68 replies to this topic

[Blixcoe]

More, on 14 October 2012 - 05:18 PM, said:

can somebody please explain to me why do players keep undercutting each other on the trading post?


in other mmo's sales are individual, but in gw2 they are grouped by value and sold in bulk to the millions of other players worldwide, so why undercut another player? what's the point? what are they gaining from this in the long term?

when they undercut another player's price all they are doing is decreasing the value of this item for the next time they want to sell it, shooting themselves in the foot.


Arena Net even made a button saying "match lowest seller" to try and teach people the new method of trading in gw2, which is different to other games people are used to. why don't they take the hint?

I mean seriously, people are undercutting so much that they are now selling items for less than vendor value (after 15% cut from the sale) EVEN THOUGH arenanet have put the vendor value on the item tooltip, AND state the posting fee on the screen when selling the item, how could they make it any easier for players to understand?


the one and only reason I can imagine is that they are trying to sell the item quickly before other player's, and for less popular items like specific types of armour/weapons i can understand, but common items like crafting materials that people are putting up for 45 copper each, why would anybody want to undercut by 1 copper? do they honestly think if they use the "match lowest seller" button that their item won't be sold?

If you are trying to sell an item that nobody wants, it won't be sold, undercutting somebody else doesn't change this fact, it just devalues the item when people do eventually want to buy it, and thus assuring you will make less money from the eventual sale.

so just stop it, seriously, learn how the trading post works before throwing your money away and crippling other players from earning profit for similar items.


please correct me if I'm wrong, because I want to understand the logic (if any) to the players who keep undercutting. what positive thing does it actually do for anybody?

lol I think people should learn what the ''classes'' in this game are called beforehand...
common gw2 knowledge doesn't exist in gw2.

[Mataris]

Fatalis, on 15 October 2012 - 12:52 PM, said:

It's the idea of security.

Depending on the item, will you sell if you match lowest seller? Yes, most likely.

However if you're selling something particularly expensive, and/or with low demand not selling the item and potentially having to relist it can be quite a hit.

Thus I'd rather be first and make 1 less copper, than possibly having to go through a bunch of other sells that were listed first, then get buried in sell orders, and never sell my item.

To further validate this, I recently decided to sell a exotic hammer, I matched the price of the 3 that were on the tp. I was quickly and continually undercut. My hammer is still on the tp, while I have watched 6 or more sell under me. Had I posted under the current price I would have gold and not a depressing reminder to undercut in my trade window. Ya in a theoretic world price matching is fantastic bit until you can gather every player of gw2 in a room for a chat and agreement on price matching undercutting is the safe smart alternative.

[Blixcoe]

people here actually have 600g? I have 8 gold... from completing every map.

[Portos]

Well, I would say it more brutally: that's the normal effect of a free market.
People have earned more by trading 1 hours then by playing 1 hour. That's how some people made 600 and more gold.
That information spread and triggered more trade = profit gets less and ultimately should at the end make it less profitable to trade 1 hour then to play 1 hour.

Why? Because GW2 is not a stock market game
playing the game must always be more rewarding then misusing it as trade platform, if the game is well made...

[RaoulDukeHST]

Ingway, on 15 October 2012 - 02:36 AM, said:

Because people are stupid.

[More]

Portos, on 15 October 2012 - 01:24 PM, said:

playing the game must always be more rewarding then misusing it as trade platform, if the game is well made...

this is kind of a different subject but I'll indulge in a small tangent;

in most other mmo's I've played this has been the case, where there have always been SOME rare items like recipes or vanity items or whatever, but then these games don't have a global market (there are some exceptions like eve etc..), so as to how rare they really are when you have millions instead of thousands of players I can't honestly say.

the only time an item is considered "rare" in this game is if it's a limited time item from a holiday event or something (like the portable mystic forge, that cost materials of 6g during production days, now discontinued often values at 10g+) or other items that are "discovered" in the mystic forge, until somebody makes a youtube or blog about it and then realize their good natured gesture of information sharing has now brought down the value of this.

so what I'm saying is (on this continued tangent) the only way to get a rare valuable item is to invest a lot of money crafting it (via tradeskill or mystic forge) and sell it only if other people are not also producing or selling it in large quantities.


maybe in the future anet will introduce rare items that people can obtain, catering to players who want to invest large playtime instead of tradetime, after all, that is their whole ethos surrounding how they want gw2 to be played (allowing players to play how they like, not be forced into a playstyle) but unfortunately, as it currently stands, the previous poster is correct, you do make more money from trading instead of grinding or doing instances.

it's a shame really, cos it is a lot more fun playing instead of standing in lions arch all day at the trading post

Edited by More, 15 October 2012 - 07:05 PM.

