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Bazaar Etiquette
This is unrelated to Tradeskills, and has some of the characteristics of a Primal Scream (don't let the carefully crafted prose fool you... the Bazaar makes me weep for the future of mankind):
Notes for a Treatise on Bazaar Etiquette
1) (NEW) TRADER UP!!!: Does this really need to be announced with the enthusiasm one might think reserved for the resumption of certain male physiologic and anatomic functions in a 90-year-old man who'd until that moment given Sir John Thomas up for dead?
If you have *new* merchandise, say so; better yet, say what your new merchandise *is*, giving links to it. That you've just resumed selling the same old things that you had yesterday and that 50 other folks have today is neither news nor anything about which to get excited. Sorry.
2) Lowest Prices In The Baz!:
a) This is seldom true;
b) Most customers never check to see if you're telling the truth, but the ones without a finger permanently stuck up their noses generally look up the *item* in which they're interested, in the Bazaar Search Window, and *gasp* sort by price. In this case, you'd better actually *have* that "lowest price", or your name along with your price won't appear at one end of that list.
c) If it was true when you said it, there's no guarantee it's true 30.5 seconds later after the last person to also promise "LPitB!" looks up your inventory and re-prices to undercut you.
In fact, a much better statement for you to make is simply "If you can find a price lower than mine, I'll beat it", though perhaps two or more other sellers working in tandem would use that promise as a way of scamming you-- and buying up your stock for resale at *their* (higher) price.
d) When this is true, it's also sometimes true that your price for Item X is the Lowest because you're the only one selling Item X... meaning you've also got the Highest Price, and the Median. The chances of you having an objectively low price on something, the *only one* available of which is that you have for sale, are themselves low.
e) We all still remember the gal we had to put on /ignore because she opened trading with a message that said "I have just lowered my prices!", etc., somehow set it to repeat itself every 30 seconds, and then remained logged in for *three days*. We swiftly calculated after the first 12 hours that if she had 'just lowered!' her prices by even one plat each time, her item listed originally at 1500pp would be down to 60pp. Of course, nothing of the sort had taken place. A large neon sign, placed over her head, and flashing "IDIOT" off and on would have been superfluous. (And, no, I can't remember who she was, so don't even begin to suggest that her sales tactics at least had annoyance value or produced name recognition. All they did is to have her effectively fall off the face of Norrath for me.)
3) Call me a jaded and suspicious shopper, but any appeal along the lines of 'Come check out my stuff!' makes me think I'd be better off looking up your inventory in the Bazaar Search Window without moving... if you really had great items, you'd link them, and if you had great prices, then you'd show up at the top of the list when I searched for my desired item and sorted by price.
I am *not* going to browse individual inventories and buy on impulse. This is *not* Real Life [TM]. If Real Life provided me with a central location for shopping along with a list, updated at small intervals, of *who* had *what* for sale for *how much* that would also assist me in finding *where* the vendor and his item were located (in a world without brands, where all items and produce were of precisely the same quality *every* time, and I could always find *my* color, and *my* size, and I never got hungry for chocolate...), it's very likely I wouldn't do any browsing or impulse buying *there*, either.
4) Call me picky, finicky, humourless, and overly proud of myself, but I don't find appeals to "Come buy my s**t | my c**p | mah shiz!" (etc.) at all... well... appealing. Or appetizing. Or cute. Or funny. Or provoking. I have never answered such a call in any way (least of all ways, by making a purchase), so you're wasting your time. Such statements are as semantically null and devoid of real information as others, like "Buy My Nice Stuff!", but have the added implication that you think I'm the kind of person who's interested in s**t. This is supposed to make me want to shove game tokens (plat) at you *how*?
5) Likewise, I probably don't want to buy WhatEver Item You Have at the price you're asking and then resell it at the price you suggest (Example: "WTS Snot-smeared Tunic, 1k, you can resell for 2k!!!"). The message here is that if you really thought someone would pay twice as much for it, outside of your dreams, you'd ask that much for it yourself, at the beginning. Sure, eventually, someone will pay just about any unlikely price for most things. *Eventually*. Realistically, buying for resale is a gamble, and when done successfully usually does not proceed from 'suggestive sales' like that above.
