Trying to Understanding A Particular Player on AH

[bigbuddt]

This is not a thread about the morals of heavy undercutting. Instead I'm trying to figure out what exactly this player is doing.

This player in the last couple of month got into the inscription business and use to post his glyphs at 1kg when there's no competition. But every couple of days he drops his prices to 20g when the competition gets heavy soon after that he raises his prices up to 1k again after a few days then drops it to 20g a couple days after that and repeats the cycle. I and basically everyone else in the inscription business been playing with him and undercutting him every step of the way. It's not like he's dominating the market at 20g and he probably makes more gold if he just undercuts like everyone else.

It's also prb not that he wants to make glyphs cheap for everyone cause he charged 1k gold when there's no other glyph around (which is more than anyone else in the inscription business has their max setting).

It seemed like he wanted to deplete the competitors supply but after a couple of months of this and seeing he's still being undercut, I don't think he's making much dent or the competition isn't going away.

It doesn't seem like he's trying to get rid of all his glyphs and get out of AH cause I see him making new glyphs each day.

So the only thing I can conclude is he's a jackass who has the mentality "If I don't make gold, no one else can" or has a bot backing him up with infinity supply of herbs (even then why reduce your profits from a couple hundred gold to 10?).

Like anyone thoughts on this and what's the best way to approach this without cussing him out in the actual game. Thanks.

[Omega10]

It sounds like he found that if he sells for more than 20g, he immediately gets undercut and makes no sale. So in order to make a sale, he has to post it at 20g. Even at 20g a glyph you can make quite a bit of money if you keep at it, so he is selling at the only price that makes him gold.

Selling for more than 20g: he immediately gets undercut and he has to repost
Selling for 20g: he makes sales, and gold.

[Mammoth]

Either what Omega says or he's playing a very cleaver game. You undercut everyone heavily so that they can no longer be bothered competing in that market and go away. He then posts his glyphs for a very high price. This high price isn't likely to make him many sales, but if someone is desperate enough they will pay 1000g for a glyph and he will make the same profit as selling 50 glyphs at a sensible price.

Its a tactic with promise. To combat it however, you just have to keep your consistent price and don't give him the chance to apply his very high prices. If he starts buying out your glyphs, even better, just sell him more.

[tanjian]

Some people try to knock out their competition by ruining the market. The competition leaves and you can raise up again.
I know from personal experience that after a while people re "discover" that market and the undercutting each other starts again.

I also have to admit that the AH feels sometimes like "duelling". The first time i noticed that about myself i was surprised. Especially my behaviour.

I'm not going into detail if it is right or wrong but i am convinced the ah messing around also happens in real life. Like seasonal pricing, buying large and draining market and then be the only seller. For example this happened with choclate materials. A huge amount was bought and it had driven up prices. The only ones who didn't have a big issue was the ones with a fixed contract with people making mats for choclate.