I also hate when people do that! There is NO reason for them to do that, they’ll earn less, and will sell just as fast as if they were undercutting by a small amout.
If an item is selling for 8g for example, i sell mine for 7g 99s 99c, so it’s still worth the same.

This is such general market dynamics that I cannot understand why anyone would get mad at it.

If shop #1 is making 100% profit on item A and sells 100 of item A.
What stops shop #2 making only 80% profit on item A but selling 130 of them?

That’s a very rough example, of course. But undercutting is such an incredibly basic principle. In the real world you can think a more expensive item will have a superior quality, but in WoW this is obviously not the case.

Sadly I’m forced to undercut on my current realm due to douchebag farmers thinking they can set whatever price they feel like.  For Instance here is an example of an Level 80 item I saw last night..  Spiked Titansteel Helm for 10,000g so I Undercut this idiot and set my buyout at 1600g which was the normal price going on my server, second I saw a level 20 item selling for 1000g so I forced the price to 1g buyout.  The point is you will run into idiots who choose to inflate stuff and then you’ll see people setting prices that are reasonable to ensure they sell.  I always have to watch the behaviors on the AH and use my best judgement.  I have noticed blizzard taking several auctions down on my server already due to abuse of course.  Atleast the Blizzard GMs are seeing the new trends.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against under cutting, it’s the people that undercut by miles, driving the cost of the item down.

See, in the case of the helm that was on AH for 10k gold, I would’ve put one up for more than the usual price, because people looking at your helm compared to the 10k one will think yours is a bargain even though you bumped the usual price up a bit.

And on the subject of Blizzard removing auctions - I can’t believe that happened. They’ve said before they won’t do that, people can chose to sell or buy stuff for whatever they want to, it’s up to them.

This is called economics.

Personally, I always undercut by 1 copper in the buyout price, and I set my bid price to what I would get for selling it to a vendor plus the cost to deposit it in the AH.  Even if someone bids and buys it ridiculously cheap, I’m still breaking even and I get the item out of my inventory on my first post.  If they get impatient and do the buyout, I’m making as much money as anyone else on it.

You have two options.  Actually buy the lower-priced items yourself and resell them at the market value and make a profit off doing so (you can make a lot of money standing at the AH doing this all day), or lower the prices of your own items.  After all, you’re not going to be able to stop basic economics from happening.

I suggest you get and use the addon Auctioneer.  It’s helpful for detecting when people are listing items significantly below market value so you can buy them yourself and resell them for a profit, if you truly believe the items will actually sell at a higher price.

Honestly cry more. I think it perfectly fine to sell things for cheaper rather than getting ripped off. In the case of the spiker titansteel helm, is it worth 1800g…probally yes. 1400g is deal and its perfectly fine to do that too. Its simple economics of I have something and I want to sell it so I am gonna sell it for less to get rid of it. I myself am I blacksmith and yes I will make them too to skill up probally at a point in time or because I have the mats and wanna make some cash and I will have to see what they are going for and yeah I will see if for probally 50g-200g less depending on the state of the market. I have done this many times with glyphs. People asking 20-50g for a glyph of light or wisdom on the AH. Its a complete rip off. Also selling silver bars for 2g a bar is a rip off. I undercut the market to make money not to be like everyone else and rip people off. I sell stuff for whats it worth not sell it for more to inflate the market with over priced stuff. If you play the market long enough all those 1400g helms will be sold and then when someone wants to buy one and your 1800g is the only helm they might buy it because once again it takes about 4 days for someone to make one.

But that’s my point, if there’s only one helm on the AH for 1800g, and you put yours up for 1799g, people will buy the cheaper one anyway… so what’s the point of putting it up for 1400g? It’s unlikely to sell any quicker.

Obviously it depends on the item, that helm in the example is not the sort of thing that you can churn out, people can make 1 every 4 days - more if they buy the titansteel CD but then it cuts into your profits. So there’s not many around and it’s unlikely there will be more than 2 or 3 on the AH at one time except after the weekend. A good reason for putting it up for a low price is that people (like me) are reluctant to undercut you, but when there’s hardly any around, there’s no sensible reason for a low price.

Maticus your wrong on Blizzard removing auctions. They will remove auctions if your suspected of abusing the economy in this case these players were using a unusual pricing scheme with some mod that blizzard found illegal and since these players have stopped posting auctions and there auctions simply were deleted after 4 hours there is only one assumption amongst the realm community and that is they got caught red-handed.

After playing since launch and since transferring to a new realm 2 years ago. I have to say I’ve seen a GM in the IF auction house randomly and others have spotted it too.  This whole thing started when these people started driving up the cost, wool, linen, runecloth and starter mats for vanilla wow content and has filtered out of control.  Thats when I started seeing GM’s randomly at the IF AH on my server.  Care to Dispute that?  I know my old guild leader from my old realm got banned for Abusing the Economy.

It always surprizes me how extremely clueless people tend to be about economics.
Of course 1400g price helps selling much fastet than 1799 one!
Why? Because it is 399G cheaper! If i’m interested in the item that doesn’t mean i will buy it for any price. Let’s say i have 1500g at hand and i want that item as an upgrade. If it was priced at 1799 it would stay on AH, but if it was priced at 1400g then it sells. Get it?
Also i might have epic helm already, and the one on AH is slightly better. Is it worth 1,8K for that slight upgrade? Maybe yes, maybe not. Is it worth to upgrade for 1,4K? More likely.

As if you are annoyed for someone undercutting you for 20% buy that item, and resell at full price - you will earn 20% (minus AH tax).

And unlike real life items in wow do not get used up.
Lets say there are 20K potential users of the item. At first only few people can make it, making great demand and low suply making the price high. Once more people level up tradeskills, the suply grows, and once people are actually buying the stuff the demand lowers. That means the price will have to drop. It is unevitable. Once all 20K people get that item it will no longer sell. I dont think that situation will ever happen, but the price will drop - you cannot escape that. So it is better to sell for 1400 while you can, than keep the price up and never sell.

Also setting the price much lower makes it more unlikely that people will be willing to undercut you. If you undercut by 1c, then you are risking that next 5 people will undercut you for 1s - so you wont sell your item at all.

I mentioned the risk of being undercut again if you only undercut someone else by a few silver. The main thing that riles me is when a crafted item that usually sells for a set amount is put up for a lot less. People are damaging themselves by putting the cost lower. That’s just how I see it anyway. And I’m aware of the general rules of economics, and that cheaper sells, but in the case of epic items that players have been buying quite happily at a set price for weeks, I think it’s daft of people to sell it 300g or so cheaper. But that’s just IMO, I know people disagree with me.

In the case of GMs hanging around in AHs? Hmm, SSOIDH. Also, when prices on things like wool and linen go up, the reason they come down again is not because Blizz have stepped in and shut all the auctions down, it’s because everyone sees how much it’s selling for, so they all rush out and farm it but have to put it up cheaper than the next guy, which results in the drop back in price.