Guild Wars 2

Surely there’s a way systems can make limitations to undercutting, such as making a minimum amount below the lowest priced item you can undercut by, or better, allowing people to adjust their listings to match the new lower prices.

I get screwed over every time I try to sell anything on the TP.

If people all match the lowest current price, almost all of those items can sell. However if people continually undercut each other by 1c or 1s each, listings get buried and may never sell.

You’re left with losing out on posting fees and paying posting fees again, or just letting it rot and hoping someday the price goes back up.

It’s a really crappy system, and it robs more money from normal players than it does power traders.

Either of those two options or make a secure trade so that we can trade outside of the TP without getting scammed.

It’s not a problem if you aren’t greedy and are willing to wait a bit. Or it this another case of getting undercut on 100g and up luxury items?

Check the trading history for the last 24 hours and post a price in that range and wait a day. It’s not rocket surgery. I routinely post items no where near the current low sell price and they still sell within the day because I know it’s within the current trading range.

Only problem is when there’s a lot that’s been dumped at one price because 1) everyone will undercut it and 2) it’s going to take a while for that price “wall” to be worn away.

Reality check: other people have the EXACT SAME goods as you do – and if they are willing to take a lower price for it, their product moves before yours does.

Your choice of price is not sacred. It deserves no special protection.

Wouldn’t you just hate it if there were 200 rare warhorns listed for 20s but the only way to sells yours quicker would be to sell it for 17s? (You would)

…any solution?

Yes, don’t overprice your item.

Trust me, if your item is well priced it will sell. I guarantee that. If it is not selling then it is priced too high and the amount of people prepared to buy at that price is too low thus lower demand and prices go down to where enough people are prepared to pay.

If you sell an item for 20s, and that is a good price but then someone comes in and sells for 19s 99c it is not the end of the world. Leave it for a few hours/days depending on the demand of the item and it will sell.

Whether you like it or not prices go up and down depending on supply and demand.

EDIT: Also do you think an item gets undercut and undercut and undercut to the point that all items are 1c? No. Item’s prices fluctuate, and they can fluctuate very quickly.

Nike.2631:

Reality check: other people have the EXACT SAME goods as you do – and if they are willing to take a lower price for it, their product moves before yours does.

Your choice of price is not sacred. It deserves no special protection.

Yup, I know, and the things I’m selling, I tracked the prices of and they’re always just a little over 3g. I matched lowest price, suddenly I"m undercut, and that guy is undercut, and that guy is undercut, and now my listing is buried under 20+ other listings. The price difference between mine and the lowest is only about 12s. But if I remove my listings I lose about 2g in posting fees. That’s the stupid part of it, the posting fees.

If you could adjust your sell price without losing posting fees this wouldn’t be an issue.

But you can’t.

You eat the posting fees because someone undercut you by 1c.

kitten answer … fill buy orders! No way for anyone to undercut you there.
I am only half kidding. When I craft stuff to sell I usually do it only when I can still make a profit while selling to the highest buyer. Sometimes the difference between buy and sell is just so high that it is not necessary.

Patience, it will eventually sell, I had some stuff that got undercut weeks ago which sold yesterday and today. What I hate is when some kitten undercuts way low (1% profit or less) with 3500 of an item (especially one that doesn’t move all that quick). Looking at about a month before that one clears out. Good thing I diversify, doesn’t matter if my money is stuck in the market, I’m still making some money on other stuff in the mean time.

Khisanth.2948:

kitten answer … fill buy orders! No way for anyone to undercut you there.
I am only half kidding. When I craft stuff to sell I usually do it only when I can still make a profit while selling to the highest buyer. Sometimes the difference between buy and sell is just so high that it is not necessary.

Custom offers are almost ALWAYS done by power traders who are flipping items. The same jerks who are undercutting you by 1c are putting buy orders 1c over the current buy order.

As long as they can still flip it for a profit.

I want my moneyz fast.

