Secon-Hand Dealers - Love 'em or hate 'em?

[Marissas]

As long as there is an excess of platinum pieces, there will be "yahoo's" that buy any given thing for by far inflated prices, just because they can. Anyone who thinks that buyers dont effect the market, hasnt taken Marketing 101.
Rule number 1, supply and demand.

[Maevenniia]

Interesting story....

Most likely, I'll be making a fresh batch of juice soon; at 100pp each, I'm better off selling them than drinking them.

You are evil

And I wanna be just like you!

[Quichon]

It's one thing to disagree with someone's price and sell the item a bit cheaper. But come on... sow pots are 6.891pp per attempt, you're selling for 12.5, he's selling for 15. His price is not outragous compared to yours, you're both selling well above component costs.

How would you feel if another person started selling them at 8pp while /ooc-ing "<your name> has always been highly overpriced! potions now selling at real reasonable prices!" ?

There's always someone out there willing to sell cheaper and give buyers a better deal. I hope that when you get some competition, that they will just sell their items for what they consider fair and be happy with it. Without the need to drag your name into /ooc to tell everyone how bad your prices are because they decided to sell m cheaper.

My problem with him wasn't that he was selling SoW V at outragous prices, it was that he was trying to price-control by buying out all my goods. THAT is what I was complaining about, and THAT is why I dragged his name into /ooc's. I have NO problems with anyone undercutting my prices. I have problems with people trying to artificially raise the price of an item in the bazaar by inflating their prices and purchasing everything under their price to make theirs the lowest one.

And I was referring to his insane 50pp/ea prices on Regen VI potions mostly... my prices were a QUARTER of what his were, and STILL making a profit. I'm sorry, a potion that costs just under 10pp/ea to make, being sold for five TIMES that? No, that is outragous for a potion made with entirely vendor-sold ingredients.

And apparently there WASN'T anyone who wanted to give anyone competition. My prices were consistantly the bottom of the barrel. Either the lower sellers were getting bought out by the re-sellers before they could get on the open market for long, or there just wasn't anyone around willing to do it.

[Lejax]

I love Bazaar-watching. There's no purer form of capitalism anywhere on Earth. The products are identical (one Juice of Quellious is exactly the same as every other Juice of Quellious), there's no real advertising to speak of (who really listens to "New trader up!" comments, anyway?), and the only price pressures are the cost of raw ingredients and pure Supply & Demand.

Resellers are playing a risky game. They are buying something in the hope that they can sell it later at a higher price. Oftentimes it works for them. Sometimes, like in the case of Unapuma's Radiant Crystal reseller, it doesn't work for them.

I have played both sides of the game. When I'm tradeskilling or farming really basic stuff like spiderling silks, I price my stuff at just a little lower than the lowest price out there, because I don't want it sitting around. It does me no good for something I'll never use to sit in one of my trader satchels, and the quicker I can get rid of it, the quicker I can make/farm more and make more money. Then there are a few sexy high-end items that I keep an eye out for, and when someone is selling it for a lot lower than the going rate, I'll buy it and resell it for slightly lower than the going rate.

Neither one of these I'd call high-risk. The really risky ventures are for high-end consumables like MDS's or DoN crystals (I expect TBS money is like this too, or will be soon) where the price can fluctuate 50% or more in a day. I tend to steer clear of things like that. But there are folks who get into it. I say more power to 'em; if they price something where it's easier for me to go get them myself than it is to buy it from them, well, I won't be buying from them. But others might.

And there's no use me getting annoyed at it because there's nothing I can do to change it.

[KyrosKrane]

You are evil

And I wanna be just like you!

Why, thank you, m'dear!

[Kaliaila]

IMO as long as their price is fairly close to your price I don't think much of it. Now if you were selling something for what you feel is the going market value and got bought out and the reseller was going and selling the stuff at like 5-10x that amount that's when I might get a little miffed.

[oafgirl]

My own experience...

There are some people who change their armor color almost more often than they change their RL clothes. And I understand that in some guilds, if you make some terrible faux pas (such as, oh, cause a wipe...), you are obliged to dye your armor bright pink until the next raid.

But the average person seems to dye once, and then stick with it -- making the average purchase about 7 vials at a time (the max number of dyeable slots). Perhaps they might be as radical as dyeing to match the seasons.

When I was younger, and looking to dye (before my shammy main learned to make dyes herself), a vial of Prismatic Dye was about 45pp in the bazaar. The other day, however, while I was dropping in on my trader, someone expressed their amazement in /ooc that the cheapest price for Prismatic Dye was 150pp.

So I had my Pottery ace make up a set of vials, and my shammy made a run of 10 stacks of dye (99.9% success rate on both items). My trader put the entire batch up for sale at 45pp each -- a profit of 12pp each, enough for me. (I was watching a Dodger game while clicking, so there was no real tedium factor.) I sold about a quarter of my stock while I slept (the advantage of being a North American player on the Euro server) -- and when I checked back in, I saw that another trader had also dropped her prices to undercut mine by 1 pp.

What the quick sale told me was that there was a market for dye at 45pp that wasn't there for dye at 3 times that price. I also got a tell from one of the traders who sold at the higher prices (she condescended to drop her price from 150pp to 100pp), asking me why I sold at 45pp, since I wasn't making any profit. Heeeeeee.

