Market Discussions

Hey guys,

Here is what happened to my trading ALT : I had setup a sell order for 100 modules. Bought them for XXX in Jita, was selling them XXX isk + 20% margin (more or less) in a mission hub. I have a ton of different modules for sale in this hub and I usually restock in the beginning of the week.

Last week, just before the week-end, a guy put a sell order for the same item with a price set at a very low price (XXX-100000 isk). As I had so many items listed, I was cycling through my orders fast and guess what : I lowered my price Well, to my defense, it was late, I wasn't paying too much attention and I didn't remember exactly the price I paid for the items (I use 2 different toons to buy and sale). The guy then bought my whole stock, making a nice profit.

Actually, I noticed only later, when I realized my whole stock was gone so quickly. So I started to pay attention and this week, bingo, the same guy put a low sell order for the same item. For now, the price is exactly the same as in my supply hub but maybe he will lower the price even further later on, I don't know. So I guess my questions are :


- Did I understand his tactic properly ?
- I won't fail into the trap this time of course but can I use that knowledge to my advantage and trick him back somehow ?
- Is this guy method a very common one ? How can I use it if it is ?
- I have a hard time remembering which base price I paid for every item, especially because I use 2 different toons to make the buying and the selling (in missions hubs). How do you guys keep up ? I could write it down and check every single time I update my prices but I have zillion sell orders to check, this would be very time consuming.

Thanks in advance for any advice !

Thanks for your quick reply Rykker. By looking carefuly at my sales, I can see that there is another toon who did the same to me (but with less volume) earlier. I assume this is the same guy's alt even if I can't be 100% positive. Still : same station, same items, same schedule (end of the week). I'll try to find more about those 2 toons, put them on my watchlist and so on.

Now, here is my question : I can buy him his stock without too much problems. Actually, it would save me the hassle of getting that stuff in the station by RedFrog, but I don't think this would hurt him so much because his sell price for now is at Jita's price. Or am I missing something here ? I guess I can wait more to see if he lowers his price a little...

Actually, I kinda enjoy this : it's fun to see how trading can become a bloody mess sometimes

This always confused me. If you undercut someone, you should be happy when they purchase your stock. It keeps the prices high, and you get to move inventory at the price you chose! I myself am hesitant to buy up the sell orders of others if they're at a high volume, because now I have twice as much stuff to move, with half of it gotten at a less-profitable rate, and I would expect someone else (or the same guy) to just come right in and relist new stock below whatever price i could manage to set. I'd rather make isk of other people's market manipulations than put myself at risk attempting the same thing, especially at a secondary hub where the target price point of such manipulation is well above the Jita-price.

I have been known to haul one item to Decon (lowsec, semi-dangerous system 3j from Dodixie) and post it at well under sell order price for exactly this reason.

I made a killing in the short term on 1600mm tech 2 plates doing that once. Back when they were a spread of 3600-4400k a unit I took one to Decon and posted it at 3600000.01 and put a big buy order for Dodixie at 3600000. Someone took the bait, undercutting my Decon order by 0.01 and so selling hundreds of units straight to me, and I flipped the items at 4400k.