If i think an item sells slow, i always undercut 5-10%
On the other hand, something like Unidentified Dye, i wont sell if there r to many low sell orders. Its a fast moving item, after a while the sell prices will go up again.

Really man?

I’m sure Arenanet has a VERY VERY STRICT “HANDS-OFF” policy with the player driven auction house, outside of potential exploits.

If they’re anything like Blizzard, they will not care if a player tries to “Corner the Market”, however if a player exploits a bug or defect, they will step in.

That being said, sure… I get mad when people undercut me. You know what I do? RELIST. Its outside of my control. I can’t whisper someone “HEY MAN CAN YOU NOT UNDERCUT ME PLEASE I WANT TO MAKE MONEY PLEASE”, I’ll just get laughed at.

Devildoc.6721:

Nike.2631:

Reality check: other people have the EXACT SAME goods as you do – and if they are willing to take a lower price for it, their product moves before yours does.

Your choice of price is not sacred. It deserves no special protection.

Yup, I know, and the things I’m selling, I tracked the prices of and they’re always just a little over 3g. I matched lowest price, suddenly I"m undercut, and that guy is undercut, and that guy is undercut, and now my listing is buried under 20+ other listings. The price difference between mine and the lowest is only about 12s. But if I remove my listings I lose about 2g in posting fees. That’s the stupid part of it, the posting fees.

If you could adjust your sell price without losing posting fees this wouldn’t be an issue.

But you can’t.

You eat the posting fees because someone undercut you by 1c.

The only thing I can think is that you can research the historic sell price of the item before you post it. That way you aren’t posting it at the lowest sell price at a time when said price is much higher than the historic sell price.

For example, if Abyss dye usually trends around 21g, and when you go to sell your Abyss you see the lowest sell price is at 24g, you might want to consider that it is likely to be undercut unless someone buys yours quickly or unless something else in the market has changed.

Its not a problem at all if you just sell to a buy order and not attempt to be greedy and squeeze every copper you can out of it… after relisting fees you end up losing more money than you would have generally if you would have just sold it to the buy order to begin with and you save time waiting for the gold too.

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

Its not a problem at all if you just sell to a buy order and not attempt to be greedy and squeeze every copper you can out of it… after relisting fees you end up losing more money than you would have generally if you would have just sold it to the buy order to begin with and you save time waiting for the gold too.

again, buy orders are done by people flipping. THEY’RE the greedy ones.

About the “hands off policy” that’s why I think the best idea is allowing you to alter the sell price of your listing without relisting and losing posting fees. That would be the best way to handle it.

I think you’re only thinking of yourself here. Do you honestly believe YOU would benefit from there not being a re-listing fee? My guess is all those under-cutters would be overjoyed by the fact that they can endlessly undercut you.

Devildoc.6721:

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

Its not a problem at all if you just sell to a buy order and not attempt to be greedy and squeeze every copper you can out of it… after relisting fees you end up losing more money than you would have generally if you would have just sold it to the buy order to begin with and you save time waiting for the gold too.

again, buy orders are done by people flipping. THEY’RE the greedy ones.

I think you’re allowing prejudice to color your understanding of the market. Firstly, buy offers aren’t all from flippers. The trading post was purposely made to span across all servers so that it is monumentally difficult for a small selection of players to influence the market. John Smith has said many times that all the so-called “power traders” don’t account for a significant portion of the activity on the trading post. Posting buy offers is just a smart, low-risk way to buy a given item for slightly cheaper because you’re providing the service of convenience to sellers, and you don’t have to be a power trader or flipper to understand and apply this concept.

Secondly, you seem to be making the judgement that people who buy things on the TP to sell are greedy, whereas you are not. But both of you are trying to sell things for as much as you can get. The only difference is how you obtained the item. The flippers obtained the items by researching the market for it and providing a service of convenience to sellers who would rather spend their time doing things other than researching the market. You obtained the items via luck. Why does that make your sell listing less greedy than that of a flipper?

