Crafters: Undercutting GTN pricing, I get it...but I don't!

[Gorillazy]

Because you dont make credits that way. Time is $, the best way of making credits is making them fast. If you don't undercut, your going to be stuck trying to selling the item for days when you could easily have sold it within the hour.

[Vashgud]

I stopped doing any GTN sales right after housing expansion. Because the undercutting and then the overpricing of missions reduced the profit to almost nothing. And yes I made lot of items for the expansion just the profits where so think it was not worth the time invested.

[Grayseven]

Because you dont make credits that way. Time is $, the best way of making credits is making them fast. If you don't undercut, your going to be stuck trying to selling the item for days when you could easily have sold it within the hour.

 

Nope. You can only make things so fast. As long as I sell out before I get more stock I'm fine. If it takes a day to sell out at my median price so be it. At least I'm getting the full value of my effort.

 

I've been selling Mk-11 kits at around 108k. They sold out in hours even though that price put them around page 6 the last time I stocked my sales. Considering it takes 2 companions 22 minutes just to craft the items I need for one kits worth of augment kit components, I'm selling out faster than I make them.

 

If people undercut, all they are doing is depriving themselves of the full amount of credits they could otherwise receive. Especially right now when so many people need those kits.

 

I'll more than take a few hours to sell versus the right now type of sale.

[Heal-To-Full]

I've held exclusive schems for some high-demand items for a while.

Listed them high at first, they sit and sit and sit - no one else there, but no sales. 2 days, no competition, "listing expired" (and it's not like I charged something insane). Dropped the price by a third to what looks more reasonable, gone in a couple hours, had to craft more.

 

Everyone knows things are overpriced right now. It's not some mystical secret only crafters know. The simple economics of supply and demand state there is more demand and less supply at a lower price point.

So listing lower gives you both more demand, that extra segment which will buy hilts for 300k but not for 400k, and less competing supply.

 

Right now I price items - in absence of competition - depending on my own supply of mats. If I can barely make a couple of each, I set it high, it doesn't worry me too much if it won't sell. If it's something I can pump out all day long, I set what gives me a nice profit, but looks attractive to the customer. If it means pricing blue augs lower than someone else priced their greens (seriously, 100k+ for a useless green?), so be it.

Edited December 7, 2014 by Heal-To-Full

[enigmacypher]

in an open market with no controls this happens ..

 

another thread there is another OP complaining that the cost of the Revan armor too high.

 

IF someone is willing to take substantially less than you it is their choice and as time goes by the value of goods WILL go down as more people will have/be making such items.

 

sure YOU want big credits now but then there are some people who may be finding your prices beyond reach.

[Theeko]

Just think it as a Pawn shop (IE customer comes in demanding 5,000$, get expert to review and says 2-3$ tops.. Rick offers back 1500$ cause of what an expert said, seller then thinks about if he/she should sell it now or later.. Now = Less $ but instant, Later = More $ but probably will never get sold, or have to wait along time, or might not even get more than what the Shop is offering) I just consider the GTN to be a pawnshop imo just leave yours if you think its worth it tbh, or you could just undercut.

[Csillagkari]

pre expansion end game gears get a huge nerf by the new lvl 55 greens, lvl 450-500 crafting mats fell like rain, you who didn't saw it can't even believe, but actually in the new planet there is always 20-30 gathering nods around my char and they drop 3-12 mats /e + the gatherable mobs drops not 1 mat like pre expansion but 3-12 as well.

 

Honesly, I surprise that crafted items still have any kind of price on the gtn.

 

The expansion has good contents! Realy good contents! But who made the calculations was drunk like hell its 100%!

[TravelersWay]

I have a better idea.

 

Why don't you post your stuff on the GTN how you want, and I can post my stuff the way I want.

 

Galls me to all ends when someone tries to convince me that I should do what they think I should do.

 

I am fine with undercutting. If you would dare come to me with this garbage I would laugh in your face.

 

This right here. I'll sell my stuff for whatever the hell I want to sell it for because this is a game and in no way affects my ability to put food on the table at the end of the day.

[annabethchase]

The problem:

 

Player A - 300K

Player B - 240K

Me - 239.800K

Player C - 150K

Player D - 100K

Me - 99.900K

Player E - 90K

 

See the problem now? People lowering the prices with NO REASON, everybody would make way more money doing 100~500 credits undercut, but people are dumb enough to drop the prices from 300K to 90K in 5 steps.

