Everything* I needed to know about economics I learned making leatherfoot haversacks

[Saleani]

A leatherfoot bag is better than a tink bag. So why should it be cheaper?

Because I can make leatherfoot bags. I cannot make tinker's bags.

[Dutchy]

someone on Drinal sold leatherfoot haversacks for 5K the other day as well, lovely price, bought all 10 the person had instantly, my monk and wizzy are loving m. at 5500 I would have bought m as well, but probably just 4 or so to put my monk at a total of 8 =) I'm planning on getting 8 100% WR bags on all my chars myself, if haversacks are cheaper or the same price as tink bags, of course I'd go leatherfoot all the way. at 5250pp each they should sell at about the same rate as at 5000pp, but if you are already known for the 5K prizes, just leave your price there, get your entire server addicted to them, and enjoy youre fast sales =) however if you can't keep up with the demand... you might want to raise your price a bit.

On my trader, I always try to keep my item prices equal to the lowest one for sale, keeps the market stable and gives everyone a fair chance at selling their goods with a profit. I never mind people undercutting with a decent amount that gives the buyers a good deal. The undercutters that piss me off are the ones that give a whole 1pp discount on a 10K+ item.... you undercut back with 1K, they undercut with 1pp again... ARGHH so hate those people =P
I consider my goods priced decently when they sell within a couple of days, but there will always be people complaining about high prizes, (or people who do not understand some tradeskillers restock their tradeskill products after they sold out on them, and mistakenly see it for not selling at the set price) but hey, if it sells fast... how can the pricing be that far off? =)

[Tokkyl]

Agree- trivial failures on the BD portions STINK!

I have a 289 brewing skill and failing multiple Celestial Tempers is REALLY annoying (I once failed 4 in a row, and got another failure finishing up the stack of 20). Oh, I did salvage the Purified Water on one Yee-Hah /bonk! If only I got skillups as often as failures on trivial items I would have all my skills maxed at 300.

The undercutters that piss me off are the ones that give a whole 1pp discount on a 10K+ item.... you undercut back with 1K, they undercut with 1pp again... ARGHH so hate those people =P
=)

Personally - I never buy from the guy that undercut by 1pp or barely undercut, I will always buy from the higher trader just because the other person annoys me by not really lowering the price in any significant way.

Wondering if other people do this? And how about if 5 people have the same price - who do you decide to buy it from - first name from the top of the list, unique or cute name?

[Taadieri]

This is not directed at any one person in the thread. Just my observations on this market from back when I was in it. Overall, I would say Bauhb's comments about finding the right balance between profit per sale and long term profits are spot on and apply to most items in the bazaar. The observations by others in the thread that some items are not particularly price sensitive is also true.

Though it is possible to flood the market with Haversacks, and run out of buyers it is a very deep market. You would have to be selling a lot of bags to run out of a market for longer than a day or two and even then, it willl probably recover quickly as soon as you stop selling them.

The biggest sign that you are selling for too low a price is when they are consistently selling out faster than you can get more supplies whether buy farming/foraging them yourself or by buying them from others. The big sign that your price is too low is when you don't get any more sales than you did at a higher price. Of course, this applies to any product, not just Haversacks.

I made the Haversacks for a while and found that at various times, anywhere from 5k to 6k was the price that would get steady sales. Like Baub, I eventually settled on 5k. I got out of the market from time to time when too many other people were selling them, but the market almost always cleared out in a couple weeks. I quit doing Haversacks regularly when it became impossible to find anyone selling tufts of dire wolf fur with an asking price under 100pp per tuft.

I occassionally remember to put up a buy line for tufts on my buyer mule. It usually sits there with no response for weeks and then someone sells me all that I am offering to buy (200-400 typically). Then I am back in the market for a short time.

[Phantron]

If prices are the same I buy from the first name unless there's someone I recognize.

If someone is cheaper by 1pp than others I buy from that guy first unless there's someone I recognize.

[Taadieri]

If I see one person selling an item for 5k and another is asking 4999, or even 4990, I will invariably buy from the person with the 5k price. People are entitled to set whatever price they want, but those who undercut the next guy by a meaningless amount of plat are not contributing anything to the market and deserve to be punished (by the lost sale) for their attempted manipulation.

Note, significant price reductions of at least 100-200pp on items in this range (or at least on 10% smaller items and 1k+ on items over 20k or so) are a different matter.

[Phantron]

I don't think a person should be punished for paying attention to the prices around him. Clearly the people who didn't lower their prices didn't see those prices and decide to try some reverse psychology and keep the price the same. If you saw someone lower than you by 1 pp, the natural thing to do would be to lower by 1pp too.

[splunge]

A leatherfoot bag is better than a tink bag. So why should it be cheaper?

No one profits from the sale of a Tink bag.

People are entitled to set whatever price they want, but those who undercut the next guy by a meaningless amount of plat are not contributing anything to the market and deserve to be punished (by the lost sale) for their attempted manipulation.

I respectfully disagree here. If charging a few percent less then the other guy is so bad, then how come Walmart is one of the largest and richest companies in the world?

Price sells. In EQ i always undercut people, and i gave away a boatload of useless plat when i quit. In WoW, i always undercut, and laugh at the people who wonder how i can afford my epic mount before i hit the level to get it.

(Its more important in WoW to undercut and get an item sold asap because the Auction House charges a percent for putting the item up for sale, and the auction is for a limited time. The more times you have to put something up, the more it costs you.)

When im buying, price wins. If someone sells item_x 1 silver less then the other guy.. i buy the cheaper one. All those silver add up. Why do you think banks (real life banks) make so much money? Becuase they nickle and dime you to death. A surcharge here, a late fee there.. eventually, nibble by nibble, youre broke and they are swimming in money. No one ever got rich being the nice guy.

