Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Cut-throat business of under cutting

There are five "carpet bombers" in the inscription market on my server. One of them I am almost convinced is a robot, lol, he -never- logs off. I've noticed that he will always undercut me as soon as I log off my bank-alt so i've been leaving her online as much as I can.

Right now I only ever have 2 of a glyph made, and those 2 are always kept on the ah. So everytime I log in and see "you have been undercut on 600 auctions" it makes my heart sink as I have to cancel them all, wait forever to get them out of my mail, and then re-post them all.

 If I just make more glyphs, then I can just post them up when I get undercut instead of going through the whole cancelling process. However, my little 2 glyph business is working really well for me and pulling in the profit. I also have the time to play the camping game and can wait out my competition (except that damn robot). So the question is.. should I stick with what i've got or try a new system? A few things that keep me from jumping right into the new system is I'll have to figure out a really good way to keep everything organized since bag space will be a major issue. The other problem is will my mod just start undercutting myself? Maybe I have QuickAuctions set-up wrong but it will constantly undercut my own enchanting mats even though I have her name in the "do not undercut" box thinger. What I'd really like is an option to not post anymore of an item if I am the lowest price on the AH.

7 comments:

  1. Wandered here from Greedy Goblin. I'll be following your progress, as I am becoming more and more tempted to try the same as soon as I have more than one level 80.

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  2. Travis, go for it! It seems daunting and scary but with all the resources we have out there it makes it very possible! I'll be the first to admit I'm a major noob when it comes to this stuff, but even in my noobness I was able to pull quite a nice profit. The best advice I can give you is don't be afraid to ask questions and don't let something silly stand in your way :)

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  3. What I should do is UNDERCUT. The same thing as the greedy goblin does. He undercuts arround 40-50% of the current price of the posted glyphs.

    I've tried it and it worked for me. The first two days I didn't really sold any glyphs (posted arround 100 glyphs). However the price of my posted glyphs was already 50% lower then it used to be. Then the next two days I undercutted for 50% again. And thus the price got lower. Some of the glyphs are only selling for 2,5g but they sell.

    The third time I posted glyphs (arround the 250 glyphs) the price was lowered that much that others didn't wanted to compete anymore and thus they began to sell. I've earned 1000g but with my cost of buying herbs taken into acount I've got 750g pure profit.

    The fourth time I posted glyphs (arround the 310 glyphs) the prices of the glyph went up in my favor since there was no or barely any competition. I'm just waiting to see how much will see over the next days. But undercutting really works I've found out.

    PS. Just post your auctions for 48 hours and do whatever you want and come back in 2 days.

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  4. A server with five heavy Glyph sellers is just plain nasty, making money will alway be difficult as you have five people who know just how much money Glyphs can bring in.
    Heavy slashing of prices will push out the faint hearted and the dabblers looking for a quick profit, but It'll have less impact on established sellers who are likely to have seen it before and who are more liklely to simply ride out temporary price crashes or just buy up your low priced stuff.
    To move these types takes time and effort and there's no guarantee of success against the just plain stubborn. With five other sellers they'll be used to being frequently undercut so why should your doing it be be any different. It's not just a case of hitting their profits by dropping prices either as they're likely to have large stocks of Glyphs and materials. While these remain they're unlikely to go completely, even if they take a break in the short term as soon as you start to try and push prices back up they'll be back.
    The trick is to try and keep them selling in order to eat into that materials stockpile, but with them making a small enough profit that restocking costs them money so don't bother, so when you do push push the prices back up it's too much effort for them to bother getting back into the market.
    Best of luck with the attempt and keep us informed of your progress

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  5. @Ralbix

    The Greedy Goblin undercuts by 60s. The 40% is his stoploss setting in Appraiser, so if any glyphs fall below 60% of market rate, he doesn't post. He published screenshots of his configuration recently and his settings are far more conservative that most people claim. He's definately not carpet-bombing with a 40% undercut.

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  6. One trick people often use is to put their compeditors onto their "friends" list. Is that what your robot has done with your bank alt?

    For a short time you can get around that by using a different alt/creating a new disposable alt.

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  7. The biggest thing on my server is the use of limited resources to squash competition. Sucking up all the high-medium quality herbs will really break down the will of competitors as they have to go spend mindless hours getting stacks and stacks of herbs that will mill down to minimal supplies. Its nothing for a good scribe to buy up 100-200 stacks of herbs in a go in order to replenish stock.

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