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  1. #1

    Dealing with heavy undercutters, how?

    This thread is not about the morality of undercutting; there's 13 pages of that discussion here. This thread is discussing strategies to defeat heavy undercutters.

    So now that that's out of the way. There's someone on my realm who regularly crashes the JC market for hybrid gems. Every Tuesday prices go up to well over 100g per gem. And every Tuesday this guy posts 10 of each gem for 40g. Yes, 40g, down from 100g, a 250% undercut.

    Thus far I've just been buying them, and resposting with my stock. It helps move my immediate stock, but only fixes the problem until he logs on again, gets all happy that he sold out his stock, and once again crashes everything. I can move a lot in the time between buying his stuff and him posting more, but my current strategy is doing nothing but encouraging him to continue this. If I can't grab everything cheap before all the bots start undercutting his 40g, the market for that gem crashes hardcore for a few days. Of course, having to spend 40g a gem to bolster the market is cutting into my profit margin quite painfully.

    So...what do I do? Continue buying his stock and encouraging this? Doesn't seem right. Suggestions here?

  2. #2
    Repost your gems for 20g!

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Stevoman View Post
    So now that that's out of the way. There's someone on my realm who regularly crashes the JC market for hybrid gems. Every Tuesday prices go up to well over 100g per gem. And every Tuesday this guy posts 10 of each gem for 40g. Yes, 40g, down from 100g, a 250% undercut.
    I don't believe you.

    Some players have loads of gems from 4.1 shuffle. Prices will go up when they have sold their stock.

  4. #4
    Herald of the Titans
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    Buy all his auctions, repost them for higher amount, you profit off his items

  5. #5
    You could try talk to him and explaining him the stupidity of his ways.

    Or....you could continue buying his gems and reposting them. Sure, you're encouraging him to post more of them. But you're also making quite a profit.

  6. #6
    I don't see much of a problem, you are buying from him who sells cheap, then you relist for upwards of 2.5x what you paid, so you are making huge profits. If the market crashes for a few days, why aren't you buying all those gems that are under 40g? If anything you should love when the market crashes, because you get to pick up tons of gems for cheaper than you normally pay which is 40g. Once the market rebounds you'll make an even bigger profit, sure you sold no gems while the market crashed, but once it's back to 100g you need to sell fewer gems as you are making more profit on each gem.

    When someone undercuts you by this big of a margin, you actually can profit huge on it. The problem is when you are posting at 100g, and he's posting at 99g, because this means yours wont sell, and you can't bug his out as you'll lose money. Then you have to post at 98, then he posts at 97, someone else jumps in at 96. Before you know it the market is crashing and you are lucky when you can even sell a gem at 70-80g.

    Basically if people are going to undercut, you want them to undercut by a large amount, this way you can buy and resell. If they are undercutting by less than 10-20% you are in the worst position possible, as you'd have to drop your prices (profit) or wait till there's a huge buyer market and stay firm at 100g.

  7. #7
    If there's that many auctions selling the item at a lower price, then what's happening isn't that he's crashing the market but rather that you're trying to maintain an inflated price. So, yes... expect to have to keep putting in some effort to maintain your cash cow.

    Also, I don't see why you're complaining since every time he posts a 40g auction it's a 60g profit for you. Just treat him as your supplier and put your effort into making other stuff to sell.

  8. #8
    As someone else said, if they truly are that low, buy them and repost them.

    If they're high enough to make you question whether you should be buying them and reposting them, it means that they really didn't undercut by that much.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by lopk View Post
    As someone else said, if they truly are that low, buy them and repost them.

    If they're high enough to make you question whether you should be buying them and reposting them, it means that they really didn't undercut by that much.
    Buy from him directly

  10. #10
    The Patient Salarius's Avatar
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    Cut all your products to sink the economy and bring demand back up for when you repost them

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Buy all his stuff up and re-list them. It's a win-win (and I'll explain why).

    You'll win because you'll make a profit out of this.

    The other guy will win because he probably doesn't give a shit about the economy (I know I don't) and gets his fair share of gold without all this drama about "ruining economies" or whatnot.

    There is simply no loser in this scenario.

  12. #12
    Contact him directly, and ask him if he would like to COD gems to you at an agreed rate like 41g to cover his loss from mailing them to you. Then, you control how many gems you have listed without fear that this guy is at some stage going to randomly auction off some other gems, preventing possible sales from you.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    The problem (i think) is not the price of this one guys gems, it's the people that don't know what they're doing. They list their gems at the new lower price with an addon (probably at default settings) which is done again by another person which drives the prices down further and further.

    With regards to a strategy i normally don't cut my gems until i check the prices of all my cuts and then cut away.

  14. #14
    sometimes I hugely undercut just tog et rid of the damn items hoping someone will buy it quickly and repost it at a higher price, if i need funds fast, as long as i'm turning a profit i'm okay, though massive undercuts are of course rare for me I do form time to time indulge.

  15. #15
    It comes down to the fact that you prices are too high. Just because you can get away with charging a certain amount when you have no competition, doesn't mean that is the market price of the item.

    He with the lowest cost can have the lowest prices. He with the lowest prices can move the highest volume. He who moves the highest volume wins, provided they can keep their price above their cost.

    Working as intended. Lower your cost, so you can lower your price, and increase your volume.
    Quote Originally Posted by xxAkirhaxx View Post
    Blizzard is a conglomerate that through lower sub numbers has raised revenue. They're not stupid, they're just not catering to you.
    Yes yes, I know, the sky just bonked you on the head, casuals are taking over the government, and some baddie just got a raid drop... I think you'll live.

    http://darisdroppings.wordpress.com

  16. #16
    I do it sometimes too. I just list my gem for 15-20g less. It highly depends on wich item / gem tho! a: i think the price is too high b: i want some quick gold, i do not wan't to check 5 mins later i'm already undercut by 5copper and have to re-do it again. If that cheap gem gets bought out by you quickly, there's no problem for the economy. Actually he got his gold, and you got free gold.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Sidone View Post
    I do it sometimes too. I just list my gem for 15-20g less. It highly depends on wich item / gem tho! a: i think the price is too high b: i want some quick gold, i do not wan't to check 5 mins later i'm already undercut by 5copper and have to re-do it again. If that cheap gem gets bought out by you quickly, there's no problem for the economy. Actually he got his gold, and you got free gold.
    /facepalm!

    Ending it is all I fucking think about, that's the shit I think about
    All alone, bawling 'til my mothafuckin' eyes bleed

  18. #18
    i have a buddie who sells me all his ore/gems that his toons farm at a wholesale price, and i do the exact same thing its by far the eaisest way to make money, what you have to do is find out on your server when the most amount of guilds are raiding and determine what gems are going to be needed at that time and post gems at multiple prices of the same gem ranging in differnt prices sure, youre going to lose some money at the start but people are desperate at times and will always buy most of the time what they need regardless of the price

  19. #19
    Buy his gems for 40g, sell them for 100g, and thank him for the 60g per gem.
    Sounds like you will make a lot of gold from him.

  20. #20
    if the undercutter is ore shuffler - he got actually unlimited supply of gems, so there is no way in hell you can banish him from your market niches while buying his gems. logic is very simple: look, someone bought all my 10 gems - I'll go cut 15 more. as from my experience, most of those undercutters are people, who are trying to get some money from ore shuffle. so I would rather undercut them back at AH, make them gain no money for 2-3 days, get disappointed and leave my niche.

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