Thread: Resetting a market

So the gems market on my server is... terrible to say the least. Rare cuts going for 2g, uncut for 20.

So i took it upon myself to fix that! Set aside 20k gold, and bought out the entire blue and red gems.
Repost at 300g cuts and 150g uncuts, i even managed to sell an amazing 2 gems at 300g.

Woke up the next morning (the reset took place at 4 am server time), and the prices were down again. Not as low, but still very low.

I found something interesting though:
- People undercutting themselves from 150g to 50g
- People undercutting from 300g to 150g
- Flooding. So much flooding.

Will I do it again?
Probably not.

Though if anyone has any tips for successfully raising the prices on a particular market, i'm all ears...

Originally Posted by InevBetrayal

So the gems market on my server is... terrible to say the least. Rare cuts going for 2g, uncut for 20.

So i took it upon myself to fix that! Set aside 20k gold, and bought out the entire blue and red gems.
Repost at 300g cuts and 150g uncuts, i even managed to sell an amazing 2 gems at 300g.

Woke up the next morning (the reset took place at 4 am server time), and the prices were down again. Not as low, but still very low.

I found something interesting though:
- People undercutting themselves from 150g to 50g
- People undercutting from 300g to 150g
- Flooding. So much flooding.

Will I do it again?
Probably not.

Though if anyone has any tips for successfully raising the prices on a particular market, i'm all ears...

This is a very common problem. People reset their posting floors and ceilings as the market changes since it's typically the only market they are working with. I've got roughly 120 categories in my TSM, with 3 dedicated to MoP gem sales. If I only had 3 I could monitor a little closer, but you have people who set their tolerance to 100% and sometimes the default 500% isn't enough to compensate when you try to reset, so they end up posting at fallback.

This is a failure on their part to properly use their mods and have correct settings. It has ripple effects for the entire market when they do that.

Another problem is there are also people out there using a carpet bomb approach, which is to intentionally set the market low. If I was a mass producing bot farmer selling gold and had the desire to control a particular market and guarantee others get out or buy me out, I would possibly approach it this way.

More than likely though the first argument is more valid however, since the simplest answer is people are bad at math and setting up their addons. Keep in mind you won't ever be able to get them to change in this situation, since they're probably happy just seeing gold mail.

Originally Posted by Zerohour

This is a failure on their part to properly use their mods and have correct settings. It has ripple effects for the entire market when they do that.

Another problem is there are also people out there using a carpet bomb approach, which is to intentionally set the market low. If I was a mass producing bot farmer selling gold and had the desire to control a particular market and guarantee others get out or buy me out, I would possibly approach it this way.

More than likely though the first argument is more valid however, since the simplest answer is people are bad at math and setting up their addons. Keep in mind you won't ever be able to get them to change in this situation, since they're probably happy just seeing gold mail.

I've actually managed to talk to some of the posters. one of them had the threshold at 10g for a cut gem. fallback at around 50g. Simply no way to change that!

Silver lining for me though, is that i did manage to raise some prices (from 2-3g to 40-50), and if i'm able to sell all the uncut gems i bought i'll break even...

I think I meant moreso that they are more into themselves and are interested in being as aggressive as possible. And should have added the word "Probably". Random tells to other sellers often is a bad idea, but if you approached it properly (sounds like you did in that one case) they sometimes will listen. It's important to wave a white flag immediately on approaching. If they are willing to change and understand that the world wasn't created just for them, and they are reasonable it's just better odds they will listen. I've not had that experience on my server in a very long time.

I've had competitors immediately start with "Your an idiot" trying to start conversations with me. I normally reply "you're*" and let them know I won't be discussing anything further. IgnoreMore is a tremendous addon.

Originally Posted by Zerohour

I think I meant moreso that they are more into themselves and are interested in being as aggressive as possible. And should have added the word "Probably". Random tells to other sellers often is a bad idea, but if you approached it properly (sounds like you did in that one case) they sometimes will listen. It's important to wave a white flag immediately on approaching. If they are willing to change and understand that the world wasn't created just for them, and they are reasonable it's just better odds they will listen. I've not had that experience on my server in a very long time.

I've had competitors immediately start with "Your an idiot" trying to start conversations with me. I normally reply "you're*" and let them know I won't be discussing anything further. IgnoreMore is a tremendous addon.

I've had found both... I usually start the convo with "hey, got a minute" and try to ask from there if they are undercutting manually or with an addon. I've had ppl recognize they were undercutting too much, while others simple didn't care a bit...

I like the ones that don't care one bit. They amuse me.