6) Link your Items. Link your Items. Show me what you have. Link your Items!
7) Find the CAPS LOCK and toggle it off before I bust one in your head.
8) I (and all other shoppers) do not pay extra for your Items according to how many EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you put in your sales pitch. Seriously.
9) If Cutebazaarmulename and Gamegeneratedname both have the same item for sale, and I only want to buy one, guess what? I'm buying from whoever has the best price. (Note that 'cute' is subjective.)
10) This is a primarily a merchant-to-merchant issue, but I'd remind everyone that other sellers also are part of the consumer community, i.e., they also are out there deciding if they will or will not hand you their plat for whatever Item you have for sale: The smaller your sales 'Toon, the better. The better, and the easier it is for all other folks trying to move in and out from beneath those awnings and to and from the stalls. Ogres have *no* place in the bazaar except as customers, and Trolls, Barbarians, and Vah'Shir are questionable. As a buyer, I can find you one of two *very* convenient ways (by using 'Find', or by right-clicking on your name in the Bazaar Search Window to spin and face you) and I do not need to visually locate your 'Toon. (In fact, like most folks in the Bazaar Zone, I'm navigating by staring at the floor or up in the air most of the time.) All your big ugly 'Toon does is take up collision detection space, and p**s off the other sellers around you *and* those occasional customers who have difficulty reaching the person with whom they wish to do business around your fat body.
If you ask me, all 'Toons, NPCs, Traders, and Customers alike, should default to something like Male Human upon entering the Bazaar (something like what happens in battle in Grieg's End, only less amusing), no songs or spells should be possible there, and the Palaestra should be a Zone of its Own. Yes, in my dreams. (Of course, the real radicals go farther and wish for NPC Traders that players could set up when they're not logged in (something like the merchants in forges in ShadowBane) and from which anyone could buy at any time from any zone through a new interface.)
Thank you
/em climbs off barrel
Notes for a Treatise on Bazaar Etiquette
1) (NEW) TRADER UP!!!: Does this really need to be announced with the enthusiasm one might think reserved for the resumption of certain male physiologic and anatomic functions in a 90-year-old man who'd until that moment given Sir John Thomas up for dead?
If you have *new* merchandise, say so; better yet, say what your new merchandise *is*, giving links to it. That you've just resumed selling the same old things that you had yesterday and that 50 other folks have today is neither news nor anything about which to get excited. Sorry.
2) Lowest Prices In The Baz!:
a) This is seldom true;
b) Most customers never check to see if you're telling the truth, but the ones without a finger permanently stuck up their noses generally look up the *item* in which they're interested, in the Bazaar Search Window, and *gasp* sort by price. In this case, you'd better actually *have* that "lowest price", or your name along with your price won't appear at one end of that list.
c) If it was true when you said it, there's no guarantee it's true 30.5 seconds later after the last person to also promise "LPitB!" looks up your inventory and re-prices to undercut you.
In fact, a much better statement for you to make is simply "If you can find a price lower than mine, I'll beat it", though perhaps two or more other sellers working in tandem would use that promise as a way of scamming you-- and buying up your stock for resale at *their* (higher) price.
d) When this is true, it's also sometimes true that your price for Item X is the Lowest because you're the only one selling Item X... meaning you've also got the Highest Price, and the Median. The chances of you having an objectively low price on something, the *only one* available of which is that you have for sale, are themselves low.
e) We all still remember the gal we had to put on /ignore because she opened trading with a message that said "I have just lowered my prices!", etc., somehow set it to repeat itself every 30 seconds, and then remained logged in for *three days*. We swiftly calculated after the first 12 hours that if she had 'just lowered!' her prices by even one plat each time, her item listed originally at 1500pp would be down to 60pp. Of course, nothing of the sort had taken place. A large neon sign, placed over her head, and flashing "IDIOT" off and on would have been superfluous. (And, no, I can't remember who she was, so don't even begin to suggest that her sales tactics at least had annoyance value or produced name recognition. All they did is to have her effectively fall off the face of Norrath for me.)
