Guild trader problem possibly brewing

bryanhaas · December 2016

So with the trader bids slowly increasing and the market inflating I figure at some point we are going to see trader dues reaching 25k per (already some are charging 10k per week) so this will negatively affect those who do not participate in the guild trader system and making a barrier to entry thus making 2 ESO populations the very rich and the very poor. I propose that in order to keep bids manageable that each trader allow five guilds to win a bid thus increasing the supply of a finite resource (trader stalls). This should help to bring the price down to a manageable amount otherwise we may reach a point where all the goods sold at traders hit very high levels.

Granted a barrier to entry would be detrimental to the market as a whole but the gold sellers may very well "plug those gaps".

Thanks for listening to my gibberish.

Taleof2Cities · December 2016

Some of the very best guild traders don't have dues.

They are able to make the trader bid through other means ...

idk · December 2016

Trouble is not brewing. If any trouble is brewing it will be contained to the guilds involved.

There have been other "the sky is falling" threads before yet we still keep on trucking.

redspecter23 · December 2016

I have 5 guilds and only 2 of them have stores most weeks. One in Belkarth and one in Evermore. If I actively keep the stores filled, I can make 500k or more each week which is more than enough to keep me happy and neither guild has any mandatory dues.

This line of thinking that people have about needing to be in one of the top 5 guilds is somewhat flawed. But, I don't play on PS4. Maybe the guilds out in Sentinel or Malabal Tor are paying 5 mil+ per week and are trying to make people pay for that location. If so, I'd say your PS4 economy is messed up.

Nestor · December 2016

I have been in Guild Kiosks in the major trading centers (Rawkla, Wayrest, Grahtwood, Belkarth) and in other cities and out in the hinterlands. Sure, I can move some stuff faster in the main trading centers, but I am also impacted more by price competition in those places. When in the other cities, I move the product I have just fine as long as I list items people want and price them for a decent price. It is only when we get Kiosks that are not close to a wayhrine that my sales suffer, and fortunately, most are close to Wayshrines.

So, stop thinking you need to be in a Major Trading Hub to make money. Unless of course, the Economy is your game, and if that is the case, then you have to play the game, not complain about it. If your goal is to maximize your gold each week, then you have to approach things like folks do for PvP or Trials or anything else that requires knowledge and skill to accomplish. It will take time, sacrifice, gold and effort to be at the top.

For the rest of use, just looking to make some gold, help out other players with rare shinys, and reduce our inventory without feeling like we are giving it away to the NPC vendors:

1. Join a guild that has a kiosk on a regular basis somewhere near a wayshrine, and don't charge any dues. If your charged dues, make the decision to drop or pay, don't complain about. There are lots of trading guilds and social guilds that get Kiosks.
2. List stuff people wan to buy, Crafting Mats and Dropped set items in Divines, Impen and Infused are two examples. Recipes and Motifs are another example. There are others. Some stuff will never sell, so don't even list it. How do you know? Ask yourself if you would buy it if you saw it listed.
3. Price it reasonably. You want it to move, price it to sell, you want to maximize profit on each item, be prepared to wait, or relist each month.

That's about it. I have made almost 6 million gold this way, not counting the million or so spent on bag spaces and training horses for 9 characters. I make 300K to 500K, or more, a month, more than enough really as there is nothing to spend it on. Sometimes I go weeks without listing things. I don't play the game to sell things and make money, I use the Kiosk system to manage my inventory and shed the excess.

Fudly_budly · December 2016

Nestor wrote: »

If your goal is to maximize your gold each week, then you have to approach things like folks do for PvP or Trials or anything else that requires time and skill to accomplish. It will take time, sacrifice and effort to be at the top.

Yep!
I'm a total tightwad, gold-pinching, hoarding, spendthrift. I'm far from the top. For example, my top guild with Rawl 'kha trader had 121 players beat my 280k sales last week. Kiosk rental is just a cost of doing business. The weekly gold is peanuts for me. BUT, I devote a good chunk of time to making gold. I've learned what sells what doesn't. A lot of people don't have a clue about Merchant Master's analytical tools. You can easily see who is selling what and adapt your own sales strategies.

Pandorii · December 2016

PS4 NA here.

I've been in almost every single well-known/successful and not so successful guild trader guilds on our platform. Paying 5k a week is a huge PITA. When I did it, I would do maximum number of advanced weeks, because it was a serious hassle to lose selling privilege at the start of a week and wait for an officer to change my status once I had paid. I bet it's a PITA for those officers to keep track too (without addons). Even paying in 5 week periods was a PITA when you're in 5 at a time. Sometimes you'd have to contact an officer when you were overlooked.

