AH undercutting

[Ealyssa]

I bought 100 rank 2 legendary precursors for 200g each on week one.

Sold them for 9000 each last wednesday (EU reset and first day of rank 2 legendaries availability).

I love the stupid undercuting. Please continue, make me rich.
And it's really not an issue. Just like real life, buy when it's low, sell when it's high. It's not rocket science.

[chubbybunny]

I love doing the undercutting.. I'll know if i sell my stuff for 25 silver less, people will buy it to re-sell at a higher price.... Job done, I ride off into the sunset with some cash in my backpacks, instead of a backpack full of shit that won't sell..

[oplawlz]

I do it to lower the market price, because gold is easy to make elsewhere and I love the tears of price gougers. Also it's fun to figure out exactly when and how many of something to drop for cheap on the ah to make those dips stick.

[ablib]

Yay. Another AH whining thread where people don't understand how supply and demand works.

[Garymorilix]

Or the fact that there are 10k might mean that no one is able to sell and inventory is building up, in which case undercutting is smart.

Once again.

If they have 10k up on the AH and then you post NEW stock YOURS WILL BE SOLD FIRST.
Undercutting is useless.

The only thing you do by undercutting is lessen the value of the items.

Those who need the items will buy those items anyway. The price is not important.
What is important to both you and the other sellers is making money.

If you undercut YOU LOSE OUT on gold.

[Grapple]

Once again.

If they have 10k up on the AH and then you post NEW stock YOURS WILL BE SOLD FIRST.
Undercutting is useless.

The only thing you do by undercutting is lessen the value of the items.

Those who need the items will buy those items anyway. The price is not important.
What is important to both you and the other sellers is making money.

If you undercut YOU LOSE OUT on gold.

this is EXACTLY how supply and demand works. If supply continues to go up and demand does not, the value of the supply naturally goes down. in order to move supply you must either hold out (time is money, so you are losing money), or lower price.

[Garymorilix]

this is EXACTLY how supply and demand works. If supply continues to go up and demand does not, the value of the supply naturally goes down. in order to move supply you must either hold out (time is money, so you are losing money), or lower price.

There is no decrease in demand tho.

We are talking about items that are essential and cannot be substituted.

The price of Vigil's Torch has dropped 40 gold each in the last few days (mind you, the RELEASE WEEK OF THE RAID) simply because people post 20-30 stacks for 1-2 less gold that decreases its value in a single day.
At this point the demand of Vigil's Torch has not decreased, people are eating up potions left and right, only the price tag decreased because of stupid af people.

They do not realize that they hurt their own sales with their stupidity.

You do not decrease the price of something just because more people consume it. You do the opposite, try to make as much money as you can.

[Masternap]

People have the right to list whatever they want at whatever price they want. This is how the free market works.

You need to stop. You are not the sole arbiter of what anything should be listed at.

The shards are obviously selling well for 200g, and every single person who lists it for less is an idiot. Not only do they destroy the market - they also completely destroy their own profits for no reason at all.

Undercutting high-value items is one thing, but undercutting high turnover items is just stupid beyond belief. I hate everyone who does this and have every right to complain about how stupid they are. This has absolutely nothing to do with me wanting to dictate the price. This has to do with people being gigantic idiots and me being annoyed by that as it affects everyone's profits.

[Tziva]

If I have to relist something more than two times, I'm just going to undercut by as much as I think I need to to sell the thing. I don't give a fuck about playing the market, I hate having to do AH shit, if it really bothers you then just buy it out and relist it higher. I want shit to sell more than I want to maximize profits, so I can go out and do the stuff I want to do not stand around at an auctioneer.

[Grapple]

If they have 10k up on the AH and then you post NEW stock YOURS WILL BE SOLD FIRST.

You do not decrease the price of something just because more people consume it. You do the opposite, try to make as much money as you can.

these two arguments counter each-other:

1. you state price should stay the same despite there being to much supply.

2. You state that with higher demand the price should go up.

So when does price go down? in free markets, price goes down when supply becomes to great or demand becomes to little (or when people just want to offload an item to get it out of their bag fast).

additionally, you state:

The only thing you do by undercutting is lessen the value of the items.

unless the AH is actually moving 10k of the item in 24 hours, the ACTUAL value of the item is decreasing, "undercutting" is a normalizing effect and not a reduction of value.

[Issalice]

I just can't help but role my eyes at these posts, get over it. People can sell it for whatever they want to sell it for.