To help illustrate the concept of the service that flippers provide, think about TurboTax. You have to buy the software or pay to use it online for anything more complicated than 1040EZ. But (for almost all private citizens) you can do everything that software does by yourself for free if you just follow the instructions that came with your tax form. Is the company that makes TurboTax greedy for charging you money to do something that can be done for free and thus profiting from your desire for convenience? If not, then why is a person greedy for profiting off of buyers’ and sellers’ desire for convenience? Furthermore, it’s been explained a bajillion times in this forum that flippers don’t influence market value of any item, they actually provide an overall service to the market by driving buy/sell listings towards market equilibrium and so help prevent people from losing a lot of money by selling something for too low or buying something for too high. If a flipper is able to make money, it’s because other people are being too greedy and posting buy/sell offers that are very far from the true market value.

Devildoc.6721:

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

Its not a problem at all if you just sell to a buy order and not attempt to be greedy and squeeze every copper you can out of it… after relisting fees you end up losing more money than you would have generally if you would have just sold it to the buy order to begin with and you save time waiting for the gold too.

again, buy orders are done by people flipping. THEY’RE the greedy ones.

About the “hands off policy” that’s why I think the best idea is allowing you to alter the sell price of your listing without relisting and losing posting fees. That would be the best way to handle it.

Flippers are a whole other topic that is better left to other threads since there are an abundance already.
But I’m not a fan of re-listing with no repercussions… maybe a relist with a 2.5% fee rather than 5% but the fee is there to make sure people really think about the price they’re listing at and to also encourage people to fill buy orders. If there wasn’t an additional fee going with the sales fee then people would be MUCH less apt to sell to buy orders and I buy almost everything I get through buy orders because you get a much better deal so that would cause a lot of issues to players like me who are willing to wait a LITTLE bit longer to get an item. Not all buy orders are placed by flippers.

I don’t sell anything I buy, and I use nothing but buy orders to get my stuff.

Buy orders are for ANYBODY who understands just how incredibly massive and fast moving this market is, not just flippers.

I’m a harvester, and I don’t get off on the idea of being somebody else’s serf, so I’m a big proponent of “reverse undercutting”. I rarely list worthwhile-but-enormous-volume items for the current lowest offer. I have a good feel for where most of the items I coincidentally farm sell for at the peak of their cycles, and I list them at those peaks and then just ignore them till they sell. You can have all the mithril ore I dig up you want, as long as you pay 50c each. It might not cost that now, but it will sometime in the next month, and I don’t need the money now-now-now, so I just post them for 50c even when the going rate is around 26c… Undecut me all you want, the tide will rise and mine will sell. I have high but hittable values for probably 50 items in my head and I just stash them and stash them and stash them at those high prices and then giggle when I log in and find a stray gold or 2 waiting for me at the Black Lion because something finally cycled to the high tide mark. Keeps my bag space clear, gives me the most money a harvester can hope for from each item, and ain’t nobody buying my stuff with the intent to flip.

SeasThyDay.7398:

I think you’re only thinking of yourself here. Do you honestly believe YOU would benefit from there not being a re-listing fee? My guess is all those under-cutters would be overjoyed by the fact that they can endlessly undercut you.

You can try to race to a price floor but eventually it’s not going to be profitable for them.

Nike.2631:

I don’t sell anything I buy, and I use nothing but buy orders to get my stuff.

Buy orders are for ANYBODY who understands just how incredibly massive and fast moving this market is, not just flippers.

I’m a harvester, and I don’t get off on the idea of being somebody else’s serf, so I’m a big proponent of “reverse undercutting”. I rarely list worthwhile-but-enormous-volume items for the current lowest offer. I have a good feel for where most of the items I coincidentally farm sell for at the peak of their cycles, and I list them at those peaks and then just ignore them till they sell. You can have all the mithril ore I dig up you want, as long as you pay 50c each. It might not cost that now, but it will sometime in the next month, and I don’t need the money now-now-now, so I just post them for 50c even when the going rate is around 26c… Undecut me all you want, the tide will rise and mine will sell. I have high but hittable values for probably 50 items in my head and I just stash them and stash them and stash them at those high prices and then giggle when I log in and find a stray gold or 2 waiting for me at the Black Lion because something finally cycled to the high tide mark. Keeps my bag space clear, gives me the most money a harvester can hope for from each item, and ain’t nobody buying my stuff with the intent to flip.

