World of Warcraft™

Every day I put gems in the auction house, and no matter what gem, no matter what day of the week, no matter what time of day, no matter how many times I take them out and put them back in for less, I get undercut by the same person within the hour. By 1 copper. What makes matters worse is that nobody buys mine because they are buried under 60 other gems that are 1 copper cheaper, or people just buy the cheaper one, even if it's only cheaper by a copper.

I haven't sold a gem in weeks.

What do I do???

02/18/2012 02:43 AMPosted by Jjlock

What do I do???

You guard the AH and cancel/relist as soon as you're undercut.

That's what we all do

Or try deep undercutting. Instead of undercutting by a copper, undercut by a few percent. He'll undercut you by a copper again. Repeat. Eventually one of the following will happen:

1. He'll stop undercutting and let you sell your gems.

2. He'll start buying your gems to relist at a higher price. Milk this for all it's worth.

3. He'll keep undercutting you until it's no longer worth your time.

Option #3 is undesirable of course, but if the other guy's just willing to work harder at it than you, or is getting a better deal on mats, there's not much you can do. The key to success with this method is getting your mats at the best possible price.

One-copper undercutting favors the seller who logs in the most often. If you can't or won't be that guy, you can't win that game.

Option #3 happens every time.

Example - puissant dream emeralds are going for about 45 gold. Charla has some up for 44.99.99 gold. I put 5 up for 43 gold. An hour later I look and Charla has 20 more up for 42.99.99 gold. I take mine out and put them back for 40 gold. An hour later I look and... Charla - 20 MORE for 39.99.99. I scroll down and see her other ones still there for 42.99.99 and 44.99.99. Fast forward a day, mine are now up for 20 gold, she has a crap ton up for 19.99.99 and I give up. Wait a few days, they've gone back up to 40something, repeat the whole process again, sell 0 gems.

Now, realize this isn't just that one specific type of gem this is happening to, it's literally every single gem of every single color. Yeah. Madness.

Generally you should undercut by less amounts or you can undercut right back with 1c.

Put one up at time with 12h auctions. Gems have a decent ah cost so it's going to add up. That other person probably didn't sell a bunch of those gems anyways and ended up paying a good chunk for ah fees.

You need to be more savvy about this especially if you are going up against those dedicated sellers. You better realize it's a long, bitter war.

you really have 2 options,

1. camp your auctions and undercut by 1c back.

2. deep undercut.

now if he wants to win, he probably will. Hes "that guy" on your server. I know he will win if he chooses to do so because i am "that guy".

you will definitely not win with yellow/green/blue by deep undercutting. He has unlimited supply and likely vendors 100s a week anyway so as long as the price is like 10g, hes gonna undercut.

so you really need to decide how much you want to be him because hes probably the most dedicated player on your server and its going to take a LOT of time and effort to beat him. so you really need to think about if that's worth it or if you should look to other markets.

i guess there is a 3rd option which is to sell him raw carnilians/inferno rubies at a discounted price. I cant say for sure that he would goto this but i had several do this after giving up competing.

Or... sell in /2 at prime times. Like 11pm when raids end and people need gems, or whenever you log on. Make a macro saying you'll sell (insert favorite gems here) for 5g less than AH prices. You'll get occasional hits.

One things that drives this severe undercutting is a large price difference between the uncut and cut gems. If your puissant emerald is selling for 40g, but the uncut is selling for 5g, then chances are excellent that no one is buying the cut version for 40g anyway. You're not selling gems, yes, but he probably isn't either.

I often get undercut on rubies, but it doesn't matter because they sell so fast that mine will sell too just fine. WIth the current gear having 90% red slots the amount of gems that sell is way down. I used to make a lot selling demonseye, but I don't anymore because there arne't blue slots in gear this tier.

So another option, stick to popular gems.

Choose one cut of one gem and list those much lower but still profitable.

If you are selling say Brilliant Infernos at 200g but leave Bolds and Delicates are 300g, your opponent is hopefully smart enough to realise "I should just stick to Bolds and Delicates and not lose 100g per gem chasing this guy down on Brills".

Only list one at a time. If he undercuts you with 10 he is making a dumb move, since he is going to lose 10 listing fees when you undercut him again.

If he continues to undercut you by 1c with 10 gems even after doing these things that force him to make a bad move, he is a bot (maybe a human bot, but he is reacting algorithmically rather than using his brain, so a bot nonetheless) so the right play is to go below cost with a single gem, wait for him to undercut you with 10 more, and buy them up. Then sell those ones in Trade at a small profit and look like a hero.

Ultimately if someone or something is prepared to be online 24 hours a day, you can't actually beat them, because the AH is rigged in their favor. But you can win small victories making the right moves in response to theirs.

I would have to echo the above sentiments in general, especially about sourcing your mats as cheaply as possible.

Specifically, here's what I try to do:

Inferno rubies- I'll list 3- 5 at a time. Every day I'll log on and usually list 5. If I'm on for an extended period of time then I start to post 3 at a time, wait for those to sell and then list 3 more.

Shadowspirit dimaonds- I'll list 1- 3 at a time. These move more slowly, so I list fewer of them.

Off color/hybrid gems- I'll list 1- 3 of each cut at a time. These are highly erratic and are low volume. I prospect ore for common gems and for inferno rubies, so any off-color rare gems are pure cake. I won't sell them for less than 16ish gold, so as to avoid bottoming out the market, but these are just a nice bonus whether I sell them for 20g or for 120g (fluctuates wildly).

The key thing is to know the general pace at which your gems will sell. Listing dozens at a time is just a waste of listing fees and an invitation for others to undercut. You'll start to notice that your competitors are happy to undercut you if you post 10+ gems at once. If you post 1- 3 they'll figure, "I'll let those sell and then my own will get a higher price." At least this is how I look at it myself quite often. The trick is to sell those 1- 3 and just list 1- 3 more if you're online.