Today, I refuse to join a guild that is a. not in mournhold regularly and b. guild membership requiring. Anything that isn't main city just sells too slow in comparison. To test, I would put the same inelastic goods on sale in different traders, like mournhold vs. wayrest, and I would drop the price of them in the lesser frequented guilds. I sold 3x as much in the central location. Why? Most people don't want to waste their time going to 5 different locations to get the cheapest goods possible. They go to the place they know they'll find what they need: mournhold (for ps4). *I sell mostly blue food, btw.

Because I am a regular buyer and seller, I believe I contribute to my guild through my tax on the goods I sell (and buy from the guild because I favor it). The guild I am in, mafia slayer, sustains itself through its sales, raffles, and donations, it does not need that sleezy fee to survive. The membership is always at cap. People fight to get into it, and you better sell or you'll get the boot. I know there are other guilds that are free to join and have top tier spots. I'm just way too spoiled now. I would never pay for membership when I know there are places I can get it for free.

That said, it's much easier on pc. I was in 5 guilds, all had traders, 4 were legitimate trader guilds, and 1 was in reaper's March (the pc equivalent of mournhold).

This may be a little harsh, but I don't think that guilds should charge membership fees at all. Though I do recognize that this could hurt the starting guilds and strengthen the old money guilds. Most don't really make it against the old guilds anyway. This is an unfortunate a structural 100 percent caused by zos.

I can think of a few changes to make it better and fairer. The community has thought of dozens. Unfortunately, zos will do what zos always does, ignore the little problems and fix things that we didn't even know were broken (like proc crits or poisons).

TLDR: guild membership fees are sketchy to me, but it's ZOSs fault that the system is so wonky in the first place.

kargen27 · December 2016

I'm in one of the top trading guilds and they don't require a membership fee. The minimum requirement is that you sell 5000 gold worth of stuff a week. That is extremely easy to do. They don't kick you if you fall under that for a week or two. If your sells are low you can donate something to the guild auction or buy something from the auction. They also have three different raffles ranging from 1,000 gold to 50,000 gold you can participate in with half going to buy vendor and half going out as prizes on the big one. If you buy a ticket they don't care what your sales figures look like.

The social guild I am in usually gets a vendor and they don't pay much for that at all. It isn't always in the same spot but I still do fairly well with what I list in that guild.

Price for the prime spots have gone up a lot, but get away from the top few spots in each faction and the prices aren't all that bad.

What I find kind of silly is a guild vendor that has very little if anything at all offered. I found two vendors that had less than 8,000 gold worth of product listed. One vendor a couple of months ago had some bait (10 guts or something like that) and two green recipes. Not anything really that can be done about that, but kind of a waste of a vendor.

bryanhaas · December 2016

The traders I use are in Mournhold and Wayrest 90 percent of the time. I don't mind paying the fees because I make my money back. 5k or 10k is a pittance really in comparison. It does seem as though the bids are slowly rising in the high traffic areas though. Maybe it will all be fine and the market will keep itself in check I am just thinking ahead and the possible ramifications. From my cash flow nothing I have to worry about but there did seem to be some issues if you extrapolate the current trends out. It is not that the sky is falling just a possible barrier to entry for new players of which I am not.

But on the matter of fees I really think the traders should be able to have an adjustable tax system. If a guild wants to fund the trader solely on tax from sales in most cases it just is not going to happen. Perhaps any change to taxes does not apply until the next trader reset so that way everyone pays an equal amount toward the trader bid.

Most of you are misunderstanding me, I don't mind paying dues it just appears that in the future we might reach much higher bids that could cause issues for others.

bryanhaas · December 2016

kargen27 wrote: »

I'm in one of the top trading guilds and they don't require a membership fee. The minimum requirement is that you sell 5000 gold worth of stuff a week. That is extremely easy to do. They don't kick you if you fall under that for a week or two. If your sells are low you can donate something to the guild auction or buy something from the auction. They also have three different raffles ranging from 1,000 gold to 50,000 gold you can participate in with half going to buy vendor and half going out as prizes on the big one. If you buy a ticket they don't care what your sales figures look like.

The social guild I am in usually gets a vendor and they don't pay much for that at all. It isn't always in the same spot but I still do fairly well with what I list in that guild.

