JMTC Wow Gold Forum

I'm wondering what the general consensus is on the ethics of canceling and reposting auctions when you've been undercut. In particular, my question applies to glyphs, as they are very inexpensive to repost.

I typically check my auctions 4 times a day, and will cancel and repost any glyphs that I have been undercut on, with the exception of glyphs that have sunk below the cost of mats.

I have gotten some nasty tells from my competition because I do this, but I don't really see that I am doing anything wrong. Does anyone else think that canceling and reposting is wrong, and if so, why?

I don't see any problems with it.

Only, I don't cancel my auctions, eventually, the price of the Items will get up again, and your items will get sold.
Atleast that's with most of the items.

Items like a blue 'twink' weapon can be undercut, but even than I keep my current price, sometimes I'm lucky, and If I'm not, it will sell the next post or so.
Eventually, I make more profit than cancelling and reposting.

Just like the above poster here.

I rarely repost stuff if I get undercut. I either sell it after some time, because mine will eventually get on top again, or I wait for it to expire and then repost it.

I may re-undercut someone with a new auction just to see how much inventory he has, but I've never had to cancel an auction in reaction to an undercutter. It's not worth my time to obsess over getting first-sale on every single item I have, and I'd rather sell it later for a higher price than discount it now.

Besides the rudeness issue, persistent undercutting has financial drawbacks. Sharing the wealth works better in the long run than an undercutting war that lowers prices. Undercutting every couple of hours is just asking for someone else to do the same, and glyphs will be free for everyone by the end of the day. Every time you drop the price, you need to sell more to make the same amount of money.

One key about milking the AH is not attracting attention. Now that you have their attention, you're no longer a competitor, but a target. If your competitors band together into a cartel, your glyph market is done. The last thing you want to see is thousands of your once-profitable glyphs listed at the cost of materials as someone with deeper pockets turns on the spigot. The glyph market is extremely easy to flood, and there's enough herbs in the AH to keep the hose running for a very long time. Everyone's profits drop to zero for as long as it takes to run you out of money.

My daily glyph processing is simple. I post in the afternoon with a 12-hour auction, so all of them have expired when I get home from work. It's a simple matter to collect the gold, take inventory, craft the ones that are missing, and relist (or more accurately, let the addon relist). I don't know what happens in the market after that, and the money flow is enough that I don't care. Letting my stock expire also helps keep prices up - by my actions, my server experiences four fewer rounds of undercutting than yours does, so prices stay higher from day to day.

Ethics?? In a business environment? Is this Madness???
Only joking, but it is quite true to say that generally if you are selling anything and getting a profit someone else is losing out. This might seem ludicrous but its always true no matter if your reselling or posting things you have farmed. In the case of reselling your preventing somone who might actually use the mats and causing them to possibly spend more on it. In the case of farming your posting the items you've farmed for the time taken + a little bit of interest so naturally they are losing out in some way. I'm not quite as severe as Greedy Goblin is, but you should always take a look from this point of view if you want to make money.
Oh yeh on the matter of undercutting. Ummmm just list your items for a short amount of time i.e. 12 hours, and don't cut them early. You could potentially be making more profit if you just leave the items up and 12 hours isn't very long at all when you consider it. Also don't undercut too much, at a max about 10 silver.
Or else your a standing target like the above poster said.
And you do not want people deciding they want to undercut you by about 4g just to spite you.

Just send the mats to another toon and repost they wont know its you

to be completely honest,
In pvp (i mean AH) i have no ethics or moral or conscience (this spelled right?)
everything goes in love or war ... and pvp is war! (though i think love should be scrapped out of this)
Same goes for bussiness though, the only ethics I have are: Keep my employees happy and keep my customers happy. all the rest? (including competition) is a casualtie of "war"

^^

grtz
Seth

PS: in all the rest i do have ethics, don't think i'm not a nice guy

On my server if you are not on top of your game, you will never sell, I think we have at least 50 people that devote their time to AH business. What this mean to those that decide to not relist is that you will always get an expire auction .. my point is just this .. if i am undercut .. i just make more and undercut the undercutter .. I am always selling and those that he undercuts will expire before his (only 12 hours listing) making it possible for me to relist it again for even less than the undercutter. If you're playing the auction house you must be aggressive enough to ward off undercutters

just to let you know im still lvl 44 on my first toon and i have been playing for a month... in that month i have made around 2k ... and leveled skinning mining fishing and cooking to 300 ... i buy farm craft and auction everything i can make a profit on.

i spend VERY little time playing and very little of that time is psent away from the ah (just when my friend with a linked account wants to help me lvl)

When i get undercut posting anything from ore-greens for DE, i look to see if i can brake even with repost cost and sell for a higher profit, i have on many occasions purchased over 100 single listed items ( say ore) and re-post them for my price, much higher then even the most expensive 1 stack one on the list. Granted this strategy takes capital .. and has some exponential returns ( I CANT WAIT TILL IM LVL 80 and can start dealing in max lvl ores/matts) But i find it works wonders in flooded markets...

so my motto... don't undercut in a market CONTROL IT!


Alex

>>...post in the afternoon with a 12-hour auction,

I used this method for quite some time, but found that the competition on my server tends to post at least 5 of each glyph, and it is a low pop server. This means once I am undercut, ALL FIVE of the competition's glyphs would have to be purchased before mine would sell. This rarely happens, so in order to stay competitive, I have to cancel and relist. (I never post more than 2 of each glyph in order to avoid flooding)

>>Every time you drop the price, you need to sell more to make the same amount of money.

Call me a carebear...but personally I'd rather sell 10 glyphs for 20g each than sell 1 glyph for 200g. More players get to enjoy their glyphs and it is almost the same amount of profit.

>>Now that you have their attention, you're no longer a competitor, but a target.

My server is so small that there are only about 6 people that I actively compete with, and I am the most active glyph seller, so even if I didn't cancel/repost, there's no way to avoid attention.

>>you do not want people deciding they want to undercut you by about 4g just to spite you.

This has happened to me (and by more than 4g), but when people do this, I just remove that glyph from my batch posting for a few days and the prices eventually normalize.

>>don't undercut in a market CONTROL IT!

This strategy does not work for glyphs because if you buyout your competitor's supply, they can just whip up a batch of new glyphs in a few minutes. It works for stuff like herbs and ore though.