To many players, playing the AH is a game itself.
When I get into an auction war, I do this.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/99/wowscrnshot080911141944.jpg/

of course though, I only do this to people who undercut by 1 copper and do not mind reposting their entire list of gems every 60 seconds all night.

Sounds like Charla has been in the JCing business for awhile and has well over a million gold. Their method of selling loses them money in the short term, but in the long term it runs day traders like you out of the market so they don't have competition.

The best way to counter them is to post 1-3 gems 1c under their price repeatedly throughout the day. It gets your gems sold and costs the other person money. If you're trying to move large amounts of goods in the JCing market then you're not going to be very successful with someone like that as your competition. Best to find another market to take advantage of.

I only put out 2 at a time. I let the others waste money by relisting tons of gems against my 2. I also under cut by 5 gold or so. Eventually the price gets so low the gem sellers buy all the gems and it starts over again.

What works for me most of the time is a little different than some of the usual methods. yes, cancel and relist asap, but something that I have found works well especially when you're dealing with undercutters, is undercut them substantially, but only if its still profitable and you have some time to kill at the AH. My method: Have a stack of gems at the ready, and see which ones are selling for the most. Be online at a busy time, either at night on weekends or when people get off work, etc. Usually I will see say, a Delicate Inferno going for 285g. I post it during a busy time at 250g. It's usually gone in a few minutes before I get undercut. As soon as the one sells, put up another. The important thing is to have a floor which you wont sell your gems under. I made 1200 gold in about 30 mins this way one busy sat. night. As a JC'er, it shouldn't be about how much you can sell one gem for, but turnover.

02/18/2012 02:43 AMPosted by Jjlock

I haven't sold a gem in weeks.

hadn't sold any after about two or 3 weeks after getting my JC maxed... gave up. sold the occasional trade requested gem, and cutting my own, if uncuts are cheap enough, otherwise, none since 4.2 hit... at the latest...

i have to put up with people like this all the time on my server.

the way i deal with them is simple

i go out and get my stockpile of gems built up to a point were it will take a few days to sell them out


then.... i camp the !@#$ out of the ah. he undercuts me i do it back. so far ive ben able to run the market fairly well, the person you are runing into is doing what i do aswell.

the reason that i do this is simple, as some one said it runs the ( small time JC ) out of the market. number 2 it keeps my stuff as the lowest cost on the ah for a longer % of time than his meaning i get more buyers than he does.

another reason is i just like the competition. i like playing the market to make as much as possible out of the other guy, some times ill find a guy who will do deep undercuts on me like you are suggesting, when that happens i push it down to an almost unprofitable number then buy them out. i know alot of you say ( just let him buy you out since you will sell your stock faster ) and that maybe true, but you have to understand, every gem i buy from you at 50% normal ah cost is money in my pocket.

people who rush will lose money those who dont will make it. simple fact of life.

To many players, playing the AH is a game itself.

This.

Generally if you're being undercut like this it is not anything personal - there are mods which help automate undercutting of any player in this fashion. You are undercut a few silver or copper at a time to keep the price of the items stable within the market. The glyph and gem markets are especially volatile because Blizzard has set the price-to-post at a low value; if you undercut them they just cancel their auction and re-post for a very small fee.

If you do have the time to re-post hourly look into the addons your competition use such as Auctioneer, Auctionator and TradeSkillMaster (http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/tradeskill-master). Some of these do have a small learning curve but there are hundreds of youtube video guides to setting them up and using them effectively.

Unfortunately if you can't log on hourly like this your options are limited.
You could:

• Try to contact the person undercutting you and ask if they would consider white listing you in their mods to keep the market prices high.


• Post your items more frequently with larger price cuts during peak times for your server. Consider using a service like The Undermine Journal (http://theunderminejournal.com) to work out the best times to post your items.


• Consider getting a subscription to the mobile auction house so you can post while you're away from your computer. There is a limit to how many auctions you can post per day with this service but if you only have a few items to list or if you are working within a small niche of items it can be very effective.


• As others have said you can try to force your competitor out of the market by stockpiling a large number of gems and consistently undercutting them to the point it isn't profitable for them to post. Just beware that this is difficult to do, can be very costly, and could backfire on you if hey have bigger pockets and simply buy out all your stock to re-post later.


• Consider getting another account so you can play the auction house on it while doing other things on your main account. Downtime in raids can be spent on your second account crafting or posting ;)

Best advice though would be for you to build a more diverse range of things you can sell on the auction house. Trying to force your way into a volatile market such as this and restricting yourself to one type of item for sale as you have clearly seen, is asking for hurt.

another option is to park your item at certain price with no expectation of selling it. park it at a low price..but one where you would still make a profit....

they will have no choice but to forever keep their gems lower then that price...thus cutting deep into their profits.

eventually after seeing your gem at say 20 gold for 2 weeks they will crack and buy your gems rather then keep losing all that potential profit.

its prob not personal. many people are just AH serohw, an they often use an addon to track sales. an repost based on market... they prob dont know who there undercutting...just that there trying to make sales

this is happening to me right now. but this is how i fix this problem without spending gold. use the biding price and buyout: 850 bid, 950 buyout. so usually they undercut buyout price, and they don't have undercut the bid price, so smart people would bid on urs and not buyout theirs, or maybe buyout theirs as well

Option 4: Be a spiteful human being. Assuming you have over 100,000g -- several hundred would be better -- with a limited supply of gems (listing one at a time), you can crash the market for the gem magnate and cut into his profits. What do you gain? Not much, except knowing that you are taking away a source of satisfaction for a person obsessed with margins.