 

But nobody bought them at 300k or even 100k or you wouldn't be sitting there looking at it. You have to price it to sell not to make crazy high profit margins. 10% profit is better than not selling anything.

[Frybert]

But nobody bought them at 300k or even 100k or you wouldn't be sitting there looking at it. You have to price it to sell not to make crazy high profit margins. 10% profit is better than not selling anything.

 

Have to sell things at a price that sells. I for one can sit and wait for the market to bottom out. If I need something, and I don't see the price coming down a lot, then thats probably what its worth. Same deal if I'm selling. I would love to sell everything for 1 mil plus, but thats not going to happen. I have to sell my stuff at a price people will buy. If I'm patient, I'll under cut a little, if I need cash now, I'm going to put it up for what I know it will sell at right now.

[TheSupaCoopa]

I just sell mats. Normally for a tiny decrease in price whem undercutting(I find the lowest unit price, decrease a few credits of it, then post it). Sadly, most people undercut by thousands

 

-Duran'del

[Bethmora]

I undercut everyone, why? because it a fricken game and credits are easy to get. Stop QQ its not eBay, buy up what you feel is cheap and re list it.

[NecroMayre]

I always undercut by a lot on my crafted stuff to get it to sell faster, however I always want to make a profit so I don't undersell what it cost me to make it, people however do oversell a lot which makes it easier to undercut them.

[MSchuyler]

How about this for an answer: NO!!!

 

It's a market economy, period. Get over it. And it works both ways. For example, how about those extremely high gouging prices for grade 11 crafting materials on the GTN? You know why that happened? because some enterprising crafters were smart enough to know that if they were first out of the gate they could sell that stuff and make a huge profit. So they unleashed their gathering a few minutes after the drop and within 24 hours had stacks of 99 crafting materials on the GTN. The prices are too high for me, but I have an alternative: I can GATHER THEM MYSELF! What a concept! I can send out my gathering guys, or I can even stroll around the planets and find the stuff. I'm not limited to the GTN. It;s just that the GTN is convenient.

 

The same exact thing happened with War Supplies. Crystal Capacitors see-sawed from 50 to 100K EACH for several weeks until they settled down to about 10K. It made one of my characters rich because I took the time to milk the issue.

 

So now your whining that people undercut you by more than YOU think they should? Good Lord!

 

The fact is, prices are not set by how much it costs to craft an item. Part of the pricing strategy is what you want to accomplish, and it's not always simple. For example, if you collect your drops you will accumulate a lot of gear. It costs you nothing at all, therefore the "cost to craft" is zero. I will then sell that gear for as much as it looks like I can get. But I am NOT willing to continually re-list this stuff over and over again. I will seek a selling price and if it gets really bad, just dump the stuff on a vendor because it isn't worth my time to milk the last credit from it.

 

Secondly, you need to craft for more than just credits. You need to craft to level, and getting a couple of leveling points for crafting an item is often more important than what you sell it for because your goal is not more credits, it's the next level that unlocks more schematics, where the real money is. This is especially crucial when you have only a couple of things you can craft because everything else is greyed out. I had a devil of a time getting my cybertech from 460 to 470 just because of this phenomenon.

 

But my real goal is to get to 500 and reverse engineer all the green mods to blue because THEN I can supply my alts with mods and armoring from 10-55 and save them some grief. I'll also be able to sell my blues and purples at a decent price. Because what frustrates me is the need to farm comms from every quest I've already done a few times just to keep a new character properly armored. That's about to change drastically and I'm already delighted.

 

This issue has come up many times, and the answer is the same. If you think a price is too low, buy the item and re-list it. THAT'S your option because what I sell an item for is none of your business and I really couldn't care less if my pricing strategy upsets your ideal model of what pricing should be. The GTN is not a completely free-floating marketplace. BW influences what's happening there in many ways. But it's actually pretty good. If you controlled it, it would be a disaster.

[jorill]

The only time that i really laugh about it is when someone undercuts so much that you can actually can sell it to a vendor for more credits

[izeil]

How about this for an answer: NO!!!

