Barter Hall Opinions?

[Brodybeard]

Hello all. I just started experimenting with setting up a buyer mule overnight to see if I can pick up some tradeskilling items for skill-ups and for crafting items for sale in the Bazaar.

I only have one account, so setting up a buyer mule means I'm may be losing sales with my trader mule. My buying prices are probably too low right now, but I figure I'll adjust them as I get a better feel for the buying market.

This morning, when I checked my buyer, I saw that he had bought five Haze Panther Eyes, which I will turn into Gnomish Vanishing Devices. So it's a good start.

I also noticed that for the first time, I reached the 200 item limit for searching on what other buyers were looking for. So it looks like Buyer use is slowly increasing.

Anyone have any Buyer tips? I'm checking Bazaar and Buyer prices and trying to set offers that match or exceed other buyers but are still low enough for me to make a profit on crafted items. Does anyone offer items in addition to plats? There's one buyer on Bert who offers ice cream in addition to their cash offer for Ice of Velious, which I think is clever.

[Eggszecutor]

I'll set up a buyer occasionally. I've had a lot of success buying LDoN foraged items for smithing (10pp for the foraged item or 15pp if they brew the temper for me). It's also a great way to buy geodes, amythest, and polished quartz for high end jewlery making (I usually put a price of 10pp on those too which is considerably less than diamonds and blue diamonds - why people go that route, I'll never know).

The buyer is a way to tell people what you are willing to pay for an item. It doesn't matter what your prices are, some people will probably laugh at your asking prices, some people will gladly take your money for their items. Rarely will you make every potential seller happy with your asking price. If you're patient, you can get some good stuff at reasonable prices with this method.

[Flehmen]

D'oh, I've my buyer sitting in the bazaar buying tea leaves and I completely forgot to set up buy lines for the LDoN tempers!!!

One thing that I've not found a way to do yet is to sell one item... say a festive doll, for 25 tea leaves or some such thing... <shrug> My other experiments with items for buying has been fairly poor usually people seem to want to unload stuff.

I have found that people tend to impulse sell in the bazaar, not even checking for a vendor price beforehand.

My recommendation is to set a price you can live with(or a little higher if you are a cheap guy like me. ) and you will get what you are trying to buy eventually. This is especially true with the mergers.

Good luck!

[Kytelae]

I love the barter hall, but since I only run one account these days it is kind of a problem that I can't both buy and sell. I need to sell to keep up my plat reserve, and yet it would be useful to be able to buy at the same time. I imagine we'll never see that due to coding issues, but I wish we could!

[Maevenniia]

I haven't needed to set up as a buyer except lately, but I use /barter a lot to check and see what the Buyers want, and at the end of the day, I can sell them stuff I collected through hunting, vendormining, etc..

It is very handy, I see at least 15-20 people on Quellious(Rodcet) using it consistently to collect needed tradeskill supplies (with > 200 buylines usually)

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Seems like most of the buyers on my server are nothing but bazaar mules with buy lines for lots of expensive stuff at outrageously low prices.

I never use it at all personally... whatever prices I see people buying things for I can frequently get double that by just leaving myself in bazaar mode.

Example: people buying 10 fungi tunics for 20k each... these sell for 50k+ pretty regularly on my server.

[Sylphan]

I set up my buyer at least a couple times a week.

Many of my buy lines are for tradeskill items at rediculously low prices. I don't actually get very many.

Some of my buy lines are in reaction to other buyers. I offer a higher price than the other guy, because I loathe the thought that he might actually get some for such low prices. I imagine other people do that to me too, which would explain why my first set doesn't get very many.

Some of my buy lines are really good offers. Sometimes up into 6-digit prices for something I want in a hurry. These go fast, so in general when you browse buyers you see mostly the first set of lines. But trust me, these types of buys do exist, buyers aren't all cheapskates all the time.

There are some things to watch out for as a buyer:

I set up a line WTB 2 of XYZ at 75k. A seller came along and then I ran out of money so the line was toggled off automatically. Well, the next day I got more money and set up my buyer again, and it again said WTB 2 of XYZ at 75k. So I ended up buying three of them. The quantity-to-buy is usually updated automatically, but not always.

Yesterday I had my buyer up all day, but apparently nobody could sell to me. I got some tells about it. I had plenty of money to buy whole stacks of anything, let alone one at a time, and I had several empty slots in my first bag, and exactly the same bag arrangement had worked fine the day before. I don't know what the bug was, but without the tells I'd never have realized.

[Fonceur]

One annoying thing about running out of money is that it toggles off everything you can't afford with no way to toggle it all back (once you get more money), except to go line by line... Very painful experience...

So one tip, while EQ isn't running, open up your buy lines file (in userdata), sort it out (have to change 2 numbers per line) and save a backup...