[JONO51]

More, on 15 October 2012 - 07:03 PM, said:

it's a shame really, cos it is a lot more fun playing instead of standing in lions arch all day at the trading post

Stand in Ebonhawke instead. Looks nice, much quieter than LA and the bank & crafting stations are all next to the TP.

[Arleanna12]

Blixcoe, on 15 October 2012 - 01:06 PM, said:

people here actually have 600g? I have 8 gold... from completing every map.

Yes people do I know I quite happily bought a commander tag and The Lover yesterday . SO what if it cost 445g total it is not like it is hard to make money.

[Essence Snow]

One factor overlooked here completely is mobility. One can sell things on the go via the tp. They do not have to leave the field to merch/vedor items. There is an opportunity cost associated with storage space and leaving the field to sell to a vendor. That said bots also adhere to storage space limitations. I highly doubt ppl running bots want their ill gotten items sitting on the tp for any length of time. They want to get in and get out as quickly as possible. Hence I am sure there are scripts run by "above average greed" botters that undercut lowest selling price while remaining above highest buying price.

For a lot of players I am sure that taking a  small loss on an item so as to fit that rare into their inventory is very logical. Multiply that by millions and it has an effect. These players do not give 2 hoots about maximizing profit on said items they only care about gaining that extra inventory space. It's more impulse driven than anything and being impulse driven, instantly or close to it holds greater value than margins or lack there of.

[RabidusIncendia]

Okay, so looks like this is titled to iply the topic is about undercutting when it's really about selling for under the vendor.  The two things are pretty different, since undercutting above vendor is common market sense, whereas obviously selling below vendor is not.

[Carbinedevil]

There is undercutting in the TP because of perfect information. Contrary to a real economy where people don't know what others are paying for the same goods (imperfect information), the TP in GW2 allows everyone to know, real-time, what others are willing to pay to buy/sell a certain type of goods.

This means it's harder for flippers to manipulate the market, which is a good thing in itself. Combined with the 15% tax on TP, we don't really see a bunch of "stock market whizzes" running around espousing the millions they've made from flipping items on the TP. Like in other games.

[Phys]

RabidusIncendia, on 16 October 2012 - 01:51 AM, said:

Okay, so looks like this is titled to iply the topic is about undercutting when it's really about selling for under the vendor.  The two things are pretty different, since undercutting above vendor is common market sense, whereas obviously selling below vendor is not.

the point is, if people are selling their items/undercutting to the point where they lose money, you as a business man are competing with idiots.  Undercutting makes sense, up to a point. many, many, many items are below that point. EVEN with the fact they literally added a part that tells you how much your projected profit is. yeah thats right, they literally tell you that you are making less money than an npc.
For those who say its a space issue, its really not, every karma vendor, repair npc, crafting npc etc will buy items from you. Every time you are forced to waypoint, there is usually an npc around. The only place there is less is WvWvW, however, from what i have seen, people spend a lot of time in keeps/outposts etc, which usually has at the very least a repair npc.

point is, people are not fit to run businesses in this game. If the bottom of the bell curve is this large, it means there may be people who are not stupid enough to sell under npc price, but they still dont know when it is, and is not a good idea to undercut.

truth is the best way to work the current economy is to take advantage of peoples stupidity, and buy low and sell high, there is very little profit in supplying items or manufacturing them.

[Specialz]

Portos, on 15 October 2012 - 01:24 PM, said:

playing the game must always be more rewarding then misusing it as trade platform, if the game is well made...

