In the Barter Hall....

[greebmushroome]

so, has anyone had much luck buying in the barter hall?

i've gotten a bunch of arctic wyvern hides and one crushed diamond dust, but not as much stuff as i'd hoped (and not so much browsing, and no tells for better prices, etc).

on Aro, the most number of buyers i've seen is 3, with 1 being more common.

how are other folks faring? how is the barter hall on other servers?

[Zacatac]

There was maybe 5 people in barter hall last I looked. It's not going as well as hoped I'd say. Mostly because people AFK-trading can't do both, so they pick the one that makes the money.

I had hoped to spend some time there, but like other people, I'd rather sell a bunch of items while I'm gone than buy tradeskill stuff from the very few people who bother to come to barter zone.

I did have 1 good use for it though. A former player had a piece of very expense gear that belonged to me (was on loan). We have been trying to get together so I could get it back, but no luck. So I made a /buy in barter and put my character there AFK for the day, and the player "sold" me my piece of gear (for 1pp) and I finally got it back.

[Melinia]

Overall I like the idea of the barter hall. I normally try to stop in to see if anyone wants any items i'm going to put up in trader anyway. sold one item for 300pp. Sadly not many people have been using it. I've seen maybe 1 or 2 in there. maybe more will catch on soon.

[greebmushroome]

In the barter hall....

yes, the barter hall is a great idea, i think.

it seems like a little bit of a chicken-and-egg problem... no buyers in there, so few bother to stop by, but no one puts buyers in there because no one stops by.

it really is a shame that the trader and buyer interfaces aren't integrated, or at least the zones integrated.

[Auricula]

Wandered into the Barter Hall twice (once by accident, I was looking for the Guild Hall) and both times I was the only person there.

[Flehmen]

G'day all,

Unfortunately, selling to buyers is only going to appeal to people who were going to sell to vendors anyhow. If you don't have the time or ability to set up a seller in the bazaar you can at least get a few extra plat going to the barter zone. BTW, 5 people buying 147 items... among those 5 people I saw offers of several neat items to trade and almost 5 million plat.

Something else I've noticed is that the prices in the barter zone are more in line with what I'd hope to see in the bazaar, perhaps a little low but more reasonible for anyone without lvl 70 uber characters.

So, my solution for the problem is that I'm going to start selling about half of anything I'd normally put up in the bazaar(TS items mostly) to the highest bidder in the barter zone(skins, silks, whatever). Considering HQ bear is about 5 times more valuable in the bazaar than what I normally see in the barter.... ouch.

I can't wait to get DoN to set up a buyer and I hope that others might consider the common good. (When I type /buyer I get no message at all.)


Good luck all!

[Footsore]

I stop by the barter zone regularly before setting up my trader. I usually see 3 to 5 buyers at any time.

Usually 1 or 2 that have competitive prices similar to the bazaar - usually a tad lower, but I have noticed a bit of competition on occasion that raised the price both were offering. These folks were looking for tradeskill goods for one or two tradeskills for skill-ups and offering to buy some of the DON tradeskill materials in bulk.

The others had prices set so low compared to the going bazaar price that I couldn't bring myself to sell to them. The items they were buying appeared to be stuff that has a regular market in the bazaar. I'm sure there are folks who will sell to them, though.

A few also had lines for uncommon pieces of equipment.

So, it is starting to look like 3 basic types of buyers so far. Those who are:

buying large quantities of skill-up goods in specific tradeskills at competitive prices,

looking to buy items at bargain prices from folks who would have sold to the NPC merchant and not set up a trader in the bazaar or were in a hurry for another reason,

Those who are looking for a specific piece of equipment for personal use.

[Flehmen]

Hmmm, I guess I didn't factor into my figures the HQ bear that people want 300 of for 1 pp each... Uh huh, Riiiighhhht. If I didn't think they were just going to turn around and sell it...

I'm currently giving all HQ bear that I get to a tailor friend of mine because I know she is skilling and how hard that can be. Of course all my newbies have fine sets of bags, re-enforced armour, etc now.

If anyone else on The Seventh Hammer wants to contribute to my underground economy contact Seebi. She's my bazaar nut. Don't have any skins available at the moment but I'd be willing to do some smithing or brewing components for near or at cost... time permiting or for a selection of what you are skilling upon.

[Boleslav]

I have two accounts, and have been leaving one in the bazaar and one as a buyer since DoN released.

I would fall into category 2 as listed above. I set my buy prices significantly lower than the prevailing bazaar rates. I can buy most of the stuff I want at bazaar pricing whenever I want, so there is no incentive for me to pay someone that in the Barter Hall.

