Selling ice to Inuit's

Be there for your friends. Help them out. Share good times. Don't be a leech. Don't be high maintenance. Don't talk about yourself all the time. Listen. Empathize. Do favors. Be genuine. Never betray their trust in you. Regularly show them that your relationship with them is valuable to you. Care! The Eskimo Report part 5

Last night Breevok wanted me to raise prices and reduce my undercut. "You would make more gold if you did.".

Maybe. I know that he uses a variety of methods to make gold. Shifting product accross markets, hard work, crafting, and price manipulation are all techniques he uses. He makes a lot of gold - more than me. I am not going to disregard his 'advice'. I also know that he is not beyond providing advice that personally benefits him.

Did you hear the one about the goblin who'd made enough gold from a market so was moving on? No? I didn't either. While Moonvengence is playing on this server, and there is gold to be made in glyphs, he will be making it.

Let's look at some reasonable assumptions:

• Moonvengence has a grudge against me - for whatever reason, and is camping my auctions.
• Moonvengance has much more in-game time than I do, and can 1c undercut as soon as I post, reducing my sales.
• I passively respond, I lower my prices through a mix of 5g undercuts, multiple posting cycles and a reduced threshold/fallback. Alternatively I aggressivly respond, reducing profits to razor thin margins. (I have done this before). In either case prices fall.
• Without a trade war, glyph prices will rise naturally.

When gold making, we prefer a low effort high profit market. A trade war with Moonvengence vs Foo works against this. Breevok is very well aware of this.

It is a three way indefinite iterated prisoner's dilema, where defecting is very hard work and co-operating is easy. Breevok has declared that he is 'co-operating'. Moonvengence appears to agree to co-operation with Breevok, but also desires to defect where I am involved.
(Technically it has more than 3 players, but the remaining players presence is small enough not to be noticed).

• Breevok makes gold (from glyphs) by cherry picking, and makes more gold with more and/or fatter cherries.
• Moonvengence makes gold by selling bulk glyphs and makes more gold by preventing my sales.
• I make gold by selling all glyphs. How do I want to make more gold - defect or co-operate? That is the question.

Moonvengence apparently has expressed a dislike of my agressiveness, both when he first entered the market, and with my undercutting strategy. Both annoy him. This is from the player that has driven almost every other scribe out of the glyph market. Methinks the presence of another large player is the aggravation. The easy way for me to reduce this agravation is to shrink my effect on 'his' market. Umm, I should make more gold by bending to the whim of the largest presence? This is from Breevok that professes not to react to other players influence? mmm.

Curious peice of information, Last night:

• Moonvengence has about 20  pages of glyphs (mostly 5 of each glyph)
• Foobarfoo + foosglypha + foosglyphb had about 10 pages of glyphs (at 1-6 of each glyph - I don't cancel posts)
• Breevok's toons had about 2 pages of glyphs
• The next player had 1 page.
• Everyone else had less than a page.

Some background into my stocks:

• Back before cata and 3 ink glyphs, I had a stockpile of 40 of each glyph and purchased some other glyphs below the new cost price. I also had stockpiles of both inks and glyphs.
• Once cata hit, it was my intention to hold 20 of each glyph.
• With the exception of a couple inks, I have exhausted my pre-cata stockpiles. I have exhausted most of my herbs.
• There may have been a period I purchased well under priced glyphs since cata, but not many and not 'recently'.
• A few weeks ago I dropped my 'desired holding' to 15 of each glyph. (This bounces around according to time & herb availability)

I split my glyphs into 3 groups:

• Sell well. These are the glyphs where I have to re-craft to maintain my 'desired holding' (eg before I craft I have less than 15).  While I deem a glyph to be in this category - I will 'co-operate'.
• Ok. These are glyphs that are between my desired holding but less than a stack. (i.e. I am not re-crafting these at the moment).  If this category grows too large - I will 'defect', otherwise I will (marginally) co-operate.
• Poor. These are glyphs that I have over a stack, in some cases well over a stack. They have consistenly underperformed since before we had 3 ink glyphs. I want my bank space back..  For all glyphs in this category I will 'defect'.

I am prepared to meet both Breevok & Moonvengance part way.

• I am going to take a day or so to re-sort, re-craft, allow my auctions to expire, resetting prices as much as I can.
• 'Sell Well' glyphs. These don't need defending. I will be setting a very high fallback & threshold, small undercut, and I intend to daily post. At the moment, the majority of glyphs fit this category.
• Ok glyphs. These need work to sell. They will all be sold at a profit, but will have a larger undercut, and I intend to post these at least daily. While this set of glyphs is small I won't worry too much. If this group grows larger by previously 'Sell Well' glyphs becoming 'OK', I will become assertive in this group.
• Poor glyphs will be sold at whatever price is needed to shift them, untill they become 'Ok' (i.e. less than a stack).
• Where it is cheaper to purchase rather than manufacture, and I want more of that glyph, I will purchase them.

I am in glyphs to make gold. Apparently I had been targeted by someone capable of 1c camping, and I still made gold.  I will continue to make gold.regardless of competition or co-operation.