Like I said, I did keep track of the item I was going to sell and it has never been below 3g that I’ve ever seen. Suddenly now it’s under 3g or just barely over for 3 days in a row.

Well, the solution is simple: when trying to sell expensive items, use buy orders instead!

It’s a very basic rule that any rl shopkeeper would know: never try to sell an expensive item unless it’s either already been ordered by a client or it’s on very high demand. The potential profit is usually not worth the risk. There’s a good reason flippers are dealing with low-cost crafting materials and not stuff like lodestones, you know.

A lot of people don’t seem to understand that there are many many factors that are involved in prices of items. You may have researched your item and seen the market trends for the past few days but you’re obviously missing other parts of the supply/demand/flip chain cuz you’re getting undercut like crazy.

The current economic situation is creating a lot of supply for certain mats/items due to the ease with which people can farm them (pavilion). The events have also created a beastly demand on certain consumables as well as other items as people make money and want to improve themselves.

If the item you’re listing is at all influenced by mats supply thanks to the new event, you’re going into a market that people will undercut like crazy in order to make profits Now. That’s just the nature of the economics of the game.

Don’t make assumptions about greed or the like because greed is something that drives EVERYONE who plays the game. Whether it’s items, gear, achievement points, # of lvl 80’s, etc; everyone is greedy about something.

Nike.2631:

You can have all the mithril ore I dig up you want, as long as you pay 50c each. It might not cost that now, but it will sometime in the next month, and I don’t need the money now-now-now, so I just post them for 50c even when the going rate is around 26c… Undecut me all you want, the tide will rise and mine will sell.

Interesting… I recently sold a stack of Mithril Ore for 29c each. For fast moving commodities, I typically just sell my goods at whatever the current lowest seller is offering them for (or 1c below), but perhaps I should look at pricing my Mithril at 35 – 40c. Thanks for the tip.

Happy to help.

The thing to understand is that flipping makes money on the value of time. People in a hurry throw away there own labor. People in a hurry hand over more of their wealth than they have to. The flipper concentrates that value coming and going. I serve as my own flipper: I take my goods and while I note the current prices instead of selling them now, I set them aside for the time it takes for the price to ebb and flow up to my target value, and then I sell them when my payout is good enough – the thing is the TP itself serves as my storage space while I’m waiting out the fluctuations. And because they are stored on the TP my reaction time is near instantaneous when a swell brings the price up to my target.

Prior to the recurring use of “use 1,000 salavage kits” as a monthly goal, my basic rule for any salvage material was “post it to double the vendor price” and it didn’t matter what it was, it would sell within days. That was my absolute price floor for that entire class of item. If the current lowest price was higher, I list for exactly the current lowest (well if there’s less than 20 at the lowest I may use a buy order inquiry to check the distribution of items on offer and join the lowest major hump). With the value that goal has added to salvage items their effective price has jumped substantially, but I still never offer below that baseline no matter what the current selling price is. Never shortchange yourself when you know the price is going to come back around.

Long story short; If you don’t want to be undercut by 1c, then don’t undercut yourself 1c. More you undercut yourself, still staying within (your) comfortable profit range, more likely you’ll end up winning.

Devildoc.6721:

Like I said, I did keep track of the item I was going to sell and it has never been below 3g that I’ve ever seen. Suddenly now it’s under 3g or just barely over for 3 days in a row.

Let me guess… Charged Lodestones?
Item the first: that’s not what I’d call a high volume item. And even if it’s not Charged Lodes, NOTHING that costs more than 3g is “high volume”, at least compared to say, any type of ore.

