How to Deal with Constant Undercutting

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

Here is an email exchange between myself and Extensity, Frostmourne US. He asked a great question a few weeks ago on undercutting and hopefully my answer will help everyone who has a similar quandry.

"Hi there Marcko,

Firstly I'd like to thank you for your massive contribution to the WoW community and for the information you hand out so freely. All the little tips and suggestions have made a big difference on how I play this game.

On that note I'd like to ask the questions 'How can I keep competitive on an overcrowded market?', 'Are there certain days you don't bother with certain markets?'

On my server it was particularly difficult to catch up and match the prices of glyphs. The only way I can stay competitive with the multitudes who are listing them is to cancel all my uncut auctions every 5 minutes. Unfortunately this just kills a lot of profit for all of us. So back to the question, is there any other way to keep competitive without sitting here all day cancelling and relisting auctions.

I know a simple answer to this: Diversify. But I'd like to know how you deal with constant undercutters.

Thanks,

Extensity - Frostmourne US."

Markco: Are you selling all your items the same way or do you sell certain glyphs differently? Are you focusing on anything in particular?

"I'm treating my enchanting and glyph markets a little differently. Enchanting I buy low during the week and relist for peak times. Enchanting I list multiple at a time; where as glyphs I list only 1 at a time generally because I know it'll get undercut particularly fast.

Part of the difficulty on this server is it seems that demand is almost equal to the supply (for the time being). Northrend herbs aren't dropping below 17g per stack, meaning it's costing me approximately 10g per glyph to make. So when I expanded to listing more than 50 different types I included the glyphs that'll make me 1g profit to the ones that'll make me 70g (Mutilate, etc). Just not sure what to do when nothing sells when I'm not online because I get undercut under each market.

Thanks for response"

Markco: Use wowpopular.com, the jmtc forums and the APM (or ZA) summary scans to determine which items you should craft. I would focus your glyph efforts on no more than 30 glyphs that all sell for 4x the cost of mats. List one of each every single time you post and keep 5 of each in inventory throughout the week. This way you don't have to cancel and repost each time, you can just post. You'll make far more gold per hour and free up quite a bit of time for other markets like your enchanting. By eliminating markets which take up too much of your time you will slowly build up a list of most profitable markets for your valuable time.

"Hi there Marcko,

Following what I learned yesterday about focusing on at least 10 glyphs that sell for 40g+, I've been able to sustain competition on those while making the same profit I would on many of the others. Also spending less time cancelling and relisting the minor profitable glyphs I've had more time to casually flip epic gems on another toon earning double the amount per hour.

Also started to buy herbs when I don't need them but they're under my thresh hold, so I can sustain a 7-8g cost per glyph when the herb prices are high - something I learned on JMTC as well.

I use Auctioneers "Appraise"; Auctionators Undercutting Checker, and APM to see which gems/glyphs (and Enchanting mats on peak times) are most profitable.

So thanks for all the tips. All of them "work" and most definitely help."