That is because you dont know what reward means or you are  applying your clearly narrow view of reward to other players. Ignoring the fact that you are applying your narrow view of reward, the people making money off TP rely on human behavior which is beyond the scope of any game design.

Reward is in the eye of the beholder. Some people enjoy grinding, some people enjoy running instance and some enjoy PvPving. They do those things because they probably enjoy it and that own is it own reward.

Finally, a well made game allows people to get rewarded exactly for the things they enjoy doing. The people making money off TP because guild wars 2 has somewhat of a free market and in a free market the value of an item is dependent on the individual. And as someone above me said,  people are stupid. Unfortunately for you, stupid people make TP a great place to make money.

Edited by Specialz, 16 October 2012 - 06:10 PM.

[Krill]

Portos, on 15 October 2012 - 01:24 PM, said:

Why? Because GW2 is not a stock market game
playing the game must always be more rewarding then misusing it as trade platform, if the game is well made...

At the same time, grinding out gold for gear is also not always the most satisfying experience. If I buy 4000 rags that nobody wants and salvage them putting gossamer scraps / bolts on the market that players need, and make a small profit, is that a bad thing? If I buy 5000 potent bloods that are basically overstocked items, and take the time to forge them into powerful bloods that players need, is that a bad thing? Keep in mind that in in both of these plays, it takes time & effort, and it's helping keep the prices of T6 crafting materials down somewhat...if nobody was doing it, gossamer scraps, powerful blood, and armored scales would cost a lot more.

I can understand your basic premise that this is not a virtual stock market game to some extent, however, outside of monopolization or some other form of conspiracy, trading does serve a valuable purpose in regulating prices.

Edited by Krill, 16 October 2012 - 08:48 PM.

[spritepac]

Wait what items sell BELOW vendor price? Everytime I try to list an item it has to be above the vendor price it says. Or do you mean people are selling items lower than what vendor will buy them for?

[Portos]

Specialz, on 16 October 2012 - 06:08 PM, said:

Finally, a well made game allows people to get rewarded exactly for the things they enjoy doing.

If GW2 would be a stock market game I would agree. However ArenaNet pretends that it is a is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game. If it is an RPG the gold pieces that someone can earn by playing the game are the reference. If the game however allows that people using GW2 as market game create an inflation that lets this reference look ridiculous, then I consider this as a flaw. You don't, obviously. But that's fine. It's probably just a question of what you expect.

[RabidusIncendia]

Phys, on 16 October 2012 - 05:28 PM, said:

the point is, if people are selling their items/undercutting to the point where they lose money, you as a business man are competing with idiots.  Undercutting makes sense, up to a point. many, many, many items are below that point. EVEN with the fact they literally added a part that tells you how much your projected profit is. yeah thats right, they literally tell you that you are making less money than an npc.
For those who say its a space issue, its really not, every karma vendor, repair npc, crafting npc etc will buy items from you. Every time you are forced to waypoint, there is usually an npc around. The only place there is less is WvWvW, however, from what i have seen, people spend a lot of time in keeps/outposts etc, which usually has at the very least a repair npc.

point is, people are not fit to run businesses in this game. If the bottom of the bell curve is this large, it means there may be people who are not stupid enough to sell under npc price, but they still dont know when it is, and is not a good idea to undercut.

truth is the best way to work the current economy is to take advantage of peoples stupidity, and buy low and sell high, there is very little profit in supplying items or manufacturing them.

I agree, I'm just saying this topic is kinda doomed to derail over and over, since most people saying undercutting is fine are talking about something entirely different.  E.g. if you have a dusk, and you want to risk a sell offer rather than selling straight to buy, then the only logical move is to sell one copper below the current listing.  That is rational undercutting.  Not, e.g. undercutting when the difference between buy and sell is less than 5%, in which case you either vendor or sell straight to buy offers.

However, there is one distinction I want to add here, and that it is entirely logical to drop the selling price to where it is barely profitable, since the market is flooded on nearly all accounts of crafting.