I told her I was making 12pp per vial, and that was enough for me, but she said that it wasn't worth it to her because of how hard it was to TS the stuff, and the success rate percentage, etc. I pointed out that I was more interested in keeping the dye market active, that if dye were cheaper, more people would think of dyeing more often -- and the difference in price would be made up for in increased volume of sales. Not what she wanted to hear, evidently.

I sold all my stock within the week, and the other low-priced trader has kept her prices under 50pp since that time.

And yes, I've done my share of reselling as well -- when I was younger and farmed pelts for starting capital, I sold HQ cat pelts for 60pp. This was the lowest price I saw in the bazaar when I was starting out. I usually had several stacks on hand at that price, and periodically someone planning on making a run would buy them all out at once.

One day, I saw someone offering less than a stack for 50pp -- and I decided to buy it and add it to my own stock. Yes, for those pelts, I made only 10pp profit each, instead of 60pp, but it was worth it to me. I've also seen small numbers of pelts for sale on newbie traders for 25pp and up -- and I buy those, too. I don't live in the bazaar -- I adventure, too -- so if any tradeskiller went shopping while those lower priced pelts were for sale, great. But I also think that traders who charge too high a price for standard skill up items run the risk of driving their market to farming their own components. On Antonius Bayle, it looks like 60pp for HQ cats is just under that point for most of the tailors, so that's where I keep the price.

[socratease55]

Got out of business but now I am back

I became so tired of making SOW V and finding other toons selling for less than component cost that I stopped making them for a year. Low and behold I rechecked and found them selling at 15pp each now as a minimum price. To keep from having to bring my Shaman in from the cold I have purchased from others selling below 15pp thinking it would benefit both of us, I would not have to use my time to make them and the seller would get the price they seemed to be willing to accept. I only do that if I am low on stock and my Shaman is busy though. I have 40 slots to fill and if I have nothing to put there the space goes wasted. If end users are willing to pay 15pp then that is what the market will bare. I see exactly that happening on the Blue Diamond market, they used to be about 350pp and now you are lucky to find for 500pp.

[Elyssanda]

normally I don't care about resellers....... but.

As the first (and I think still ONLY) GM drakkin tailor on my server, I was thrilled with the ability to FINALLY make complete sets of elaborate silk armor this week. Made my set to keep, then made robe, pants and sleeve extra to sell, pop em on my seller for 5-10k (Wasn't in it to make a HUGE profit, just want someone to finally be able to get the armor they want.)....

Reseller comes along, buys em all, and pops the robe and pants up for 400K and the sleeves for over 200k

ok.. I make a complete set, raise my prices ALOT (way outta the range I'm even semi comfortable to sell at) and within moments he comes by, purchases an armband from me for 60k, and starts reselling it at 150k. (remember I said I made a full set, he bought 1 of 2, so my second is still up at 60k.)

Then I make an AFK message that states <currently my Elaborate crystalweave armor is WAY overpriced due to a reseller in the market. If you are a 65+ silk wearing drakkin I will be happy to sell directly to you at a MUCH cheaper price>

No ooc comment on him, but if someone takes the time to /tell me, they will find out what I can do for them in a reasonable price range.

[Kaliaila]

I would say best way to fix that, especially if you want to make the market reasonable, is to get it out there that you are willing to make the stuff. Have your friends tell people and maybe mention it in your server's General channel. I'd almost suggest to also say that if they bring you the components you'll do it for free, but I think that they'll just waste plat overpaying for that stuff instead. The draw back is that once you're well known as a GM Drakkin Tailor you likely won't be forgotten for a while.

[Roanne]

Which can also be a bad thing.

In the case of cultural armor, because it has a limited rate entering the world, Id say the best strategy is to just keep making the stuff at the rate and price your comfortable with. A few people will overpay for the armor when youre out of stock but word of mouth will get around if youre consistent and the reseller wont last long at that much of a markup (assuming you can make the stuff at least as fast as hes willing to buy it).

If your as much a philanthropist as your motivations here indicate, prepare to be overwhelmed by every alt of your race anyone is levelling.

[Gaell Stormracer]

/buyer can be a great leveller, if people wanting gear put a realistic buy price on what they want, this can cut out the middle man quite effectively.

[Elyssanda]

/buyer can be a great leveller, if people wanting gear put a realistic buy price on what they want, this can cut out the middle man quite effectively.

Problem is at least on Fennin, resellers use /buyer more than anyone.
we even have guys with names that say they purchase and resell.

[Gaell Stormracer]

But you then have a choice of whether to sell to that person or not

[pilot]

I do a lot of buying/reselling. Don't sweat it. It is a double edged sword. I was doing rad crystals pretty heavy a few months ago. Prices started going up, I kept buying a lot, selling a little and at some point the market was over a 100 plat each. Then all the sudden some sellers with a zillion rads started selling for like 50 each. I had a good bit more than that in them so I ate them hard.

I made some plat, I lost some plat. It is all part of the game. And it is just as fun as going out killing something, and a darn site better than Dain #1 again.

Couple more thoughts, time is money. So a quick turn over in your case is good, make more sell more. In the long run the reseller will sit on his longer... make less money probably.

What do you think about the fuzzlecutter sellers or cloudy potion sellers that simply go one or two zones, buy up a couple satchels full of readily available vender merchandise? Buy cloudy potions for 10 and sell for 20? I do it. I love it. People don't want to make the run, so I do it for them and make a tidy little profit. Its all good.