I don’t. The answer used to be core groups, sometimes writs, random dungeons, and getting skyshards.

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Guild traders do not 'control the market', competition between guild traders does, which is one of the reasons why prices have been substantially reduced (one of the most dramatic examples being White-Gold War Torte which went from being substantially profitable to selling really close to/below cost).

etc...

You are absolutely right, your vision reflects reality.

As I said earlier, there are only 288 of us active in trade, and the game only offers 144,000 places in these guilds.
Out of more than 850,000 guilds created on the EU, that's very few.
They don't realize that the base game offered 146 merchants for only 73,000 players, and at the time we only did one "bid". Investing a crazy amount of money was essential to survive. Then we were able to hold 10 "bids", which not only gave small guilds several chances to win a merchant, but also allowed mafia guilds to multiply their chances of gaining even more power over the weaknesses of the game.
Add to that all the new areas where locations are not conducive to trade, and the latest one in particular is a real scandal. Trade is not promoted or valued.

Today, with the loss of the number of player buyers, we have to use what we have spent years saving to make up for the losses week after week.

Some guilds in the most beautiful areas do not ask their members for contributions. We all know what they are used for, and the real money they earn would be better off in Zos's pocket to improve the game. But... nothing is being done, and the guilds that are doing a great job are disappearing day by day.

I dream of a city, a unique area, that would be halfway between an market board and the current merchant guild system.
Where each guild with more than 200 members (for example) could have a merchant there every week. The single bid would only be used to position the merchant in the city, and the location could not be the same from one week to the next, without too many constraints between the first and last positions. The number of locations could be increased very easily: 10 houses in a neighborhood, 5 floors, and 10 merchants per floor would already give us 500 merchant locations. And if we did that in just 10 neighborhoods, we would have 5,000.

We can adjust the numbers however we want, but we're only at 288 so far, and a lot of guild management, player, and energy skills are being lost because of a mark of possibility... and managing a trade guild is one of the most difficult and rewarding exercises in this game, in my opinion.

GM for 11 years, of a “clean” merchant guild.

I hope the translation is correct.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

They went with the Dwemer.

The only bright side is when new motifs are introduced, it only takes me a second or two to decide if I'm interested. The presence of any flappers of any sort is grounds for instant rejection. A couple days ago there were a couple motifs and one costume featured in the crown store and it only took me a glance at each to reject them all.