There is a bit of a balancing act between pricing something low enough that it makes sense for you to buy it but not so low as to turn off the potential seller. I have been sold some things that I didn't expect to get for the prices listed (4 Pyrelian flames for about half the going bazaar rate. But they sell fast when they show up in the bazaar so if you aren't a bazaar regular you would not know the going rate I guess). I have many items that I expected people to sell me that I haven't been sold at all.

All told, the Barter Hall has been providing me about 50% of the supplies I need to keep my Bazaar mule stocked with her regular inventory of smithed items. I may experiment with raising my buy prices on some items a bit to see if it nets me more takers, but I am not in any hurry to do so.

Currently, I have no real competition in the Barter Hall for my buy lines. One other person is trolling for Bazu Blood, but he has been matching my pricing so far.

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 66th Campaign
E'ci – Sacred Destiny

[Sanadila]

Well, on test, we've finally got another buyer up besides me *laughs*.

We really don't have a bazaar market for tradeskill components on Test. I've occasionally put them up if I have them, but they aren't things you find regularly on bazaar mules. Part of the reason is that we don't have a continuous base of low level players trying to make plat by selling things gathered in newbie/lowbie areas since pretty much everyone /testbuffs to level 25.

I've had my buyer up pretty consistently since DoN was released. About the only time she gets anything is when the proddie servers are down and there are people creating new characters on Test for the day. They'll gather some silks to sell to me to make a bit of pp to outfit characters, buy components, etc.

Most of my buy line is for tinkering and research items I need. So far, I've only gotten a couple of items. I know a lot of my guildees haven't even considered checking buy lines when cleaning out tradeskill items from the bank. I had one last week that sold a bunch of acrylia to a vender when no one in guildchat said they wanted it.

So, I really don't know how useful the barter hall is going to be on test. I keep hoping it'll get utilized more, but I'm not as optimistic as I was.

[Ravenswood]

The barter hall was a great idea, that was implemented all wrong and thus is a complete failure. The only way that this would be a practical, well used option is if they merged the barter hall with the bazaar; going someplace to check and see what 1-3 people are looking to buy is a complete waste of time (especially due to the ridiculous layout of the new areas).

I only have one account, and refuse to buy another just to use the barter hall. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might be inclined to suspect that the intent was to motivate people to do just that- to purchase a second account so that they could use both the barter hall and the bazaar. I'm sticking with the bazaar despite the annoying and uneccesary new layout, and the barter hall can just rot.

[Fonceur]

I agree that making it a seperate zone was a big mistake. On The Rathe the max buyers it has reached is probably 10...

I used to run 3 traders (main, overflow, spells) now I switched to 2 traders (main, overflow/spells) and 1 buyer and like it. I tend to buy a few pieces of either magnetized armor, bazu/feran/murk blood, runes, yaeth pages, etc. each day. On average I probably get as much stuff from my buyer then from running hours in the bazaar from blue to red to blue to red, etc. areas... I wish that we could have more than 50 buy lines...

[Ravenswood]

I'm not trying to make this sound like a personal attack, because its certainly not intended to be, but this just proves that the only people that will be using the barter hall are the ones who are fortunate enough to be able to pay (or to be able to justify doing so) for mutliple accounts. This is just crap and only serves to reinforce my commitment to not paying SoE a dime more than I already do.

[fesc_necrado]

I've been alternating btwn setting up a trader in the bazaar or a buyer in barter.

The tradeskill stuff I'm looking for trickles in to the buyer, which I in turn use for skillups or to make completed items to sell in bazaar. I also check the bazaar for these same items (would like to have a buyer and seller set up at the same time but I don't have 2 accounts).

I hope the idea catches on a bit more and ppl will swing by and see what they can sell to buyers. If nothing else, ppl can check the best barter offer price and then use the bazaar channel and /ooc to try to get better.

[Sanadila]

Woohoo, last night I got 5 superb and 6 flawless rockhopper hides *grin*.

Now, don't hate me, but I'm one of those with multiple accounts. Not to be able to put traders/buyers up, but just because I find the game more fun botting. I usually have both a trader and buyer up each night (well, to be truthful, I have 2 traders and 1 buyer up each night.....and the husband has a couple as well).

Still, it does annoy me that I have to give up one of my traders to be able to have a buyer up. Our corner of the bazaar with all our traders (all named some version of Glendell *laughs*) isn't nearly as impressive when they aren't all up there.