 

It's a market economy, period. Get over it. And it works both ways. For example, how about those extremely high gouging prices for grade 11 crafting materials on the GTN? You know why that happened? because some enterprising crafters were smart enough to know that if they were first out of the gate they could sell that stuff and make a huge profit. So they unleashed their gathering a few minutes after the drop and within 24 hours had stacks of 99 crafting materials on the GTN. The prices are too high for me, but I have an alternative: I can GATHER THEM MYSELF! What a concept! I can send out my gathering guys, or I can even stroll around the planets and find the stuff. I'm not limited to the GTN. It;s just that the GTN is convenient.

 

 

I'm one of those people and it's been worth it. I seriously feel like Scrooge McDuck because of this update. Some of the blues are starting to bottom out but the purples are still sky high and it's making me quite a bit of money.

 

As for the OP, I feel your pain but I kinda share the same sentiment. Buy out the market and relist or step out of it.

 

For the people that are saying "I do what I want", you do realize to a lot of folks the GTN is it's own mini-game and that basically makes you that DPS that queue'd as a healer in level 30 gear for hardmode flashpoints right?

[OmenQ]

I would abandon whatever I was doing and move on to something else, I think.

 

That's what I do, once I determine that someone is intent on destroying the market for an item. I move to a different item type or market segment. This time around, I switched to selling materials for a while. It's just annoying to get pushed out of the routine.

 

The white knight has moved on, and I'm back in where I was at before. Right now I'm focused on leveling up my crafting for items that I need for myself. I have enough credits that I don't need to worry about how many I make in a given day.

[Heal-To-Full]

For the people that are saying "I do what I want", you do realize to a lot of folks the GTN is it's own mini-game and that basically makes you that DPS that queue'd as a healer in level 30 gear for hardmode flashpoints right?

No, not really.

It makes you that DPS that queue'd in PvP gear.... in PvP Q, and kicked that "GTN is MY mini-game" player's buttocks.

 

The GTN is a PvP game, not a PvE one.

This is not just an opinion and not just a general principle.

 

PvE is a positive-sum game: everybody wins. Some win first and others second, that's it.

PvP, in the open world at least, is a negative-sum game: one loses a lot more than the other wins.

The GTN is a also a negative-sum game: every win comes from someone else's slightly larger loss, ultimately the outcome of the game is -6% of the credits spent.

Edited December 9, 2014 by Heal-To-Full

[enigmacypher]

I will start off saying I am a pack rat and will hold onto stuff till my vaults are full.

 

now what this means is at times I have to go to the trouble of clearing the warehouse of all the useless crap.. I could make an alt but I have way too many of these already.

 

now this means I MIGHT be selling for a lot less than someone else just to get rid of it but this price is still higher than going to an in game merchant.

 

these are also of course speculators who buy up these cheap items and turn them around for a profit (I never bothered haven't got the patience) and some of these will try to "drive the prices down".. the only way to avoid this is to set a limit to the cost/sale price both higher and lower which also isn't fair.. when I came back last month blue mods for 15th level and so were way up in price and above the price for a player leveling their first character but this is because of supply and demand ... not many are making said items and so if there are a lot of people still buying them you are stuck (also the fact the there were a lot of players that had acquired a lot of in game money by grind cash/sales over a large period of time)..

 

There is no easy solution to this issue save to say IF you are having this issue stop selling and store the items when too cheap to bother selling.. if items are to expensive make and alt and make them yourself (which is what I try to do).

 

you can't put controls on an AH system to keep the items at a range you want beyond what they have done.. you already can keep items you want to sell by placing a high value on them (maybe someone will buy it but unlikely) and you can sell cheap if you want

[enigmacypher]

I will start off saying I am a pack rat and will hold onto stuff till my vaults are full.

 

now what this means is at times I have to go to the trouble of clearing the warehouse of all the useless crap.. I could make an alt but I have way too many of these already.

 

now this means I MIGHT be selling for a lot less than someone else just to get rid of it but this price is still higher than going to an in game merchant.

 

these are also of course speculators who buy up these cheap items and turn them around for a profit (I never bothered haven't got the patience) and some of these will try to "drive the prices down".. the only way to avoid this is to set a limit to the cost/sale price both higher and lower which also isn't fair.. when I came back last month blue mods for 15th level and so were way up in price and above the price for a player leveling their first character but this is because of supply and demand ... not many are making said items and so if there are a lot of people still buying them you are stuck (also the fact the there were a lot of players that had acquired a lot of in game money by grind cash/sales over a large period of time)..

 

There is no easy solution to this issue save to say IF you are having this issue stop selling and store the items when too cheap to bother selling.. if items are to expensive make and alt and make them yourself (which is what I try to do).