I.e. the best course of action is to ignore "price fixing" as the op calls it.  Price fixing can only exist if you can cooperate with competitiors, i.e. one or two other competing people who you can negotiate with.  Since you can't coooperate with 2 million anonymous players, you just have to follow the logical game theory route and undercut to the point of aklmost no profit.  Part of why I predicted crafting would be worthless and never used it for anything but leveling.

I think most people of the market are in fact rational.  But what you see is, if all the rational people on the market tank crafting to the point where you make only a few coppers per crafting, it only takes a handful to wreck it and make it not profitable at all.  I.e. even a measly 10% of "stupid" crafters will cause no profit period.

spritepac, on 16 October 2012 - 08:52 PM, said:

Wait what items sell BELOW vendor price? Everytime I try to list an item it has to be above the vendor price it says. Or do you mean people are selling items lower than what vendor will buy them for?

There is an undisclosed 15% tax on the TP which for whatever reason still isn't made clear.  I'm willing to bet a good half of the people don't even know the tax exists.  The "projected profit" Anet added still makes absolutely no sense and says nothing, since one could interpret it as anything you want if you're casually marketing.

So in actuality, if you sell something that costs 1 gold at a price one copper above vendor, you are actually losing money since you would have made more money vendoring it.

Edited by RabidusIncendia, 16 October 2012 - 11:04 PM.

[MrForz]

Undercutting is most likely worth it when dealing with a huge material traffic, believe me or not, the quicker a trade is done, the better as long as you make profit.

[Specialz]

Portos, on 16 October 2012 - 10:13 PM, said:

If GW2 would be a stock market game I would agree. However ArenaNet pretends that it is a is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game. If it is an RPG the gold pieces that someone can earn by playing the game are the reference. If the game however allows that people using GW2 as market game create an inflation that lets this reference look ridiculous, then I consider this as a flaw. You don't, obviously. But that's fine. It's probably just a question of what you expect.

How you make money has no relevance to the definition of RPG. So your whole argument is just pointless and not worth going over. Also guild wars 2 is in a fantasy/steampunk setting, not sure how relevant that is but you seem to think it is.

[kzaske]

For me, if I can't make at least 2copper more than the vendor price I don't sell through the trading post.  It really ticks me off to try an item to find several offers of 1 copper for that item when the vendor price is much higher.

[Essence Snow]

Phys, on 16 October 2012 - 05:28 PM, said:

For those who say its a space issue, its really not, every karma vendor, repair npc, crafting npc etc will buy items from you. Every time you are forced to waypoint, there is usually an npc around. The only place there is less is WvWvW, however, from what i have seen, people spend a lot of time in keeps/outposts etc, which usually has at the very least a repair npc.

In the case of human players we are not talking about clearing out entire inventories. If we were then traveling to a waypoint is ofc the most logical step. We are merely talking about 1 or 2 items to make space for those items that hold higher value....ie your inv is full but there r 2 rares already dropped. Is it logical to map/run to npc then run back? or Does it make more sense to just insta-sell 2 minor items to make room for the items on the ground that are more valuable? This happens quite abit when you consider how many ppl are doing it.

Bots are a completely different animal. For them space is highly revolving. They will not be mapping/running to a npc to clear inventories.

At least for me space is a very highly valued resource in this game. Many times I won't even bother with the tp. I'll destroy items for space, which creates a loss larger than "undercutting" npc value. So from that mindset I can understand that maximizing profit on everything does not always appeal to everyone.

[More]

spritepac, on 16 October 2012 - 08:52 PM, said:

Wait what items sell BELOW vendor price? Everytime I try to list an item it has to be above the vendor price it says. Or do you mean people are selling items lower than what vendor will buy them for?

there were some people on the official forums suggesting they change this to NOT allow people to put a buy order for less than vendor value, so this was now changed, the same goes for listing an item.

