wtf? why do people undercut for more than 1g?

[Dina]

I suck at playing the ah ok? The only thing i can even be remotely proud over is putting a boe world drop (corefire legguards) for 40k gold and it actually sold, so with the 40k gold i decided to try my hand at playing the ah.

I did so by buying cheap uncut gems , brought all the 20int + 20 spirit that where under 60gold each and put 4-5 up for 60 gold when they sell my plan was to put another 4-5 gems up but then 4 hours later some idiot puts up 10 gems of that type for 36 gold each.

Now normally i dont complain but it makes me wonder why people do this? and its not just limited to gems either. The cloth for tailoring and bandages used to cost 160 g a stack then you suddenly see a drastic drop in prices from 160g to 120 to 80ish then 60 then 30 or even 20 gold for a stack. So i ask my druid friend who basically earned infinite amounts of Gs during wotlk and start of cata and he is like. "just buy them and put it up for your price".

and whats the deal with people putting a single flower / cloth up for shitty prices that nobody sane would ever buy? wtf is wrong with these people?

SO I HAVE TO STALK THE AH 24 / 7 to have a chance at some profit with gems and such??? HALP :<<<<

[jobdone]

Why do people undercut for more than 1g?

To sell faster.
Faster sales = more income.

[Baracuda]

Why do people undercut for more than 1g?

Too sell faster.
Faster sales = faster income.

Haha, funny logic. Gotta fix that for you.

Smart people undercut 1 copper

Edit: For further references I don't care if you buy the more expensive auction instead of the one undercut by 1 copper, the AH is a place to get what you need, and most people only care for the cheapest way to get it, if you feel an urge to be some AH police and to buy the more expensive products, then that's YOUR problem.

[Nekovivie]

Sell 1 or 2 items at high price, or sell 10-20 at lower price?

Hmm..

[Deleted]

I went to the AH this morning to sell my daily amount of 30 violated air (2 alchemists).

The cheapest was 24 gold about 4 of them. The next was 29 gold about ... a lot.

Do you think I sell mine for less than 24 gold? No way. Just put them in for 28 gold. Someone will buy the cheap stuff and then yours. Took about 2 hours until all 30 were sold.

Smart people undercut 1 copper

Everytime I see someone thinking he is pretty smart to undercut 1 copper I will buy the more expensive one. They ain't gonna trick me with that..no sir.

[Deleted]

"Time is money" and trust me, people are not going to be patient when they're holding both of their hands around an epic quality item, Darkmoon Cards etc (or whatever item it may be), but you get my point.

This happens a lot on my server and were all a victim for these "logical" sales :-)

-93sika

[jobdone]

Haha, funny logic. Gotta fix that for you.

Smart people undercut 1 copper

Which translates to more income.
More income =/= faster income.

[jearle]

To the OP, its probably a case of someone crafting items for skill ups and dumping to get rid of them.

They either:
A. Learned that JC pattern cut a ton of those gems to skill up and then wanted to dump them fast
B. Transmuted a bunch of those gems had them cut and wanted to dump them fast

This happens periodically when someone does crafting power leveling or something of the sort. They don't care about the gem market cause they are dumping and running.

[Doylez]

There are some fuckers on my server who seem to be online 24/7 and do nothing but undercut every single gem I try to sell by 1 copper every 60 seconds.. annoying as hell. Undercutting them massively usually scares them off though.

[Snuggli]

Sell 1 or 2 items at high price, or sell 10-20 at lower price?

Here's another way of looking at it:
1. High Price

Sell 1 or 2 items for 1000g and still have 8 or 9 left over to sell
2000g first day with a potential for 8000g more

2. Low Price

Sell 10 for 700g and have 0 left over to sell if prices rise/fall
7000g first day with a potential of 0g more

BUT - What happens if only 2 people want X item that day anyway? You've still sold 2 of the item, but in instance 1 you've made 2000g.. and instance 2 you've made 1400g.

The fact of the matter is... people will still buy an item whether it is 1c cheaper of 100g cheaper. People who search for an item WANT that item... the whole idea of undercutting massively to get a quick sale is a stupid idea. If you want to get rid of your items quickly, go to trade chat. If you don't, stop ruining the Auction House.


Edit:

Which translates to more income.

No, it really doesn't. You don't earn MORE if you get the money FASTER. Sure, you'll earn more if you're grinding the materials faster and selling more... But if you only have 5 items... selling the 5 items in 5 minutes, or the 5 items in 2 days doesn't matter.. the income will be the same. Infact, if you blast them all out at 5g instead of undercutting by 1c and getting 10g per item, you've infact made less money.

[ripponesan]

Haha, funny logic. Gotta fix that for you.

