That’s right, it’s on! I can only speculate that it’s because of this post on Just My 2 Copper.
What’s happening? Well I used to be the sole provider of ammo in stacks of 200 on Bleeding Hollow. There were others selling ammo, but in stacks of 1000. I’m assuming they sold their 1000 stack ammo when it was listed, but it was listed at about half of what I listed my 200 stack per arrow/bullet so I was making huge profits compared to the others who sold ammo. So, I log on yesterday afternoon and what do I find? Someone listed 10 stacks of 200 arrows undercutting me by 1 copper. So, I posted a bunch more ammo and undercut him.
It was nice being the sole provider of ammo in the small stack category on my server. Every few days I’d sell a ton of it and it’s been my main source of income since the decline of buff food sales. If this keeps up, I’m gonna have to get ugly and pull a Gevlon, which is to say, undercut my competitors by so much that they go away.
So, not only will I Bring It, it’s already been “Broughten”!
There is no shame in undercutting, my friend. When you've got a market with no product differentiation, just pure supply and demand, it's the only way to compete.
ReplyDeleteThe market will always level itself out. So go get 'em!
I have an alternative to competing with people- working with them. On my server (Coilfang-US) I and about 4 other people are the main suppliers of gems, and a month ago we we all undercutting each other by insane amounts trying to get the others to give up, which drove the price of gems down from ~80g for high-selling ones (solid sky sapphire, runed scarlet ruby, etc) to ~20g. We realized this approach was not working- we were all getting much less money then we originally got- so we formed an alliance: everyone undercuts only by 1c, only posts one of each type of gem at a time, and tries to avoid posting if someone else has theirs up already if possible. This approach has led to prices going up slowly on our server (there's the odd asshole who is trying to sell a few gems, doesn't know the market, and undercuts massively) and we're all getting about 1000g a day.
ReplyDeleteIt's a perfect setup- if you don't want to be greedy, I'd recommend talking to your competitors and seeing if you can set up an agreement with them.
@Noak: I like that. If you can get it to work it certainly is a more ethical and profitable approach to the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteWhat Noak is doing on his server within the gem market is called Collusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar enough with the WoW terms of service to know if it's against the rules or not. Since so few people are doing it, there's probably no problem at all. I really don't have an issue with it as an in game marketplace tactic. The issue I have with it is in the real world where it looks to have happened (and is happening) with gasoline prices in the U.S.
At this point, I'd rather put my competition out of the ammo business :-)
It's absolutely Collusion in its purest form, but I'd be surprised if anything like that's in the ToS.
ReplyDeleteLet me qualify my previous comment. I shouldn't have used the word "ethical" because it kind of screws the consumers out of the benefits of healthy competition. Should've made that more clear...my bad :)
You're right, though. In the real world collusion (especially with gas prices...grr) deserves prison time and a series of punches in the back of the head.
I've talked a lot with 'entrepreneurs' on Khadgar-US, an original release server. They actually did a lot of things that would get you jailed in real life, including collusion, monopolies, price fixing, etc. Generally speaking, Blizz will let you get away with a lot, until you start to radically affect the economics of the AH. i.e. collusion on solid sky sapphire gems, perfectly fine. Collusion on all gems (every. last. one.) is just asking for a ban hammmer.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Blizzard cares.
ReplyDeleteAs long as players are getting whatever they want at good prices it doesn't matter.
If you undercut me with you friends, players get cheaper prices.
If you try fix a high price, i will undercut you, you can keep buying me out, but you have no way of controlling the supply unlike in real life.
If you are making good gold in a market it is usually because you are putting in more effort than others, understanding the market and playing it.
Nothing wrong with that.