Price for the prime spots have gone up a lot, but get away from the top few spots in each faction and the prices aren't all that bad.

What I find kind of silly is a guild vendor that has very little if anything at all offered. I found two vendors that had less than 8,000 gold worth of product listed. One vendor a couple of months ago had some bait (10 guts or something like that) and two green recipes. Not anything really that can be done about that, but kind of a waste of a vendor.

Sometimes those traders with nothing listed are backups for a main, if the main loses they disband the backup and grab the trader with the main. Or at least that is how it was explained to me.

xFLADNAGx · February 2017

To bryanhaas point. A Guild that has 100 members and does not charge for Trader access will never be able to retain a Trader that can generate enough in tax revenue to keep the Guild Trading week to week.

Out of the way Trade Stalls are seldomly visited and generate crap sales regardless of what is for sale or its great price. Yet these are the Trade Stalls that Small up and coming Guilds are regulated to due to the economy. Fees become necessary to make up the funds needed for a bid. The system is way out of control and very unfair.

I agree with the point that the game has two populations. Those that have and those that have not. Throw into the mix Gold Sellers and we have system failure.

I advocate for One Giant Marketplace free to all that want to list goods.

starkerealm · February 2017

xFLADNAGx wrote: »

I advocate for One Giant Marketplace free to all that want to list goods.

Probably more accurate to say, "I advocate for One Giant Marketplace that the goldsellers can game by botting to their little hearts' content."

Also, what about this fine thread compelled you to disrupt its deathly slumber?

xFLADNAGx · February 2017

Sometimes a Giant needs to be Poked in order to get Kicked a mile.

zaria · February 2017

redspecter23 wrote: »

I have 5 guilds and only 2 of them have stores most weeks. One in Belkarth and one in Evermore. If I actively keep the stores filled, I can make 500k or more each week which is more than enough to keep me happy and neither guild has any mandatory dues.

This line of thinking that people have about needing to be in one of the top 5 guilds is somewhat flawed. But, I don't play on PS4. Maybe the guilds out in Sentinel or Malabal Tor are paying 5 mil+ per week and are trying to make people pay for that location. If so, I'd say your PS4 economy is messed up.

This, don't use the Rawl'kwa guild trader unless you want something cheap and fast, Its like 5 avenue, not an place to do an good deal

I like the more out of way ones for browsing.

MilwaukeeScott · February 2017

On PS4 our Guilds 690000 Evermore bid got outbid last week.

So on PS4, a Trader in Evermore will cost more than 690K.

xFLADNAGx · February 2017

Would love to see posts with more losing bid info. I think it would put a new perspective on the whole un-fairness of the Trader issue.

idk · February 2017

xFLADNAGx wrote: »

Would love to see posts with more losing bid info. I think it would put a new perspective on the whole un-fairness of the Trader issue.

@xFLADNAGx

Unfairness? While I expect some pull tricks from time to time, it is to costly to do so long term. Being this is a blind, open bidding process I would like you to explain how it is unfair that the winning bid gets the location?

disintegr8 · February 2017

I have been in several trading guilds. Initially I avoided ones with fees but they end up not getting traders, leading to sales dropping off and members leaving. Some can manage to keep turning items over through internal sales but eventually that also dries up.

I have also been in guilds that run daily and weekly raffles, top trader prizes and so on instead of weekly fees, but these require a lot of hard work by the guildmaster and others prepared to put in. No matter how legit the guild and how well people run them, these guilds always start getting accused of raffle rigging or some other sort of fraud, then people start whining when the daily raffle is drawn 30 minutes late and so on.

I am now in two trading guilds. One has 'optional' weekly trading fees of 5k and the other has mandatory weekly fees of 5k. Not surprisingly, the optional fee guild cannot secure a trader every week whilst the mandatory fee guild can (touch wood).

If you are prepared to keep your stock list topped up with items that sell, a weekly fee is a small price to pay for good sales. My sales are probably small fry to some more determined marketers but I am happy to pay/donate 10-20k to my trading guilds every week in return for 300k - 400k of sales.

ScooberSteve · February 2017

All they need to do is increase the trader spots especially in the good spots to decrease bid prices

ScooberSteve · February 2017

And if you dont win a bid doesnt that mean more gold for bid the next week?