3) Call me a jaded and suspicious shopper, but any appeal along the lines of 'Come check out my stuff!' makes me think I'd be better off looking up your inventory in the Bazaar Search Window without moving... if you really had great items, you'd link them, and if you had great prices, then you'd show up at the top of the list when I searched for my desired item and sorted by price.
I am *not* going to browse individual inventories and buy on impulse. This is *not* Real Life [TM]. If Real Life provided me with a central location for shopping along with a list, updated at small intervals, of *who* had *what* for sale for *how much* that would also assist me in finding *where* the vendor and his item were located (in a world without brands, where all items and produce were of precisely the same quality *every* time, and I could always find *my* color, and *my* size, and I never got hungry for chocolate...), it's very likely I wouldn't do any browsing or impulse buying *there*, either.
4) Call me picky, finicky, humourless, and overly proud of myself, but I don't find appeals to "Come buy my s**t | my c**p | mah shiz!" (etc.) at all... well... appealing. Or appetizing. Or cute. Or funny. Or provoking. I have never answered such a call in any way (least of all ways, by making a purchase), so you're wasting your time. Such statements are as semantically null and devoid of real information as others, like "Buy My Nice Stuff!", but have the added implication that you think I'm the kind of person who's interested in s**t. This is supposed to make me want to shove game tokens (plat) at you *how*?
5) Likewise, I probably don't want to buy WhatEver Item You Have at the price you're asking and then resell it at the price you suggest (Example: "WTS Snot-smeared Tunic, 1k, you can resell for 2k!!!"). The message here is that if you really thought someone would pay twice as much for it, outside of your dreams, you'd ask that much for it yourself, at the beginning. Sure, eventually, someone will pay just about any unlikely price for most things. *Eventually*. Realistically, buying for resale is a gamble, and when done successfully usually does not proceed from 'suggestive sales' like that above.
6) Link your Items. Link your Items. Show me what you have. Link your Items!
7) Find the CAPS LOCK and toggle it off before I bust one in your head.
8) I (and all other shoppers) do not pay extra for your Items according to how many EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you put in your sales pitch. Seriously.
9) If Cutebazaarmulename and Gamegeneratedname both have the same item for sale, and I only want to buy one, guess what? I'm buying from whoever has the best price. (Note that 'cute' is subjective.)
10) This is a primarily a merchant-to-merchant issue, but I'd remind everyone that other sellers also are part of the consumer community, i.e., they also are out there deciding if they will or will not hand you their plat for whatever Item you have for sale: The smaller your sales 'Toon, the better. The better, and the easier it is for all other folks trying to move in and out from beneath those awnings and to and from the stalls. Ogres have *no* place in the bazaar except as customers, and Trolls, Barbarians, and Vah'Shir are questionable. As a buyer, I can find you one of two *very* convenient ways (by using 'Find', or by right-clicking on your name in the Bazaar Search Window to spin and face you) and I do not need to visually locate your 'Toon. (In fact, like most folks in the Bazaar Zone, I'm navigating by staring at the floor or up in the air most of the time.) All your big ugly 'Toon does is take up collision detection space, and p**s off the other sellers around you *and* those occasional customers who have difficulty reaching the person with whom they wish to do business around your fat body.
If you ask me, all 'Toons, NPCs, Traders, and Customers alike, should default to something like Male Human upon entering the Bazaar (something like what happens in battle in Grieg's End, only less amusing), no songs or spells should be possible there, and the Palaestra should be a Zone of its Own. Yes, in my dreams. (Of course, the real radicals go farther and wish for NPC Traders that players could set up when they're not logged in (something like the merchants in forges in ShadowBane) and from which anyone could buy at any time from any zone through a new interface.)
Thank you
/em climbs off barrel
GM Brewing 12/18/04
Smithing 110
Pottery 175
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