If someone lists an item for 500g, and another person lists the same item for 499g 99s 99c, which to you buy, and why?
If it’s the latter, 1 copper is not going to make a difference in accumulating wealth/trying not to run out of money. You would have to buy 10,000 items of 1 copper less than the “higher” one to even save 1 gold.
I have no problem with blatant undercutting, but 1 copper is just lazy. I’ll buy the higher one in that case.
Why does it matter by how much you are undercut, be it 1cp, 1sp, 1gp, etc.?
I check their pattern and if they are someone who when they have the only item up on the auction house charges 10x it is worth, I will always buy from the higher guy even if he is a few gold higher. That’s the guy I want to keep posting, not the jerk who overprices when he gets the chance.
well the answer is obvious, neither because I am sure someone will under cut that bid by half and then another and another until it is around 25 gold and then I will buy that one.
Depends on the seller’s name.
No really. I have refused to buy something because a seller had an idiotic name.
Let’s be real, no one cares someone is posting 1 copper less. Honestly that keeps the market healthy. It’s much better to post 1 copper less than massive undercuts because you want to watch the world burn. People claim they will buy the higher price because morals, but at the end of day they won’t because who has time for that.
Usaully there is a few pages of scrolling because it’s not just one person doing it.
Now I will say this, if I am looking for a stack of items say midnight salmon for example and someone has a hundred being sold individually at 25 gold vs someone selling a stack of 100 for 3000g I will pay 3000g every time because I am too lazy to click buyout 100 times.
The later. I will always buy the lowest price item.
Not really about accumulating wealth. You will never accumulate wealth by buying. Only by selling. It is about buying the lowest price item. I don’t really care if you make money. I just want to spend the least amount of gold possible.
A lot of people just buy whats top of the cheapest list and move on.
Many addons present the results en mass with the top of the cheapest list provided as the recommended purchase.
The market is now organically designed for the buyer who buys automatically or has no time to care about anything below the top line.
All you old fashioned search and purchase foggies out there actually looking at the list… you know what, I’m just going to go ahead and get off your lawn.
Whenever I see someone who has posted more than a casual farming quantity of something, I buy from someone else. I don’t support bots.
Whenever I see someone posting a huge list of items (cloth, ore, cheap consumable) 1 at a time when that is not a quantity that makes sense, I buy from someone else because that behavior is what drove up the deposits, and it’s annoying as all get out to have to click 50 auctions instead of one auction for 50 qty.
Whenever I see the one-penny undercut (which they did by hand and on purpose), I roll my eyes and buy from someone else.
I routinely look for people with even prices (which indicates a set price for something they farm every day) that are near the 100% of market value range. Obviously, if someone posts something at a ridiculously low price (24%, for example), I’ll scoop it up and consider myself lucky, but some of the garbage tactics you see on the AH are just ridiculous.
It’s like online shopping IRL. I take a minute and look at it and assess. I farm herbs for anchor weed and for gold. I sell flasks and such. So…I know what it’s like, and I try not to feed the trolls on the AH. That said, undercutting is reality, so I don’t have a “problem” with it. I just don’t buy from obnoxious people who abuse it or think they’re tricking people.
Idc whose selling it bot or not Idc if they undercut by one copper, I buy whatever is the cheapest like a normal person who just wants the product
Filters by price.
Buys the cheapest instant price.
Moves on and doesn’t concern himself if you got undercut.
I agree with that. The sorting by lowest buyout helped somewhat, but it’s still a problem.
I agree if everyone posts much less than the previous one can ruin the market. For me it’s more of the general principal - IRL, there are people that actually go to one department store over another because the item sells for 10 cents less. It just boggles my mind.
Usually just buy lowest because that is what I sort by. However, if I need mass quantity then I will pay a little more per stack than individual. Do not use TSM (personally do not agree with it) so old school clicking auctions, buying that 200 stack over 200 1 stacks probably saves me a few minutes 
I often will buy the 10th in the list if the difference is small as I don’t want to support the undercutting.
However I do realize that most people are just using an addon like TSM which does this automatically. They aren’t saying “1 copper less”, the addon is doing it for them.
As a seller, when I’m facing this, I’ll usually lower the price by 25% and keep doing it until the undercutting stops. I believe that is exactly how the market is supposed to work - to drive to the actual value.
That one penny undercut is usually due to someone using TSM, not by doing it by hand. That is the default you get using that addon.