AntMan100673 · February 2017

I don't ever see this being a problem or much of a barrier to entry. Not every guild charges fees and even if they did higher fees would just mean it takes longer before new players can save up enough to join. Once joined they're either making enough gold to cover fees or if not they're better off not being in the guild and paying the fee anyway.

johu31 · February 2017

I've never understood the complaints about dues, whatever the cost, when I'm making 300k a week casually. One million during dlc weeks. 7k, 10k, 25k... drop in the barrel.

ElliottXO · February 2017

Don't pay the dues and swap guild. The prices increase to unhealthy amounts because people are willing to pay dues. And then they wonder that they cannot sustain with the guild cut income. So stupid.

xFLADNAGx · February 2017

The unfair part of this Trade System is that small Guilds have no ability to ever win any bid anywhere when large Guilds have multiple Dummy Guilds winning bids in case their main spot goes down so a backup location is available via disbandment.

Throw into the mix Gold Sellers buying up Traders to sell to the highest bidder and you have a very very broken system

And please people DO NOT even presume to respond that the above does not happen, because it does

xFLADNAGx · February 2017

Another Bid Lost.

Bid more than the Trader would generate in sales due to its CRAP LOCATION, and lose it.

The System and Economy are broken.

bryanhaas · February 2017

starkerealm wrote: »

xFLADNAGx wrote: »

I advocate for One Giant Marketplace free to all that want to list goods.

Probably more accurate to say, "I advocate for One Giant Marketplace that the goldsellers can game by botting to their little hearts' content."

Also, what about this fine thread compelled you to disrupt its deathly slumber?

Gold sellers already run rampant any of these changes would not fuel then any more.

idk · February 2017

xFLADNAGx wrote: »

The unfair part of this Trade System is that small Guilds have no ability to ever win any bid anywhere when large Guilds have multiple Dummy Guilds winning bids in case their main spot goes down so a backup location is available via disbandment.

Throw into the mix Gold Sellers buying up Traders to sell to the highest bidder and you have a very very broken system

And please people DO NOT even presume to respond that the above does not happen, because it does

@xFLADNAGx

I really cannot speak to gold sellers becsuse I just haven't heard they do what you claim even though I have friends in the game that keeps several successful trade guilds.

To the first point you made and probably the more prevalent by far, your upset because bidding is competitive and as such smaller guilds cannot compete with larger guilds in the more active areas.

It's life of cooperative commerce. Does the small Ma @ Pa shop complain because they cannot afford to rent space in the shiney new mall? They might complain but but the reality is their business doesn't generate enough to justify the higher cost to begin with.

Same with guild traders. If a guild cannot afford a large enough bid they probably don't have enough worthy items to sell in such a busy location.

Free enterprise lives in the game.

Nestor · February 2017

xFLADNAGx wrote: »

Out of the way Trade Stalls are seldomly visited and generate crap sales regardless of what is for sale or its great price.

What are you basing this on? I am in a guild that gets a stall in out of the way places each week and anything I list there moves in a reasonable amount of time. Is it as fast as the prime trading centers? No, but it does sell.

xFLADNAGx · February 2017

@Giles.floydub17_ESO

There are plenty of top quality items in most CP Level Players inventories let alone in their Guilds respective stores. Small Guilds just cant compete in the current state of this games marketplace economy.

Definitely as the OP suggests there is a split population in this game the Very Rich and the Very Poor, and the separation is growing.

johu31 · February 2017

xFLADNAGx wrote: »

Another Bid Lost.

Bid more than the Trader would generate in sales due to its CRAP LOCATION, and lose it.

The System and Economy are broken.

Try holding raffles and events to make more gold. Start small in wilderness stalls. Don't let anyone tell you they aren't visited, I visit each one every week.

Most successful trading guilds keep excellent books and rotate out inactives each week and bring in new recruits. It's not going to happen overnight, but a year or so of building you could very well have your guild in a prime spot with 50 mill in the bank.

Not to mention... spread officers out at reset to find stalls that aren't taken.. then just hire them for 10k.

johu31 · February 2017

xFLADNAGx wrote: »

The unfair part of this Trade System is that small Guilds have no ability to ever win any bid anywhere when large Guilds have multiple Dummy Guilds winning bids in case their main spot goes down so a backup location is available via disbandment.

Throw into the mix Gold Sellers buying up Traders to sell to the highest bidder and you have a very very broken system

And please people DO NOT even presume to respond that the above does not happen, because it does

The dummy guild thing does exist, but on a very small scale on Xbox one na. The solution: make stalls locked for a week regardless of disbanding the guild.