Lodestones have been a hideous bottleneck for a while now. Its been if not outright stated at least strongly intimated that the Devs agree the result is unfun gameplay. The inclusion of rare/yellow crafting materials to the new champion lootbag tables is an unambiguous statement the Devs want the rarity and the price to drop and they have taken action to MAKE that happen. And that’s just a tiny footnote compared to the flood of mats coming into play both from champion trains and the Crown Pavilion. Anything downstream from those two has just had its value washed away.

The market is a competitive and fluid place – you have to keep up with a lot of little details to stay current. Some of my mental list of minimums have gone clearly out of date without me ever discovering why (I still don’t understand what people are doing with garlic, because it is TRIVIALLY easy to acquire and yet prices steadily over a silver each…), but with a little effort and regular scanning of the Dev tracker, you can usually stay current on your favored slice of the market .

Undercutting: What is the problem?

Invisty.6435:

Undercutting: What is the problem?

Getting to be first in line without losing an amount of money anyone remotely cares about. Sometimes not actually losing any at all due to rounding.

I am the one undercutting all of you by 1c.

All of you. Every single item you list.

It’s me.

And I love it.

there is a solution for that, research guide 101 on how to flip items and how to find out which items you should flip. There you go,you’re a pro now

Ultravalefor.5038:

I am the one undercutting all of you by 1c.

All of you. Every single item you list.

It’s me.

And I love it.

It’s ok. I undercut you a lot more than 1c. Then you undercut me by again 1c, and I’ll wait till our junk sells.

Nike.2631:

Happy to help.

The thing to understand is that flipping makes money on the value of time. People in a hurry throw away there own labor. People in a hurry hand over more of their wealth than they have to. The flipper concentrates that value coming and going. I serve as my own flipper: I take my goods and while I note the current prices instead of selling them now, I set them aside for the time it takes for the price to ebb and flow up to my target value, and then I sell them when my payout is good enough – the thing is the TP itself serves as my storage space while I’m waiting out the fluctuations. And because they are stored on the TP my reaction time is near instantaneous when a swell brings the price up to my target.

I do the same. I set a price I think is fair. Sometimes that may be lower than the current asking price for an item and I’ll undercut that price. As I prefer nice round numbers, the chances are I’ll undercut by more than 1c…

Sometimes that may be higher than the current asking price and I’ll just price it above (again, in a nice round number) and wait for the item to sell. Sometimes it takes a week or more, and sometimes it sells within 5 minutes. Even with the higher-than-current asking price. I’m not starving for gold so I can wait…

So in other words you want Anet so specifically set all prices for every item? Anet controls prices way to much as it is.

If you are not good with economics don’t try playing the TP, you are going to lose…and it appears you are losing.

Either be patient or make gold another way.

When i sell crafting materials i never undercut. I just copy the lowest selling price. It’s going to sell anyway.

When I sell expensive items that are high in demand (i.e. precursors) I often undercut by a lot (30g)

When I place in buy orders I always overcut by 1c

Who is more likely to win the battle of free list changes you who lists and then plays the game or the guy spending 6 hours a day sitting at the tp buying/selling?

That list price is actually there to protect regular players from power traders. Regular players tend to put the item up at or just below current sell point and then go back to playing the game. Power traders sit at the TP buying and selling, if they are undercut they consider relisting. However each time they relist they have to subtract the added fee off their profit, so after a few relists (unless it is a super high yield trade) they will end up with 0 profit or even a loss. Remember most power traders are selling they looted “free” from playing the game, they are working with something they paid buy point for and so have a limit margin of return.

Whereas if a regular player just lists it and wait for it to sell, unless the sell point was too high at the time they list, then their item will eventually sell.

The best solution is for you to look at where the current sell point is compared to the 24 hour average and set your price accordingly and just let it sell. Only relist if a content change has majorly lowered or looks to majorly increase the value of your listed item.