Arena net did this to forcibly stop the stupid traders from throwing money away and help promote vendor sales when the overall value is greater.  Sadly, they still have not refunded all the buy orders for less than vendor value that is why every single item on the TP has thousands of 1c sell oders that nobody can fill, but hopefully anet will realize this error and refund the money to players.

anyway...
Responding to the comment saying vendor values and undercutting are seperate subjects, well they are not really, since one thing leads to another.
IF people keep undercutting as they do, more and more items become valued at vendor price on the trading post, creating a unprofitable market for that item due to ignorance of players not realising the 15% fee on every sale, and since buy orders/sales have no expiration date, they will remain that price forever, permanently making these items worthless. (on the plus side for buyers, they will never have to spend more than vendor value for materials, which is nice I guess..)
So no, they are not mutually exclusive things, they are directly related to each other.

Edited by More, 17 October 2012 - 12:28 PM.

[Skolops]

People do it because they have to.  It's really that simple and there isn't that much more to it.  As some have pointed out, its absolutely true that if everyonejust clicked the match lowest price button, folks would make money, stuff would see, and all would be well.

However, as soon as even a small number of people start undercutting, it forces everyone else to as well lest their items remain as dead listings forever.  Why is this the case?  If globs of ectoplasm are selling for 20s and new listings are put up to match that price, all is well.  If one person undercuts the price and sells it for 19s90c and then his listing sells quickly, all is still well with that 20s price.  However, if more people start undercutting the price - even a relatively small percentage of the population - then the next thing you know, all of those 20s listings are caught behind a few dozen, hundred, or more lower listings.  When people go to place new listings, they either click the match lowest price button or they look at the listings, see several hundred or more listings ranging between 19 and 20s and price accordingly.  Either way, their listing is another sub-20s one - which in turn contributes to the next person who is looking to sell an ectoplasm listing it in that same lower range.

In the end, if every single person agreed to keep the price of some item at X, then everyone could use the TP happily without having to think about undercutting.  On the other hand, if you can't get 100% of people to follow this practice - which of course you cannot - then undercutting is just going to happen naturally and those who want to sell their items will have to do it at times.

I'd also note that if the TP truly is a "last in, first out" system, then far from being a reason not to undercut, it's all the more reason why undercutting becomes a factor.  With so many people listing items in a global trading post, if Bob lists his 10 Vials of Weak Blood now, there's a good chance that before they sell Steve and Bill and Jane may go ahead and list theirs.  Now especially in the case where their listings are a few hundred in volume, this gets Bob's listings stuck at the end of the line and, more than likely, they're going to remain their forever because new listings will always be going up.  This doesn't happen all the time, of course... there are a lot of people buying things in this game to cut through the stack and eventually get to Bob's listing.  That's why much of the time we find our items sell.  However, it's equally as likely that new items will be listed over and above his - especially outside of the first few weeks of the game, when much of the population has already leveled their crafting skills and fewer people buy mats.

Now Bob could just take his listing down and relist, of course, but that costs him the listing fee.  Maybe it's an acceptable cost the first time around.  However, if he has to relist repeatedly that cost goes up and up, and so at a certain point its simply better business to sell that item at an undercut price to ensure it actually sells, cutting his losses as much as possible.

[Darth Irule]

I undercut on items that do not have alot of supply or demand. If I am selling a rare or exotic weapon, and there is only one other person selling it I will undercut them so I have a better chance of someone buying it from me instead of the other person. That way I get money faster, and its more of a guarentee.

[spritepac]

So I decided to "play" the tp last night and see what happened. I bought dyes for far below market price by placing a buy order (obviously there are idiots out there who are selling dyes for half of what they are worth on TP) and then reselling the dye for market value. Apply this to ANY item on TP and it artificially lowers the price because if 2000 people do this method the market price will drop. And this is ALL because I can see ALL buy orders and ALL sell orders instantly. I know exactly what everything is selling for and can easily undercut anything. All I do is calculate how much the 15% tax is to make sure I profit. If Anet abolished the TP that is the only way to establish somewhat stable market prices. Undercutting will always happen because there is no overhead to cover. Plain and simple the wealth of information on the TP is what hurts it by allowing players to undercut and maximize profit.

[PracticalShutIn]

Undercutting has totally ruined the fun I used to have on the TP.  Now monitoring and reposting has taken up so much time, I find the TP to be a chore.  In september, I spent entire days in LA without even leaving to do combat.  I found it totally enthralling.