[Aerwydd]

I have to ask how you guys find a reason to reply to these threads, it was a basic question and all the points worth making were made in the first few posts and now the entire thread is just flaming each other. You enjoy arguing more than the game you're arguing over.

[SirBeef]

Because he wants certainty that it sells i suppose, when yours expire i mean.

Or he might just have been annoyed by high pricing and figured to kick it down a notch or two.

Or he just did it for the lols.

And frankly lower prices are good for everyone. Buyers pay less while sellers are implicitly reminded that another can do it for less, and thus they should keep moving to improve and expand.

I did this with the belt buckles in Cata. They were going for a ridiculous amount like 3500g each. I was selling mine for 900 becasue after all that was the fair price for similar good on my server. They were being bought out and relisted. However, I had so many whispers and messages in the mail from people wanting them at 900, the market corrected itself.

[Kantoro]

its online currency, some people don't care, they just want their pixels, how much doesn't really matter. Milk is still $2/gallon, gas is still $4/gallon.

[Firebert]

To be honest I think even more control should be taken away from the AH gold-farmers; anyone with over 5m gold gets taxed weekly (lore reason: tithe to Oribos) and everything should be bought and sold a la the WoW token.

It's obvious with other in-game systems that players en masse ruin anything that they can control.

[Tiwack]

Looks like another goblin wants to corner that market for himself or some schmuck just wants to make a quick buck - much like you.

[Moozart]

Just buy them all out and relist for 650g. What's the problem?

On some servers, I know on mine some moron would relist 100 more at 300g, and the cycle would keep going. You would end up losing gold. Id hate to see how those same people hand money IRL.

[InfernalDark]

When I'm clearing my bank, I'm selling stuff for cheap.

[themortalgod]

The wow economy doesn't behave like a real economy because it can never have a diversity of product. There is no concept of things like salesmanship, quality, reliability, brand, etc. Everyone's health potion is exactly the same as everyone else's health potion and we all have to sell it the exact same way. Precisely so. As a result, the ONLY market differentiator is the price.

On top of that, wow introduces the concept of almost all products being created as part of training your profession. This drives down prices like crazy because players have a reason to make something and then sell it for less than the value of its material because they just made it to train. This will forever mess with the economy. (In the real world crafting something and then selling it for less than it cost to craft it is a recipe for bankruptcy. The only time that works is if you have deep pockets and are trying to force competitors out of business with the intention of raising prices later)

What items are currently listed for is NOT its value. Its value is determined by what people are willing to pay for it. Aka, what it is selling for. I see this mistake made often on ebay as well. People will look up a listing and be like: "look, its listed for X, that must be what it is worth!" In reality you need to search ebay for recent sales if you want a marker for what something is worth, current listings tell you nothing other than what a given seller thinks it is worth.

I find often, on AH, the current listing prices are really inflated because you often have whale who want to keep an item at a certain price so buy up anyone who undercuts them. When this is happening, if you want to actually make sales, you have to undercut and sell to the whale. If you post at the value they are holding at you won't sell unless you want to play the "all-day" cancel and relist game that they are playing. Your listing won't be at the top of the list for more than a second or two. Instead, undercutting by 5-10% will sell instantly because the whale who is obsessively watching will buy everything immediately.

Eventually, the whale's grip on a given market will break because demand or supply will shift enough that the whale is making no sales at their given price point or so many undercuts are coming in that they cannot afford to keep buying up all the competition. At which point the price of the product will usually settle to what it is worth. (at least until some other whale decides to try to control a given market for a product)

You can easily tell if a whale is trying to control a market if the value of an item on your server is significantly higher than the regional average.

[Garymorilix]

these two arguments counter each-other:

1. you state price should stay the same despite there being to much supply.

2. You state that with higher demand the price should go up.

So when does price go down? in free markets, price goes down when supply becomes to great or demand becomes to little (or when people just want to offload an item to get it out of their bag fast).

additionally, you state:


unless the AH is actually moving 10k of the item in 24 hours, the ACTUAL value of the item is decreasing, "undercutting" is a normalizing effect and not a reduction of value.

You do realize this is not real life?

Nobody said that there is "too much supply".

In an economy where you literally cannot substitute an item you can set the price of the item to whatever the fuck you want.
Marrowroot demand would be the same whether it's 40g each or 120g each. You need the same amount of flask/potions for your progress either way.
So why wouldn't you sell it for 120g each?

Why bring it's price down by 1 gold hourly until it is dirt cheap?
This is not good for anyone BUT the buyer. But the buyer would buy no matter the price because they cannot just "buy something else".

Hence why undercutting is dumb af.