As the customer, how do you treat the "1 plat undercut" in bazaar?

Totally agree with your point against bots. But that is a eula issue, not a pricing issue. And if a misprogrammed bot sets its price at a "tiny fraction of the cost to make something" it should be obvious what your move is - buy him out and reprice it. He cant sell at such a loss forever. When the dust settles you just cut your cost of production to a tiny fraction of what you normally spend.

In theory it is just a EULA issue, but in practice . . . .

Dealing mostly in tradeskilled items, in my experience most long-term tradeskillers will either undercut by a significant margin - they have a competitive advantage for materials, etc., - or they will match. They won't do a 1 plat discount on a 2-3k item. (Iterative games like tradeskilling for the bazaar tend to reward better behavior - consistently do the 'Mickey Mouse discount' and other tradeskillers won't help you out when you need it, but often will help you out otherwise.) And if I feel a need to I can send an in-game message asking him what's up, typically get an answer, and then decide to either match or get out of the market for a bit.

The end result may be the same pricing-wise, but I can tell you that on the selling side that is lot less aggravating (yes, a cost not reflected in plat prices) than dealing with a bot that automatically reprices every hour or so - something which requires a lot of touch time to deal with, touch time that the bot doesn't have to do because - well, it's a bot.

I would prefer that the economic competition be equal in that if I have an opportunity cost to compete price-wise (the touch time spent checking and adjusting prices), that I am competing with a seller who also has that same opportunity cost rather than simply setting up a bot program.

Oh yes - those are the 'teachable moments.' Unfortunately most botters learn after the first incident or two.

As a buyer unless there is a significant difference in price i buy by sorting out the traders with names. as a seller i set things as low as possible to get it over with.

I avoid buying from the obvious plat farmers. Some of these like buying from me just to inflate and resell items.

As a customer, I'm going with the lowest price. They're equal products with equal service.

I have had this happen to me. I was selling some items for what I fwt was a reasonable amount.

Before I logged off, someone charging more than twice what I was, bout my items and put them all up for sale at the inflated priced.

It was something usable by characters under 30th level. I have sold items since then, but I cut back over the years and I haven't put a vendor in the bazaar up in 2-3 years.

What got me was when I was buying Ethernere Essence to finish Fletching a few days ago. The cheapest in /baz was several hundred for 370p each. Buyers were offering up to 276p.

I advertised in /ooc and General chat that I was buying it for 300p each. I get a tell shortly after from some dingbat saying "hey, I have several hundred in baz for 369p each!" So I look and yup, he had several stacks at 369p each.

Less than a half hour later, someone sold me 300 for 90k (300p each), and then I got tired of waiting... and bought two stacks at 370p each, and told him why. I never got a response.

It was just a very irritating experience, from my point of view. Insulting.

This is a ridiculous question. Anyone who wouldn't buy from the cheapest trader is a fool. If you had two of the same exact items in front of you at the store one was $1 the other. 99, you would buy the $1 item?? No only a fool would do that.

You should rephrase the question. Would you buy from a know plat farmer to save a small amount of plat?

I buy the cheapest price. Any thing else is irrational.

I always assume the highest price, the second highest price, and often the third highest price are the same person who is trying to make a particular price point seem reasonable.

Bargain Bob - Fool's Gold 50Kpp
Gooddeal - Fool's Gold 40Kpp
Cutter - Fool's Gold 39Kpp

I don't happen to think Fool's Gold is worth 39Kpp. If I need it I might watch the price for a week. Oh, it's 10Kpp - OK maybe (or maybe not) that's reasonable.

Alternately if I have 20 Fool's Gold I'll offer 5 at barter price or 1/2 asking price if no one is buying. If they are bought I offer the other 15 at less than those 5 brought. I think my record was selling 100 of an item 10 at a time and undercutting the buyer's selling point 10ish times.

1K less? Immaterial. The "game" is to make big time pp with little effort and breaking the competition if their greed exceeds their horse trading ability.

If you think a price in the bazaar or that price -1Kpp is the price you are doing it wrong.

I was waiting for this.