Now it's like I have to have luck on my side to post within 3 minutes of a buyer arriving in order to sell my item successfully.  Or else it'll be buried and in 10 days I'll realize it never sold.

It's curious to me that my buy orders AND my sell offers are both being buried and undercut, never going anywhere.  It's like I'm on the wrong side of the trend for all items I buy and sell.

And FYI when I was loving the TP I wasn't doing flipping.  I can't stand flipping.  I want to buy 1 ring and I wonder why it never came through, so I check it to see a stack of 100 dropped in front of me.  No one needs 100 rings, they're just blocking legitimate buyers, stealing bargains, and throwing 15% of those savings to the TP taxman.  A way to make money for the selfish & lazy.

[RabidusIncendia]

PracticalShutIn, on 19 October 2012 - 10:27 PM, said:

Undercutting has totally ruined the fun I used to have on the TP.  Now monitoring and reposting has taken up so much time, I find the TP to be a chore.  In september, I spent entire days in LA without even leaving to do combat.  I found it totally enthralling.

Now it's like I have to have luck on my side to post within 3 minutes of a buyer arriving in order to sell my item successfully.  Or else it'll be buried and in 10 days I'll realize it never sold.

It's curious to me that my buy orders AND my sell offers are both being buried and undercut, never going anywhere.  It's like I'm on the wrong side of the trend for all items I buy and sell.

And FYI when I was loving the TP I wasn't doing flipping.  I can't stand flipping.  I want to buy 1 ring and I wonder why it never came through, so I check it to see a stack of 100 dropped in front of me.  No one needs 100 rings, they're just blocking legitimate buyers, stealing bargains, and throwing 15% of those savings to the TP taxman.  A way to make money for the selfish & lazy.

The problem has nothing to do with undercutting, it has to do with flooded markets.  If the supply outstrips the demand to a massive extent, the item will tank.  The only reason it might not completely tank immediately is people are captilizing on the fact that other people don't understand undercutting, so they will undercut by one copper ever so often, rather than undercutting to the items truer value.  Really the problem is the flooded market:  infinite crafting speed, flooded mats, etc.

Edited by RabidusIncendia, 19 October 2012 - 11:58 PM.

[spritepac]

RabidusIncendia, on 19 October 2012 - 11:58 PM, said:

The problem has nothing to do with undercutting, it has to do with flooded markets.  If the supply outstrips the demand to a massive extent, the item will tank.  The only reason it might not completely tank immediately is people are captilizing on the fact that other people don't understand undercutting, so they will undercut by one copper ever so often, rather than undercutting to the items truer value.  Really the problem is the flooded market:  infinite crafting speed, flooded mats, etc.

Not true look at the runescape economy the price of crafting materials has stayed relatively the same and crafted goods are actually worth mats+labor. This is because of the lack of a TP where I can undercut all buy orders and sell orders because I have exact information and no overhead to cover. If Anet takes out how the ability to see buy/sell orders undercutting wouldn't be possible because prices set by supply and demand would stay the same. Sellers might undercut each other buy 1 or 2c but relatively prices will stay level if the item is in demand. Obviously if demand falls sharply the price will too. Anet should also restrict the amount of professions one can master OVERALL. Players can currently have 2 professions and then switch whenever they want but when they switch back the original level stays. This makes the number of crafters reduced significantly and allows market competition so not everyone is 400 everything.

[nennafir]

Basically,  it is by and large a buyers market now.

LOL at people raging against the mob.  Learn to adapt.  If you are as smart as you claim to be (all the while talking about everyone else being unwise) you should be able to, after all!

This reminds me of someone I played spades (a card game) with who kept complaining about everyone else's bids and said everyone else was foolish for their bids but he kept losing.  It's like, look dude if everyone else is winning and you are losing and can't adapt, it is highly amusing that you are calling other people lacking in intelligence to explain your losses.

[Bonja]

thing is u want a quick sale but depends on how smart u r
so u can drop by like 1-50 copper and ull sell it
but some like to drop by 15irsh silver which is wats wrong and screws the market around as people then do the slow drop till some other noob comes and does it
idiots leading the blind or 1 smart mofo (doubt it)