[Elyssanda]

I decided long ago that our server had over inflated prices on things like foraged Items and other low level mob farmable items. I don't like to set overly high prices on easily farmed goods (veggies ... I never set my sell lines for over 1p/per 20p/stack) yes to me that's still high priced on something I pick up for free on my two main toons.
So lately there has been someone with a buy line up at 3p for veggies.. Other's may not sell to him, I do. Various foraged things for dyes (plains roots etc..) I seill sell at 5-10 pp due to their scarcity. But, If someone has a buy line up in that price range I am more than willing to sell to them and use my Bazaar trader for much higher items.
With the server merge, we wen't from having 4 steady buyers up to between 10 & 20.. enough so that doing the standard blank search no longer shows all matches.. I like having more options to sell my goodies, and when I set up my bazaar girl as a barter girl, I try to find a decent middle ground between bazaar prices and reasonable reality.

[fesc_necrado]

I also alternate between a buyer and seller because I have one account. I buy until I have enough stuff for smithing combines, then move to selling it.

Biggest advice is if you actually want items, don't fall into the trap of 'dream pricing'. Sure, you *might* get something at a steal, but most of the time you won't. Besides, it will be easy for other buyers to set decent prices for anything half-way popular and cut you off completely.

Also, hotkey a quick /ooc that your buyer is up and maybe a little info on how to use one. Buyers aren't that popular and people don't always know even how to search them with /bart .

For proof of ppl not checking buyer prices, I see ppl trying to sell items for LESS than my buyer is currently offering. Sometimes I tell them, sometimes I buy from them and THEN tell them they lost money by not checking /bart.

Last tip is to use a buyer when you can. It's really a nice bargaining position when dealing with overpriced sellers when you already have 4-5 bags of stuff for combines you gained thru the buyer.

While you never have enough for all the combines you want, it helps you be patient and get 'fair' prices for the stuff you want.

[Phantron]

The buyer interface tends to converge on a reasonable price far quicker than selling. If more people use it, it'd help a lot with the crazy pricing on tradeskill stuff.

[Hyllo]

Barter for me

People in buyer mode tend to be really cheapskate about the prices they offer for tradeskill stuff, paying 25 to 50 percent of the average bazaar price for the items listed. People in trader mode tend to be really greedy about the prices they offer for tradeskill stuff, charging typically 200 to 300 percent of the items real bazaar value.

When attempting to buy LDoN tempers and components for smithing, for example, I have offered 30pp each in buyer mode [yes I am one of the cheapskates ]; in the first four weeks after our server merger, I think I averaged about 5 obtained per week. So that was not a very productive route to take, imo, for obtaining these components for skilling up. Bazaar prices on our server for these items average between 150pp to 450pp per item, so that was not a desirable route either.

So I have found that, for me, the best use for the barter system is to sell. It is a quicker way to make some cash than the bazaar is, since you don't have to wait around for a buyer. The buyer is already there waiting. So, for example, if I need some platinum, I can go to the bazaar, check the buyer search engine for items I can farm en masse, and then farm and come back in a day to sell for plat. The return on your farmed items is lower than it would be in the bazaar, but for convenience it is effective.

One way the barter system could be substantially improved, in my opinion, would be to make it searchable much like the bazaar system is; in other words, with slot-specific or tradeskill-specific search criteria, for example.

[Buns]

One way the barter system could be substantially improved, in my opinion, would be to make it searchable much like the bazaar system is; in other words, with slot-specific or tradeskill-specific search criteria, for example.

I agree with Hylo, the Barter system could do with a couple of changes. Would be jubbley if we had a vendor drop down list like we do on /baz. Not being able to see all the items wanted because of "too many buy lines" is a PITA.

[ppatti]

[QUOTE=Buns](veggies ... I never set my sell lines for over 1p/per 20p/stack) yes to me that's still high priced on something I pick up for free on my two main toons.
So lately there has been someone with a buy line up at 3p for veggies.. QUOTE]

Umm, vegetables?

Plane of Knowledge
Perago Crotal (Eastern trader building)
this guy sells mixing bowls, carrots (2s, 6c), lettuce (2s, 6c), turnips (2s, 6c)

carrot + lettuce + turnip + mixing bowl = vegetable (yield 1)

cost is 7s, 8c per combine

[Elyssanda]

So lately there has been someone with a buy line up at 3p for veggies.. QUOTE]

Umm, vegetables?

Plane of Knowledge
Perago Crotal (Eastern trader building)
this guy sells mixing bowls, carrots (2s, 6c), lettuce (2s, 6c), turnips (2s, 6c)

carrot + lettuce + turnip + mixing bowl = vegetable (yield 1)

cost is 7s, 8c per combine

I know. I was just saying someone else runs a buy line at 3p each. I'm a forager, so when I hit a stack foraged I just sell to them. 60P free to me.