Floors and Ceilings vs Solid Walls

Sidebar: Yesterday there was a myriad of great comments which has provided Critical with around 3 months ideas worth of non-stop daily posts. Thanks Foo, Al and Mox for contributing. I don't know what Critical would do without Readers like u guys. Ok enuff sniffling, on with the show!

There are two distinct methods Critical has used in the past during his Glyph Market Leader times: floors and ceilings, and solid walls. Click the heading links below for more details. This is an advance discussion. No cheap cat pics here.

Today Critical is going to briefly discuss why to use them, for new Critical Readers who have only started reading today. In both methods you completely ignore the market/current selling prices and use your cost price as your basis for setting glyph prices. You also post all glyphs in game (or at least the top 316 glyphs). Remember this is a Why post, not What or How (see links for more info).

1. Floors and Ceilings (aka original "Critical Method")

The first time you post using this method you will have some glyphs posted at your floor price, some posted at mid and some posted at your ceiling. The second time you post (preferably wait half a day or a day later), the glyphs that you are undercut on will be posted by you chopping price to somewhere between mid to floor prices. The third time if undercut again, that glyph will be posted at floor prices. If you have aggressive competitors eventually all glyphs will be sitting at your floor price.

This is what your competition sees:
- there is a maximum price on all glyphs (your ceiling)
- undercutting is serious and within 2 undercut cycles the price of a glyph drops all the way down to a really low price (your floor)

He either thinks:
- what a jerk this is not worth it or;
- ok let's see how long this can go for

The advantage of this method is that it is very powerful psychologically in squashing out weak glyphers. Crashing prices very quickly makes casuals go wtf ok fine i will lurk and wait for rainbows and sunshine then "I'll be back". Goodluck.

2. Solid Walls

A solid wall example is: for each glyph you post up 4 x 30g, 4 x 60g, 4 x 90g

The competition sees:
- there is a maximum price (the highest wall)
- there is a lowest price he has to sell below if he wishes to sell (the lowest wall)
- to reset he has to buy out all your 12 plus anyone else's glyphs

Advantage:
- you can leave all your glyphs up for 48hrs and they are safe from your competitors ie wont be bought out for a reset
- even if u get undercut, when that glyph sells, yours is still there and gets bought out as well
- you dont have to get into undercut wars for a whole 2 days and you can spend that time (previously allocated to Selling) on Buying cheaper stuffs and Making stuffs more efficiently (reducing costs and increasing productivity both increase your bottom line)

Disadvantage:
- you need to leave your Sellers afk for 1 hour each, unloading everything
- you can only do this after auctions have ended
- if you cant wait and want to cancel instead, cancelling takes a long time
- the afk time is not a big deal if u can time it right ie just before dinner or shower or [insert 1 hr activity here] but it has to be done again for the second char = (

Both methods have excellent flexibility. 

With the solid wall method you can try:
3 x 30g (this is to set a low price so that competition start posting below here)
8 x 60g (once the cheap 30g ones get bought out, the 60g ones are there and also get bought out)
3 x 90g (if its a really popular glyph and the 30 and 60 ones are gone, 90g ones are there to be bought out too)
Or some sort of variant.

The same way with floors and ceilings you have flexibility too. One example is you could lower your floor by 1g per day (this requires strong will to only reduce 1g a day) to find out your competitors true floor (the lowest lowest he will go) eg:
Day 1 set floor (aka threshold) as 15g, competitor undercuts to 14g90s
Day 2 set floor as 14g, competitor undercuts to 13g90s
Day 3 set floor as 13g, competitor undercuts to 12g90s
Day 4 set floor as 12g, competitor stops posting (hes online but chooses not to post)

Bam, now u know his true floor, 13g. So what, some of you may be asking. Know your enemy, understand as much about him/her as you can. Only then will options of attack become clear. Ommmmmmmm.

Food for thought? More like feast for thought. Critical says you're welcome.