Articluna.4509:

Long story short; If you don’t want to be undercut by 1c, then don’t undercut yourself 1c. More you undercut yourself, still staying within (your) comfortable profit range, more likely you’ll end up winning.

I don’t undercut, I match the current lowest selling price.

Invisty.6435:

Undercutting: What is the problem?

eating listing fees as losses.

When you have all of 7g to your name, losing 2g in listing fees isn’t something you just shrug off.

I undercut like a champ. 1c each undercut. The item could be worth 2 silver, or 20 gold, and it gets up at 1c lower than the next guy. Why? because I want to make money, and I want to make it now. I don’t care about the guy above me. I don’t really care about the people who undercut me either.

It’s a market place. Not a Soviet era state supplied warehouse. The players create the price based off supply and demand.

I always get a kick out of these threads. They always boil down to “I am not making money the way I want to, ergo I demand regulation/tools to benefit me.” Or better yet “I am not making money at the price I think is ok, ergo I demand price fixing.” Seriously.

You people are lucky that players can’t view who is listing what. You could in SWTOR, and I was able to price fix with my competitors on some items. I made a ton of credits (millions) and we porked the player base with artificially inflated prices. Not ideal for the player base, very ideal for the few who benefit from set price fixing.

The free market will figure prices out. It does every day in the trade post.

The solution to undercutting is simple.

For high volume items, list your product at a reasonable price and wait.
For low volume items, study the market and either wait to sell to a reasonable buy order or wait to list your product at a peak selling time.

Devildoc.6721:

Invisty.6435:

Undercutting: What is the problem?

eating listing fees as losses.

When you have all of 7g to your name, losing 2g in listing fees isn’t something you just shrug off.

The you price your goods to sell. You undercut by a lot since you are low on funds. If you don’t, you’re risking losing that fee

The only time I bother to undercut (or sell directly to buy orders) is on markets that are either crashing or poised to crash. I sold like 100 large fangs to buy orders this week due to the obvious downward plunge they were taking.

If it is a stable market just sell it at the current price, it will sell within 24 hours almost 100% of the time. Unless it is an item worth more than 5g or so, then it might take longer.

Devildoc.6721:

Invisty.6435:

Undercutting: What is the problem?

eating listing fees as losses.

When you have all of 7g to your name, losing 2g in listing fees isn’t something you just shrug off.

Why would you invest every cooper you have? Save more, invest a portion?

Problem: OMG i get undercut and i want to sell my item now, but if i cancel to reliet i lose money to listing fees
Solution: Patience

At least in this game you can wait. In LOTRO you pay a different fee based on how long you wanted to list it for before it expired after which it would be mailed back to you and you had to then relist it and pay the listing fee again.

Dench.5968:

The players create the price based off supply and demand.

So you’re basing your price on supply and demand when you list something 0.0005% lower than the current offer?

Well, if the first item stayed up long enough for another person to come along and list lower, then demand at that price wasn’t quite as high as somebody thought .

Nike.2631:

Well, if the first item stayed up long enough for another person to come along and list lower, then demand at that price wasn’t quite as high as somebody thought .

And lowering the price by the smallest denomination in the game will suddenly make the demand high enough?

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Nike.2631:

Well, if the first item stayed up long enough for another person to come along and list lower, then demand at that price wasn’t quite as high as somebody thought .

And lowering the price by the smallest denomination in the game will suddenly make the demand high enough?

Think they’re making the point that undercutting by a low amount is pointless as the demand at that value isn’t there and the undercutting should at least be by a fair amount as to have the item removed as quickly as possible for your benefit and others… in so many words…

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Nike.2631:

Well, if the first item stayed up long enough for another person to come along and list lower, then demand at that price wasn’t quite as high as somebody thought .

And lowering the price by the smallest denomination in the game will suddenly make the demand high enough?

Think they’re making the point that undercutting by a low amount is pointless as the demand at that value isn’t there and the undercutting should at least be by a fair amount as to have the item removed as quickly as possible for your benefit and others… in so many words…

Is that directed at me or the others?