages and pages (say, herbs or ore) then yeah, I will do my best to have the cheapest price, or even outright sell in bulk via trade. But I just hate the people who rely on addons to calculate undercutting and just post it like that, as you can scroll through 20 pages of ore and see about a 5% undercut between each person's posts. There's just no need for that sort of thing on quick-moving items.

[Skygore]

I truly hated people who undercut by 1 c, until i started doing it myself. I can no longer hate them as i am one of them. I find that method of cutting fairly useful in a greatly needed market; however, in a market where it takes days to sell one item it isnt as effective.

[ItachiZaku]

I got 2 AH bots to come from on cogwheels from 200g per to 50g per cuz I had 2 extras (didn't realize ghost Iron dragonling was unique) so just wanted to dump the two cogwheels... they wouldn't let me. They each had 10 of each and would post 5 undercutting me by 1c. I kept reposting and reposting and got them down to 55g and 50g.... so I made one of each of the others and did the same but did it much quicker.

If I'm just looking to dump extras or stuff created while leveling to just get rid of, I don't like the undercutters like this, but if it's a farm/profit... i won't really fight too much. I don't put tons of stacks up, i'll put up wool cloth for 20g a stack and the guy selling for 45g a stack will buy it out thinking he's cornering the market... but I have 195 stacks of it trying to farm Crimson Whelp... and yeah. I'm bored.

[Itisamuh]

Those of you griping about people putting stuff up for actual reasonable and fair prices instead of matching your rip off prices will get no sympathy from me. I hate people who control the action house. I will never understand how that can be considered anything but game manipulation and ruining player experience.

[Squirreludecker]

If it's worth 100g, just buy it out at 10 and resale for 100. Why would that annoy you? Oh...it's value is really 10g and you can't gouge the market? My heart bleeds

Meanwhile, I'm 10g richer!

its "value" is whatever someone will pay for it. nothing in the game has intrinsic value. had you set yours to 95 gold, then youd have 95g instead of 10g. so really you just screwed yourself.

---------- Post added 2013-07-01 at 07:01 PM ----------

Those of you griping about people putting stuff up for actual reasonable and fair prices instead of matching your rip off prices will get no sympathy from me. I hate people who control the action house. I will never understand how that can be considered anything but game manipulation and ruining player experience.

"actual fair and reasonable price" is not 20% or less of normal market price. if a gem or such normally sells for 120g and someone lists it for 20g, then its a dick move and has pretty often resulted in temp bans for breaking game

[Deleted]

Those of you griping about people putting stuff up for actual reasonable and fair prices instead of matching your rip off prices will get no sympathy from me. I hate people who control the action house. I will never understand how that can be considered anything but game manipulation and ruining player experience.

This thread was really about the changing face of the ah to soemthing that is now intensely competitive and addon driven.

1. There is no grope from me about undercutting per se whether that be 1c or mat cost. It is just the way things are.
2. An item is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. Sellers would like more and buyers would like to pay as little as possible. Somewhere those two meet. For you as a buyer to start telling people what you consider a reasonable price and then complaining is just the other side of the same coin.
3. On a decent size server there are very few people who can lay claim to conrolling an auction house as the competition is fierce. It isnt out of greed, just people like to compete.
4. If a player is a big seller on the ah you claim that is game manipulation and ruins players experience. That is just plain silly. If by manipulation you mean understanding how the game works and trying to use the simple rules of economics to make gold, then you would be correct. On that basis you are manipulating the game by learning how to be better at pve and pvp.
5. Ruining players experience? You are not forced to buy anything from these players. level your own professions or join a guild with all the professions available and then you wont have to buy from the ah. Any guild should be self sufficient and these days many players with multiple professions are also in that position. Alternatively go and farm your own items because nobody is stopping you and its available to everyone.

[Issalice]

I rarely cancel and repost an auction. Undercutting doesn't bother me unless it is a massive one. Like I post a 3k item, someone comes in and posts it for 1k. Sometimes it annoys me, other times if it is an item I am not sure of the worth I will cancel mine and then undercut the 1k auction.

I actually had someone whisper me because I undercut one of their auctions. The person was a complete ass about it and made a huge fuss,they then of course ignored me immediately after so I couldn't reply. They accused me of uc'ing them by more than 3k, which I hadn't, they had just read it wrong.

[-Skye]

The people that undercut by massive amounts need to be taken out back and beaten into submission. Especially the ones on my server that do it just to grief AH sellers and not to make gold.

I don't get to mad about it though. I make 3-6k per day from glyphs and shoulder enchants and that's enough for me. Went from always having about 5k gold to just over 200k. I'm sure I could make more as I have every max level prof.