But maybe thats just me. Maybe im crazy or something.

[Taadieri]

We will have to disagree. Over the years, I have had too many experiences as a seller with people that will undercut you by 1pp, 10pp or 100pp when that represents a fraction of 1% of the total price. When you match, they cut their price again. When you undercut them, they retaliate.

This process sometimes continues until neither side is making a profit. Other times the undercutter will sell out, give up or simply log out for a while. Then you are faced with a ridiculous price like 4630pp and can either reset your price or look like an idiot when the next person logs in intending to charge 5k. You are also faced with complaints from potential buyers that "so and so was only charge xxx earlier today."

As a seller, I object not only to the lost profits, but more importantly the wasted time in trying to track the latest moves by such idiots. As a buyer, I will not reward such behavior unless they are offering a significant savings. Note, that I will not raise my prices to match the lowest asking price in the bazaar if I think they are excessive.

I set the price I think is fair based on the usefulness of the item, my costs in time or plat to farm or create it and what I think the market willl bear. If I am unsure of the proper price on an item, I may raise it to match the others and see if it sells at that price. Alternately, if someone undercuts me, I will either wait until they sell out or match their price one time. If they undercut again, I will either hold my line or lower way below what they are likely to find attractive and then stop making more of those items until they give up and go away.

[KyrosKrane]

No one profits from the sale of a Tink bag.

Heh. I'm not so sure about that. A couple of months ago on Veeshan, we had an absurd situation with bags. Leatherfoot Haversacks had dropped to 4K, whereas Tink bags were selling well at 6K. How this absurdity came about, I have no clue, but I'm pretty sure some people made a happy profit just lugging bags from Solusek's Eye to the bazaar and reselling.

[Railina]

If I see one person selling an item for 5k and another is asking 4999, or even 4990, I will invariably buy from the person with the 5k price. People are entitled to set whatever price they want, but those who undercut the next guy by a meaningless amount of plat are not contributing anything to the market and deserve to be punished (by the lost sale) for their attempted manipulation.

Note, significant price reductions of at least 100-200pp on items in this range (or at least on 10% smaller items and 1k+ on items over 20k or so) are a different matter.

Agreed.

Unless i'm buying in such a quantity that the savings adds up to a significant fraction of the price of the item in question.

[Phantron]

2 people trying to undercut each other produces a price that is more reasonable for the buyer as predicted by economic theory. One person will give up when the price is lowered to a point where it is no longer profitable to sell.

There's a lot of informal cartel like behavior going on in the Bazaar to keep prices artificially high.

For those of you that won't buy from someone who sells at X-1 plat, does that mean you'll buy someone who place it at X+1 plat when everyone else is at X plat for having courage? It's the exact same thing.

[Saleani]

I respectfully disagree here. If charging a few percent less then the other guy is so bad, then how come Walmart is one of the largest and richest companies in the world?

Part of the economics of walmart is that they pay their employees so little that 25% of their hourly workers qualify for welfare. Walmart even provides people to help their workers fill out those welfare forms. So when you are paying your taxes, you are subsidizing walmart. I call that corporate welfare: the company could not survive if they had to pay their own way in life. Economists call that an externality, a fancy word that you don't have to pay the real costs of that transaction, by pretending it isn't a part of the transaction. Another example of an externality is pollution.

Walmart also has a habit of docking suppliers a few percent off invoice for delivering late, delivering early, or delivering on time.

So walmart is a bad example to drag into a discussion of eq-economics.

Except for time spent foraging, or any trivial failures, any price over 1500pp for a haversack is profit. If you're paying 100pp per tuft in the bazaar, you won't break even at 5kpp. So the profit is based upon your marginal costs of foraging.

[Dutchy]

For those of you that won't buy from someone who sells at X-1 plat, does that mean you'll buy someone who place it at X+1 plat when everyone else is at X plat for having courage? It's the exact same thing.

Completely different thing, since its not the pp thats the problem, its the 1pp undercut that is annoying. If I undercut someone, I will make sure it gets a buyer a decent difference in price, which can make an item worth buying at that moment. But I don't see people running over to buy that custom cowl of mortality being auctionned as "CHEAPEST IN THE BAZAAR" at 59999pp, when theres 2 more for sale at 60K........
To me that just reads like: I'm a greedy jerk looking to sell an item fast, I'm too cheap to really undercut but I'm gonna scream I'm the cheapest anyway because it makes me look like a trader with awesome deals!

If I catch those players at the keys I'll friendly ask m to up their price with 1pp to match mine so we both have an equal chance at selling it... if they won't see my point and start about the free market economy, I'll agree with m, undercut m big time, and in 80% of the cases they end up cussing at me after that for ruining their profit and destroying their market.... trust me, if you're looking to sell faster, its better to undercut with a decent amount than with 1pp and ending up selling your item for 30K less because you undercut the wrong person =)

[Lothay]

Calm down.

It's a game. You're moving fictional items for fictional money. It is important to keep it in perspective.

Now, that said, if you see an item you want advertised in the newspaper at two different stores, one for $40 and the other for $39, which are you more inclined to buy? Do you go see a movie at the theater that charges $10 per ticket, or the one that asks $8.50?

Price does indeed sell items of all kinds. Finding the place where your business makes a profit acceptable to you, and out-sells your competition is the name of the game.

The point being made by the orignal poster is that he found such a price, and it is making him quite happy. Yelling at him, or yelling at someone else for "over-charging" or "under-cutting" is silly, pointless, and likely to get this thread closed.