There seems to be two or three different questions embedded here. So I will simply take it step by step.

You have to find all the kiosks. A kiosk will appear on your map once you have discovered the Wayshrine associated with it. Basically search all the towns and cities and search outside of some towns and cities. For example, there is a kiosk just outside Firebrand Keep in Stormhaven and one outside Voljar's Meadery in Eastmarch. Go and unlock all the wayshrines.

Once you have discovered an appropriate wayshrine, the kiosk will be marked on your map, but not what guilds sell there. Some kiosks are inside a city and you have to click that city to see that it has a kiosk. Examples include Fort Amol and Mistrial.

Capital cities will have five or seven kiosks with one exception. Silvenar in Greenshade does not have any kiosks instead there are five kiosks in Baandari Trading Post. Please note that Ebonheart is a capital with five kiosks but has no bank.

Each kiosk is a store from which you can only buy. The search tools are limited to whatever addon you are running for stores. I use Guild Store Extended and Awesome Guild Store. You must step up to the vendor and open the store.

Which is better, having to search the countryside to find kiosks -- not knowing whether or not they even have anything you are looking for -- or going to a shopping center ( Auction House ) to find what you need?

The kiosks are run by guilds, which as I recall are limited to 500 members. So at any one kiosk you can only find the discards of 500 players.

While at Auction Houses EVERYONE can buy and sell and you don't have to hunt to find the place either.

These " public " guild stores are a farce and a poor substitute and will drive even more people away from what is basically a great game.

I'm hoping some enterprising add-on developer brings out one that shows us where the " public " guild kiosks are. It's ridiculous to have to go tramping through the countryside looking behind every bush to see if there is a kiosk there -- or to have to search through every city / town to find them.

Even better would be if they could specialize and advertise.

" Come to the Armour Emporium of the Best Guild Ever located on the top floor of Elden Root ".

Each public guild store could specialize in one type of item and advertise and it would be better. At least you would know if they carried the type of item you were looking for and wouldn't waste time finding a kiosk only to find it had nothing you wanted.

ThatArgonianGuy wrote: »

Divines forbid you have to actually go to a store to find goods for sale. lol

There would be almost profitability in any item if there were an auction house.
Let me give an example:
Purple VR5+ food is now 140g each and creeping downward. You can see this in many, many of the kiosks. People are making the food with materials they have stockpiled for so long and are not factoring into the cost what they might be able to sell those materials for. Pepper is holding steady at 250g each, salt and honey comb at 20g each and of course pinguis from the vendor is 63g each. Thus for a combined 373g you can make four consu honey brittle that which sells for 560g. OK, that seems like a decent profit. But wait...
What if you had sold that recipe for 26k back when it was hot. If over the course of the next two months you were to sell 400 brittle (and thus use up 100 pepper) you need to add the recipe investment of 65g per brittle.
Still a profit but the margin is now vanishingly low.
An auction house would have already driven the price of the purple food down to 110g each or even lower. I stepped up to a kiosk and there were 21 different sellers of purple vr5 food in that one guild.
Once the kiosks were in play, I have seen prices of so, so many things drop lower and lower, usually on a every three day basis. An auction house would have caused all these things to bottom out right-quick.
Now, if you are a buyer this sounds awesome. But if you are the type of player that LIKES to farm, LIKES to craft, then an auction house would render this game useless to that particular hobby.