Bit extreme isn't it? I'm that guy who sees auctions up for 200g and sells the item for 70g, not to 'grief' the other sellers just because I don't want to hold onto it and I'd rather make 70g and it sell instantly rather than keep undercutting and re listing over and over. And people make money off me when I do that by buying those items and re-selling them so be thankful! :P

[Deleted]

The more overpriced something is the more I undercut, I never cared for much gold so it isn't the first time I've made an items marketvalue drop with 50%. Even if it is only for 2 days.

[Deleted]

I've had people whisper me for heavy undercutting on gems. Sorry pal but I ain't trying to rob people 600g/gem, when the raw gems cost max 150.

[tankbug]

If I have a semi-rare BOE blue that people would like for a transmog, and I see that there are two of them listed at ...say....1999g, I will prolly undercut to 999 or something, because I think that poster is crazy and will never sell a simple, useless item for 2k gold.

Other than that I don't even know the price of the stuff I sell. I don't have a steady income from anything, but I do have a lot of alts that find a huge amount of greens and other stuff of moderate or low value. This I dump on my bank alt which uses Auctioneer to get the current price of items and undercut them with 10% or thereabouts, and do a mass post. Most of what I post comes back as unsold auctions, but it's profitable enough to help me out when I need to invest in expensive things, like dancing steel enchant.

[Deleted]

I allways undercut by 1c, why anyone would do different is beyond me. People undercutting things with 10g and undermining the value of items are just stupid and I just wanna punch people listing items for over 60% under their value.

And for people like the guy above me that have no clue about items value, there are websites you can look it up as The Undermine Journal.

http://www.theunderminejournal.com

[deads0ng]

I can understand being frustrated by it but I'm not really sure how you can realistically say someone who undercuts by a large amount is doing something "wrong". There are no laws to a game's virtual economy (besides the obvious ones in regards to cheating). A person can list something for whatever price they want if they just want to make gold fast.

Even if they constantly re-list things they can still make an easy profit if you consider the fact that it took absolutely no effort to acquire the item to begin with.

[DeadmanWalking]

Some people consider the auction house to be another form of PVP. Sometimes in high reward markets with lots of competition constant undercutting is the only way to get your stuff to move.

[Deleted]

People who sit at the AH forever and constantly cancel auctions and relist are just bad. They're defeating the purpose of making easy gold for the time spent with that method of AH playing.

To sit there for hours, constantly canceling and re-posting auctions (losing deposits, and time), you're just as bad at gold per hour as someone who farms. Might as well go out mining, if you're going to spend all that time doing the work, instead of letting the AH do the work.

In the highly competitive market such as gems, enchants and alchemy then this analysis is a load of rubbish I will agree on letting the ah do the work but there is a time and a place. Constantly reposting auctions is dull and it takes time, but it is still way more profitable than gathering if done correctly. It is also easy to do relatively quickly whilst doing other things like waiting for bgs. If you dont sell anything then you make zero profit. It also ives you an opportunity to study current trends in the ah. If you are smart then you choose carefully and apply your time accordingly.

[superbotje]

I'm only annoyed by ppl that undercut by 50% without even looking at the market prize.

Normal prize of item is 100g
You put it on for 100g (since that is the going prize)

Player B puts 20 items on for 50g and you think "Nice, buy all so i can relist them for 100".
But while you're buying his items for 50g, player C undercuts him by another 50% and puts on 50 items for 25g.

And then even player C gets undercut by 5 others.

In the end you end up with like 120 items you can hardly sell anymore.

[Deleted]

I'm only annoyed by ppl that undercut by 50% without even looking at the market prize.

Normal prize of item is 100g
You put it on for 100g (since that is the going prize)

Player B puts 20 items on for 50g and you think "Nice, buy all so i can relist them for 100".
But while you're buying his items for 50g, player C undercuts him by another 50% and puts on 50 items for 25g.

And then even player C gets undercut by 5 others.

In the end you end up with like 120 items you can hardly sell anymore.

That is just the fun of the market though. You dont have to buy him up and its a way of the market finding its level. A smart person will always be thinking ahead on what they should buy up and what will be useless tat.

[Forgettable]

I don't do undercutting wars, I leave my gems up for 24hours and if they sell, great. I will undercut by 1-3g. When I am buying things, I specifically do NOT buy from anyone who undercuts by 1copper. That pisses me off. As such, there are a number of people on my server I boycott buying from, and I will gladly buy from people I recognize even if they are 5g more expensive.