 

you can't put controls on an AH system to keep the items at a range you want beyond what they have done.. you already can keep items you want to sell by placing a high value on them (maybe someone will buy it but unlikely) and you can sell cheap if you want

 

that is a pretty good analogy .. though I wouldn't call GTN a PvP game the idea is right on the money

[enigmacypher]

No, not really.

It makes you that DPS that queue'd in PvP gear.... in PvP Q, and kicked that "GTN is MY mini-game" player's buttocks.

 

The GTN is a PvP game, not a PvE one.

This is not just an opinion and not just a general principle.

 

PvE is a positive-sum game: everybody wins. Some win first and others second, that's it.

PvP, in the open world at least, is a negative-sum game: one loses a lot more than the other wins.

The GTN is a also a negative-sum game: every win comes from someone else's slightly larger loss, ultimately the outcome of the game is -6% of the credits spent.

err pretty good analogy.. I goofed an quoted my own post now to figure out how to delete a post

[Diefenbaker]

I always undercut because I need inventory space. Yes, for me it boils down to that.

[leihn]

There's always a seller curve and buyer curve when it comes to transactions of this nature, the intersection is the optimal price where the most buyers and sellers exist and what most consider 'market price,' but depending on who has more immediate demand they will be willing to be more elastic on their price.

 

For instance, you have a brand new PS4 that has a retail value of 399$ + tax, you know that people regularly sell these for close to 350-375$, but you are also past due on your rent and need 175$ by the end of the day or you're getting evicted. The only offers you have are 300-325$, can you afford to wait and try to get the extra 25$ (~16%) or do you sell now because you need the money?

 

If sufficient people are willing to sell their wares below what you deem as 'market price' either they all have a much higher credit need or you've misread what the 'market price' should be. Just to be clear, the market price isn't what you sold one thing to one person for, it's what the sustainable price that buyers and sellers are both willing to deal in is.

[captpickles]

Official release isn't out til next week, yet new augments, mods, etc...have started sprouting all over the GTM. Brand new content that people race for, then proceed to lowball the hell outta each other to scrape for credits. I just don't get cutting your throat on some of these things as the mats are hard to come by and in some cases expensive to harvest rares. I'm sure if you did a cost breakdown on what a MK-10 augment kit cost in real credits, you'd cry at the loss. There's not much profit in posting those for 150k (which I've already seen) if you consider the mats used, the items reverse engineered, the crew skill expense, or the time spent. (Anyone peep the cost of skill training to succeed in the new areas?)

 

It's just flawed logic to market your wares this way. Brand new Nvidia cards are top dollar because they're brand new. This content should cost more for the same reason...Not immediately drop in price because "Bills Backyard CPU supply" has it cheaper then "newegg", Find a fair market value and everyone wins.

 

I'm here to petition crafters to post at the current market value, find the tipping point and quit cutting each other's throats. If "Blueballsfromspace" (blatant fictitious player name) posts his earpiece at 125k, match it, don't immediately drop it to 100k. If it doesnt sell, then you'll get a clearer picture of the items worth, and you can both drop it. Even CRAZIER crafters, communicate with each other. Send a message to the guy above you. Together market values will emerge, community will grow stronger, and the game...regardless of content, glitches or population will become more fun, You'll know Blueballs has a batch of might mods coming out and you're gonna make the skill mods, and you'll all make out.

 

Hell, It's quicker to run black hole dailies to make 150k. I'd like to be a market participant, help the community and the game thrive, but hey...I guess I'll just wait til someone posts things at a ridiculous price simply because they're trying to get below the last listed lowball price, or craft what I need and keep it for myself.../sigh #swgeconomy.

 

and this belongs in another thread comment in 3...2...1...

 

As long as all of you keep buying my mats... I could care less if you keep undercutting all day long

[Brewski]

No offense to the OP, but if you have to post Augment Kits at 150k to make a good profit you are doing something wrong. The profit margin on those at the current market price (80k-90k on the Shadowlands) is astronomical already without artificial price fixing.

 

To the general point, though, the fair market value on the GTN is the price at which an item will sell at before the listing expires. This price fluctuates constantly based on supply and demand. The more there are, the lower the price will be. People will undercut your price, but if demand is high enough, your items will sell anyway. If the market demand is never enough that your listing becomes the cheapest, then you set it too high. Simple.