An example: A Star Ruby is in the AH for 1g 50s. Another person posts one for 1g 45s. This is normal. A third person will come and post one for 70 silvers. That is a very large gap! The item itself vendors for 50 silvers. As people continue to undercut, it reaches the point of just vendoring the Star Ruby or letting it collect dust on a banker until the price goes back up. (which doesn’t seem to be happening) All because of one person undercutting an unnecessary amount and creating a ridiculous domino-effect.
I am using the Star Ruby as an example but the concept seems to apply to almost everything on my server. I’ve seen WBOEs get undercut by hundreds of gold at a time. A pair of bracers in the AH for 54 gold and the next person posts it for 7 gold.
I suppose I am trying to comprehend if this is common across all servers? Is this behavior deliberate and if so, why? What is the purpose? Are people simply not searching the item in the AH before posting? Do so few use the Vendor Price mod? Just… what in the many Gods name are people doing?
Purpose is to sell ASAP
ooooooorrrr…
You could buy the low ones and put them back up for higher.
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They are desperate to sell quickly for income.
Some don’t like relisting an item a billion times for a good profit, but as stated, buy them up and relist.
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You get people complaining about undercutting by too little or undercutting by too much. It’s honestly none of your concern. if its too much then buy up and relist for higher.
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This is typically the answer I find, people price it to move. If I’m there when it happens I’ll by the stock and relist it at the appropriate price. If the market moves too far I’ll hold it to it moves back up.
Yes. In my case it’s deliberate. Usually the trigger is someone undercutting me. So I’ll take mine down, go to my bank alt get more, and then intentionally tank the market on that item to force them back out of it.
I play scorched earth. If I can’t win, I do my best to make sure everyone loses. It’s economic pvp.
If it fails to sell several times you have lost the deposit amount several times and that cuts into profit over vending. So if it’s not very valuable (like a star ruby) just move the item and call it a day.
Also…depending on the item…maybe other put it up too high.
Through my time leveling, I recall wanting to sell many things. Several of which were already on the AH at X price. I would put mine up a little under and 24 hours later in my mail. Go back to AH, same ones up…mine a bit lower…back in mail 24 hours later. Next time, half price buyout…half of buyout for starting bid…and hopefully I dont see it again in the mail. lol
for more things…as long as they sell for more than the vendor, ill dump it.
I’m currently doing ok on gold I think, have about 1.9k on me right now. When I see people selling something really expensive, but I feel it’s stupid high, I will undercut them by a large margin just to get rid of it.
If I was poorer or struggling to farm for my epic mount then maybe I would “play” the AH better, but as it stands I don’t need to buy anything anymore. I’m just saving for later for who knows what. Too lazy to play the relisting game, so I price to sell things asap.
Same with IRL I guess, lots of second hand items I sell for super cheap or flat out just give away for free just to declutter my home lol. Same with my in game bank, I don’t like it all cluttered and full. I want my inventory nice and neat lol
To make people like you angry
SOME of something is far better than ALL of nothing. There may be a single person who wishes to buy that particular item, and if you are NOT the low bidder then you get nothing.
I tend to price things based on vendor price plus auction deposit or cut (whichever would be more) and then just rounding it a bit (because I think 1g44s99c looks stupid), and often that greatly undercuts current prices.
So, yes, I’d say it is deliberate in my case.
The purpose is usually that I know it will sell and net me the coin I want. Could I get more coin? Maybe, but unlike some AH players, I’m not there to maximize my profits. If I put something on the AH, I know it is needed by other players, and I want to try to make it reasonably priced for them to obtain.
Another valuable purpose is that few people will undercut it. The people who cancel auctions and repost in a futile race to be lowest price when someone buys are much less likely to lose their original deposit and pay another knowing they’ll get less than they want.
I hate going to the AH because I need a couple things to craft, and the only ones available are at stupidly high prices. I don’t buy them, and I try to be the player who does not do that to others.
I search the AH. I have an addon that keeps track. I have a vendor price addon. That doesn’t mean I think “market price” is some actual calculated value that needs to be matched.
I won’t deny that it’s also funny to get the greediest AH players raging because their scans and the overall data shift toward a lower market price point.
I sell everything 50% lower, and my stuff sells.
I can sell 20 cheap items and make as much or more than someone trying to gouge the players with high prices.
If they were really worth 1g 50s as you suggest, then you would buy that one for 70s. You won’t though, because you know that there are a hundred more just like it out there and only 5 of them are going to sell today. That’s supply and demand.
What you are trying to convince people to do is price fixing, and it is illegal in every free market in the world.
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I can sell things for whatever price I like.
If my price is half of yours, and mine gets bought, then I walk away. After that, you can sell yours at whatever price you want.
I’m just trying to get some quick coin by moving an item, while you’re worried about “market fluctuations”. You’re over thinking your AH dealings.
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I do it only if people are trying to force the market up.
Example- as p2 came out a guild bought every single arcanite bar and pushed the price up from 45g-110g over night.
So my friends and I farmed bars and undercut them all day till they were back to 45g
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Its frustrating but it is what it is, prices on certain potions/elixirs on my server fluctuate 50s-2g during the day. One moment they are 1g50s, hour later someone will throw a bunch up for 50s, then people post more to undercut the 50s guy.
Hold up, your star ruby’s go for more than 60s on the AH?
When it comes to boes if they aren’t bis close to bis or twink items i price them to move as they are just a leveling or transitional item that are hard sells. Boes have moved up a bit as supply has lowered for leveling items and many of the levelers now are alts with some g back up. Crafting mats move through the system fast at fairly stable prices if you see these kind of undercuts you might just be over pricing yours.
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Also let me point out a flaw for you on your example that makes star rubies one of the WORST examples you could make, Star ruby is used in a few items, only a few of which are really sought after and others just considered a waste, so it by itself is fairly low demand, They drop off of mining for one which is farmed really heavily because DME drop runs with a herb miner combo can clear it really fast and repeat without dealing with Wpvp and the such, leading to multiple farmers having an excess of this item very easily(they want arcane crystals not star rubies), this is pretty bad for the value, but that’s not the worst part, Star Rubies are also gained from pickpocketing! AND he last TWO tiers of the lockboxes as well, and rogues make up a very large portion of the population on most pvp servers, if you’ve paid any attention to the gold farming videos you’d see rogues can easy get 25+gp/h naked, running through BRD PPing everything that has pockets, with this method you can easily get 2-4 star rubies per hour of farming like this, so you have a massive supply of these damn things with very little uses for them, so yeah, like arguably one of the worst examples to try and prove your point on high vendor vs low AH sales, if you get them, you’re better off vendoring them.