Guildmasters: Does your Guild Store pay for your Guild Trader?

UrQuan · March 2015

I was just thinking about the things I sell through my guild's store, and I started wondering if the guild cut from the items sold actually brings in enough gold for my GM to pay for the guild trader, or if she (or possibly others in the guild) pays some of that out of pocket.

So to all you GMs who bid on (and acquire) guild traders: does the guild cut from the sales actually cover your cost? I thought about setting this up as a poll, but I'd rather have people just post their experiences and talk about things like size of the guild, volume of sales, location of trader, etc. Whatever factors you think might play into whether the guild cut does or doesn't pay for the trader.

Nestor · March 2015

Not a Guild Master, but two of the guilds I am in run Raffles to support the Kiosk habit, so store sales can't be paying for it.

SteveCampsOut · March 2015

Doubtful! This is why most mega trade guilds supplement their bidding power with guild dues or raffles! My small casual guild barely breaks even on out in the boon docks kiosks when we win a bid.

timidobserver · March 2015

I only know of a handful of guilds that actually break even on their kiosks.

wenchmore420b14_ESO · April 2015

A definite no. Guild is 265+ members, 565+ listings atm, high traffic kiosk. We still depend on guild donations to keep it. Tax's off sales sometimes seem non-existent.With out the wonderful guild mates who donate, we could never keep our trader, esp when they can run 500g to 2 mill... Just my take..But love this game!!! Huzzah!

Arkadius · April 2015

My main trading guild seems to make enough money just from sales to keep its vendor payed. It made around 40 millions of gold just by sales last week. So it earned around 1.4 million in taxes. And they rarely pay more than 1 million for the trader.

Paulington · April 2015

Yes, we do, pretty much.

We seem to sell on average ~1,000,000g or so a day in items and that means taxes alone can pay for our trader which is in a very high traffic area.

It isn't easy though!

Jofish · April 2015

Yeah, seems quite unbalanced... but, then I don't like the idea of being able to belong to 5 guilds at a time, so any of my insight is useless already...

UrQuan · April 2015

Hmm, interesting, so it sounds like breaking even on the guild trader is unlikely for most guilds, let alone making a profit. So the ones who do break even or make a profit are probably the higher traffic trading guilds only.

So the guild I sell my stuff in is probably losing money on the guild trader. So I should look into donating something to support it...

redspecter23 · April 2015

I think it's quite possible the mid range trade guilds break even or profit weekly. I can guarantee that the Rawl'kha guilds have to look at more than just tax revenue to pay for the spot. Those out in the middle of nowhere probably don't pay much but also don't make a killing on taxes either. Any given week someone might outbid them on that kiosk as the rent is so low so it's not necessarily consistent. That's part of the issue as well. Trade guilds want consistent kiosks. Losing one week isn't too bad but lose a few in a row and a guild that is devoted entirely to trade doesn't have a functioning guild anymore. Because of that, trade guilds will bid higher than a location demands in order to keep low bidding competition away. The lowest rent kiosk in any given city would be the target for newcomers doing some rent research and be at the greatest risk of changing hands weekly.

FooWasHere · April 2015

I manage the trader bids for 3 EU trading guilds, one big and two medium ones.
I operate none of the guilds on a profit, and we rely on donations to secure a safe and stable bid level. I do try to maintain a solid gold reserve to be able to ensure we can get our trader back in case we get outbid. And I wouldn't hesitate to throw in a solid chunk of my own gold to back it up.

IrishGirlGamer · April 2015

Hmm ... not a guildmaster, either, but read this thread with interest. I belonged - at one time - to three large, active trading guilds. I sold my stuff in the guild "store" and bought exclusively from the guilds I belonged to. I've only visited a kiosk twice because, overall, I found that kiosks I visited didn't have the inventory of my guild stores. Also, their prices were quite a bit higher.

After that, I exclusively use the guild stores and never go to kiosks. So if I want to buy something, I do the following things in this order:

1. Check the Guild Stores (I can access three from one location).
2. Ask my guild mates if anyone has the item and wants to sell it.
3. I might try to farm for it.
4. Go to a kiosk as a last resort.

Maybe I should utilize the kiosks more, but it's kind of like the difference between shopping on Amazon and driving 10 miles to the store.