Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Tip: All alone on the market

I'm on a rather small server and AH with monetize. This means that some trade goods have a very low quantity on the AH. For example: Yesterday i was manually going over metal&stone for a look at the pct there. (yes i still manually search sometimes) and it hit me that there are no tin bars and no bronze bars, as if to emphazise this a shout went over /2: WTB 100 tin bars (clearly a blacksmith/engineer who doesnt have mining). Now i have a miner, and have 40 tin bars sitting with her (for Jc). So as a good banker, i logged out, went to my alt, sent the bars, logged in with monetize agian and posted them, at a price of 130%.

If your alone in the market and there is no competition this will happen:
- others will see that you have a monopoly and they are trying to undercut you. (im lucky since i'm on a small server, that gives me a bit of time)

So you want to make as much of a profit as possible! What do the most do? they double or triple the price and dump all what they have on AH. This is Wrong. So wrong!

First off all, the customer has a "plafond", which means, if they are used to paying 5G for a stack of tin bars, and you are putting them up at 15G, 99% will not buy them. ofcourse there is that one M&S (to put it in Gevlon's words) that will buy it. but then you still have the other 9 stacks or so to sell.
Second, if you are posting all your stacks, then there is an overload of goods and prices will drop again. which becomes a problem since you can't undercut anymore! (all your stacks are already posted remember :) )

Two ways to handle this:
first: put up 1 stack at 300% with an alt of yours, wait untill your being undercut. then put up 3orso stacks (again depending on demand) at 200%. People will think your cheap and buy your stuff instantly (for use or resale = which keeps up the price) This is a good strategy when you'r certain, you can check the ah the first 3-4h after your initial post.

the second way is a bit 'easier' and refrains a lot of people from undercutting but needs a less active AH or a low-mid lvl product. slowly drop the goods in AH. at a price of 125-150%. This will refrain farmers to farm like crazy for your goods. why farm an hour for only a small profit? (low lvl goods = less gold for their work.) If you do this with higher lvl goods, farmers will be more anxcious for a piece of the pie. When they undercut you, simply undercut them again by 1% with 1-3 stacks (again depending on demand).

What do you guys do when your alone at a market?

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