Smart people undercut 1 copper

You Sir, should pay more attention to you business teacher...

[Culexus]

This thread is new and exciting.

On topic:

People do it because they either need fast money or dont care about making more profit because all they want is get rid of the stuff they are listing. Also sometimes people are stupid.

[Baracuda]

Everytime I see someone thinking he is pretty smart to undercut 1 copper I will buy the more expensive one. They ain't gonna trick me with that..no sir.

Funny thing is you can't think far enough to see that you're helping people doing that, people are greedy, my auctions always get sold when I undercut with almost nothing. And when you buy the auctions below the undercutting dude his price becomes the best alternative for other greedy players, so the only thing I see with logic is you buying more expensive auctions than you ought to.

You Sir, should pay more attention to you business teacher...

I'm sorry if I'm not contributing to ruining the economy of a product.
By undercutting small amounts the price stays stable, when people undercut a lot to "scare" others away they just kill the market for that product.
So their "more income" becomes "less income" when they try to sell it again later, when they undercut by a lot it sells for a lot less after a while.

[barker]

Depends on the item.

With gems I always undercut by 20% or more. And I always wake up to a mailbox full of sold items. If I undercut by 1c everytime, someone else just undercuts me by another c in a few seconds.

Other items (such as cooldown items) where there isn't unlimited supply I usually just undercut by 1%.

I like gold, and don't have time to stare at the auction house all day, so this is my reasoning for it.

There is a huge thread in professions subforum about this too.

[Icenine]

From my experience, I only undercut 1g+ whenever the initial price of something is soooo far deviated from what the expected value of the item should be going for.

Example that I had today: Only one Ace of Stones up on the AH for 2.5k from some random person that I've never seen on my server playing the Darkmoon card game. Going price for an Earthquake deck on my server is 4.3-5k normally. Actual Auctioneer price for Ace of Stones is 950ish gold. I undercut him at 1.1k g (which is still a good profit off the normal price of the card) and I have no qualms about doing that.

Sure, someone MAY have bought the card at 2499g, but if I get a fair price for it AND sell it today, then I can go about reinvesting that gold into making a card that'll actually sell at a good price (hellooooo Waves cards) almost immediately. There's a much better chance that noone is going to buy that crappy card at that price seeing that it was initially priced over 50% of the total deck.

[Deleted]

Single flowers on the ah are maybe needed for quests.

(and consequently, insanely high priced)

[Retsucks]

I typically undercut by 20% or more. The reason being, at that price, even people who aren't looking for the items I'm posting will buy them to resell. That means faster selling and quicker cash. I have upwards of 84,000 gold right now. Sure I could have a little more. But I've established a steady customer base on the AH and through in game mail because of my pricing. I usually put 200-300 gems on the AH well below market value and then advertise in trade chat. It works very well.

inb4 you're stupid etc etc. I'm rich. That's all that matters to me.

[BlackWyvern]

Shrugs - its normal that people undercut for more than 1gold, even on a stack of 20 items its just 20 gold less, for a single item its 1 gold less, i want to sell the stuff now, i list at 12 hours, and keep checking every now and then if its sold or not , if i get undercut i undercut again, any item you can sell has a minimum sale price i want, ill go down to that, and ill still make a profit if i sell it.

If you just keep undercutting by 1c people will undercut you faster and often, its cheaper to just undercut heavily and sell it then have to re listen it after 12/24/48 hours where you pay more by re listening than when you undercut right from the start.

[Deleted]

I did so by buying cheap uncut gems , brought all the 20int + 20 spirit that where under 60gold each and put 4-5 up for 60 gold when they sell my plan was to put another 4-5 gems up but then 4 hours later some idiot puts up 10 gems of that type for 36 gold each.

Why did you put the on at 60g each?

I wanted to sell mine at 100g each but I cannot now.

Alternatively, you put them on at what you felt them to be worth or a price you felt they would sell at. The other person put them up at what they thought they were worth or a price they would sell at. That's the way it works.

The problem is you decided to jump on the AH game and expected to come out smelling of roses on your first day. Learn from this, and find your market, and then be prepared for the sometimes ruthless undercutting.

[Pantelija]

Undercuting for over 10 to 20 g on a 300 g item is stupid as hell and people saying "it sells faster herp derp" are pretty much stupid

If u undercut it by 1 copper it will still sell at same rate as if u would have undercut it by 100 g because people buy the cheapest one first...

I dont have problems with 1 douche undercutting by large amounts , i have problems with douchebags undercuting other douchebags thus bringing item price so low its not even worth putting it on AH

TL;DR I doesnt matter by how much u undercut it IT WILL SELL AT SAME RATE(DONT BE AN IDIOT AND UNDERCUT IT BY 20% or more , undercut it by 5% MAX)