UNDERCUTTERS

[Torey]

Undercutting

I found that when you bake especially during the truffles phase and the halas 10lb pie listing,... I was in Shadow haven and auctioning the Truffles as I made them for 50p a stack. I lucked out and had a monk buy 30 stacks. But he was only in the zone because he was one of those people who hates going through the bazaar becasue of the lag. Auctioning in Shadow Hven has proven to be quite profitable especially if you are baking while selling. Just be sure to have sow and a str buff because it is a weight zone and not weightless like The Bazaar is.


Torey

[Bennan]

Profit

Hmmm 1500 MTP's a week at 10 pp each thats 15000pp. At a cost to manufacture of around 900ish plat. Thats 16(ish) times markup !!!!

I don't think its fair to say that Soulfiend is costing people money, and herself.

Thats a very fair and equatable margin imho...and a price that supports upcomming bakers as well...

[Soulfiend]

At 10pp I sell shed loads, at 20pp I sell few, I might make more selling at 20pp but it takes longer to make the money, infact I sold about 200-300 a week at 20pp, meaning over all I was down by about 9k a week, plus people started to undercut yadda yadda.

I have reached a happy medium, of value to customers and a worthwhile profit.

[Faymar]

Halas Pies vary greatly in cost on Tarew Marr, they were down to 2pp each recently.

I leave mine at 10pp. It's a good mark-up for me, funds more baking, and doesn't strike me as an unreasonable cost.

Those selling cheaper, fine, they need to offload quickly and I don't have an issue with that. But I don't move my prices down, as I know people tend to base their prices on what they see others selling for, and when that person selling them at 50% runs out, the prices bounce back to 8-10pp.

I can't make enough food to fill the baker (and god knows I bake everything I see, just can't seem to help myself and they don't go off, so I'm quite happy just leaving them on the mule. /shrug

[Sadara]

Makeluke, Are you on Brell?

I noticed last night that someone was selling nearly 1000 Meat Pies at 2pp each. I'm so pissed about it, it's not funny. I normally sell Meat Pies pretty well, but went 3 days without selling one. So I start checking and what do you know. This same person has also started selling Picnics at 8pp. As long as this arse is selling prices like this I can't see the point in baking. I suppose I should just stick with brewing for awhile instead.

[Feoni]

hehe faymor.

Its the same thing on Zeb. People offloading all of their Halas Pies lowered the price to 4 or 5pp per (normally 8ish). So to even sell them others had to match them

Kind of funny though, another baker bought all of the ones I had left on my bazaar mule at that price and turned around and sold for more. Just wish I had more time to restock~

[EristeofInnoruuk]

Even though people have been selling Halas Pies for 4 or 5 and Misty Thicket Picnics for 10, I still sell them for 8 and 15, and they still sell. Usually it takes a bit, and then they're bought out all at once. I think it may be that they are people that know me, or at least know the location of my trader and don't want to chase all over looking for someone they don't know...

[Cigarskunk]

I used to undercut when I was lerning to cook, 1pp here, 2pp there, just to unload my stuff. The prices were 20pp, after weeks, I have settled for 10pp each for MTP's and I seem to be the only vendor in AB that is regularly selling them. Am I evil or just a shrewd business woman?

Well, as a capitalist at heart, creating a monopoly in order to make fantastic profits and driving everyone else out of the market is definately a wonderfully shrewed thing to do.

But as someone who's been kicked out of the MTP market by someone like yourself, I'd have to give you two thumbs down.

Fortunately, baking is a realatively cheap skill to practice - you can skill up to 250 on less than 5 plat per combine, so the argument that you're keeping anyone else from being able to afford to be a baker isn't really there - you're making it a bit harder, but not impossible.

Sadly, we've seen this same mentality crash and burn JC and brewing lately. Smithing is protected due to the fact that it's nearly impossible to actually advance in it anymore, fletching is now also seeing this same problem while pottery got so badly flooded with overnight GMs that I don't think it matters how hard they make it to advance in anymore. I'm not sure where tailoring stands right now - reports seem conflicted.

I'm sorry if the new bakers are not selling their goods, but there are other recipies to practice on. Halas Pies, Holy Cakes etc etc.

LOL - if you were really sorry about it then you wouldn't be doing it, right? Besides, I'm sure that there are a handful of other folks who have descided to niche those other markets into thier own personal monopolies as well - a server can only support so many folks cut throating the prices like that, so it ultimately comes down to whomever can stay on line the longest at the best prices and the best spot.[/quote]

[Loralin]

Baking isn't the tradeskill to invest in if you're looking ot turn a profit, the cost & time to level up to 250 is too low.

After doing 200-250 over a few days on MTPs I unloaded quite a few stacks at 10pp per and still had about 60 stacks of them sitting on a mule to use to feed Lora & all her friends for the next few months.

[Renaan Hellfire]

Destroy!

Generally I been destroying my combines till I've finished with my baking, then what's left in my backpacks I'll hand out to guildies and stuff.

But now I might start undercutting Faymar because I'm mean

[Omardeth]

undercutting is something that has to just be ignored . thats how i handle it . i set the price for my items at the lowest i will go on them . sure it doesn't cost alot to make halas pies . but time is money also . the time i use to make pies could be used to get xp . i won't sell my pies for less than 6.5pp per on my trader . i sell them in spurts . they might sit for a day at the most maybe 2 but i always sell out . i keep my trader ( i have a second account ) on 24/7 , unless i need the cleric onthat account , so i get alot of regulars that buy from me no matter what i charge . keep a good stock of all kinds off food and always be stocked and that will take care of the undercutters . like someone said in a post earlier , i am always in the same low lag spot and i am always stocked . once people know u have what they want all the time they don't even search they just go right to you . my best customers always get extra here and there when i am nearthe trader , i am sure that helps also .

[Mad Baker Hobbitt]

Lora --

Baking can make a profit... if you are patient. Last count, I was at about 300k+ profit from baking.

Baking has outfitted me and my twinks VERY nicely.

I have to agree with a lot of the folks here though about the undercutting. At first glance, it does seem like inidividuals making 15k a week is excessive. The thing is though, consider the time that person has put in to get to that level. How much have they spent not adventuring to sit in front of the oven developing carpal tunnel syndrome... My heart goes out to new bakers trying to make a few plats from those pies. I know when I first started mass producing them on my server, I REGULARLY got 250+ plat per stack. And 500p EACH for the picnics.

Unfortunately... those days are gone. Everyone and their brother hopped on the latinum baking bandwagon. Heck, with all of the undercutting, I have not even logged on my baking mules for the bazaar... and I have something like 3000 halas meat pies to unload. I just will hold onto them until everyone stops baking, and sell them for 5p ea.

All of that being said though... it is a free market. People that are undercutting have the same rights as the rest of us. All we can do is ignore it, and hope they go away.

Best of luck to the up and coming bakers though.

Hopperr