It's a lot of work.

If you're looking at Trade Guilds and saying, "hey, I want to do that," you need to ask yourself, "do I want to take on a second, unpaid, part-time job?"

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

It's a lot of work.

If you're looking at Trade Guilds and saying, "hey, I want to do that," you need to ask yourself, "do I want to take on a second, unpaid, part-time job?"

Perhaps this is a stupid question but what kind of work does a guildleader of a tradeguild need to put in? Finding members etc, paying for a guildspot?

For a start.

To pay for a kiosk, you need to have a fairly substantial guild population. That also comes with the inevitable drama and interpersonal conflicts. So, you'll need to deal with those. You'll also need to build up a command structure, with officers who can act to keep things friendly when someone gets out of line. This isn't a constant consideration, but, if it's handled poorly, the results can be catastrophic.

You also need to manage, and potentially oversee, whatever fundraising methods you want to use for the guild. One dirty little detail about trade guilds is that the guild's cut from sales won't cover your kiosk rent. So, you're going to need to generate a secondary source of income to pay for it.

Often, this takes the form of raffles, guild auctions, or dues. Those need to be overseen by the guild leader or an officer. If it's an officer, then you're going to need to be engaged and available to actually run the thing.

When I became a trade guild GM back in 2015, it wasn't that much work and I actually kinda enjoyed it. I resigned from the GMship this year and have absolutely no intention of going back. Why?

Well, the biggest problem is that ZOS does not allow us to set tax rates.

So let's do some numbers here. Say you are a mid-sized trade guild in a mid-tier location. You are doing a healthly 20M in sales each week. Bids in the mid-tier, however, have skyrocketed in recent times, esp. with the new multi-bid system. You're looking at spending in the rough ballpark of 2M per week. So about 10% of your weekly sales.

When a seller uses your guild store, they incur these costs:

• 1% "Listing Fee", paid upon listing, disappears from the game
• 7% "House Cut", paid upon sale
  • 3.5% disappears from the game
  • 3.5% goes to the guild's coffers

So there is effectively a 8% tax rate for members of the guild. 4.5% is taken by ZOS, and only 3.5% actually goes to the guild.

In our example here, each week, you need to bid roughly 10% of your sales to keep your spot. But you take in only 3.5% in taxes. That means you're looking at a shortfall of 6.5% that you have to somehow collect from your membership. Every. Week. Some do it via voluntary contribution. Fundraiser raffles, auctions, donation drives, etc. Some do it via compulsory fees. Some use a combination of both. It's exhausting and a lot of work. It might not seem so bad at first. But when you have to do it every f***ing week, it will burn you out.

And that's assuming your guild is healthy and doing 20M per week. If you are doing 10M per week in sales, you still have the same 2M bid costs, so you're effectively looking at a 20% bid cost. Seasoned players are generally in established guilds. Start up a new guild, and you'll find that most players you get are relatively new. And in general, these kinds of players don't generate the levels of sales that older, more seasoned players do (there are always individual exceptions, of course, but I'm speaking in the aggregate). Most new guilds use their startup capital to grab a nice spot, do a recruiting drive, and then... the disappointment sets in as they realize that they're pulling only half the sales of the other incumbent guilds in the area. Whoops.

Back in 2015, the 3.5% taxes covered the lion's share of the weekly bid costs. There was a very modest shortfall that could be easily covered with some light fundraising, and the costs were low enough that I didn't blink at the notion of personally funding the bids.

Since then, costs have slowly crept up. Until the introduction of the multi-bidding system, at which point they had, in some cases (particularly in mid- and low-tier locations), doubled. These days, taxes cover just a small fraction of the weekly bid costs and external revenue streams are no longer optional.

All this could be fixed if guilds could set their own tax rate. But until that happens, all I have to say to anyone who's considering leading a trade guild is this: "Are you out of your f***ing mind?!"

code65536 wrote: »

When I became a trade guild GM back in 2015, it wasn't that much work and I actually kinda enjoyed it. I resigned from the GMship this year and have absolutely no intention of going back. Why?

Well, the biggest problem is that ZOS does not allow us to set tax rates.

So let's do some numbers here. Say you are a mid-sized trade guild in a mid-tier location. You are doing a healthly 20M in sales each week. Bids in the mid-tier, however, have skyrocketed in recent times, esp. with the new multi-bid system. You're looking at spending in the rough ballpark of 2M per week. So about 10% of your weekly sales.

When a seller uses your guild store, they incur these costs:

• 1% "Listing Fee", paid upon listing, disappears from the game
• 7% "House Cut", paid upon sale
  • 3.5% disappears from the game
  • 3.5% goes to the guild's coffers

So there is effectively a 8% tax rate for members of the guild. 4.5% is taken by ZOS, and only 3.5% actually goes to the guild.

In our example here, each week, you need to bid roughly 10% of your sales to keep your spot. But you take in only 3.5% in taxes. That means you're looking at a shortfall of 6.5% that you have to somehow collect from your membership. Every. Week. Some do it via voluntary contribution. Fundraiser raffles, auctions, donation drives, etc. Some do it via compulsory fees. Some use a combination of both. It's exhausting and a lot of work. It might not seem so bad at first. But when you have to do it every f***ing week, it will burn you out.

And that's assuming your guild is healthy and doing 20M per week. If you are doing 10M per week in sales, you still have the same 2M bid costs, so you're effectively looking at a 20% bid cost. Seasoned players are generally in established guilds. Start up a new guild, and you'll find that most players you get are relatively new. And in general, these kinds of players don't generate the levels of sales that older, more seasoned players do (there are always individual exceptions, of course, but I'm speaking in the aggregate). Most new guilds use their startup capital to grab a nice spot, do a recruiting drive, and then... the disappointment sets in as they realize that they're pulling only half the sales of the other incumbent guilds in the area. Whoops.

Back in 2015, the 3.5% taxes covered the lion's share of the weekly bid costs. There was a very modest shortfall that could be easily covered with some light fundraising, and the costs were low enough that I didn't blink at the notion of personally funding the bids.

Since then, costs have slowly crept up. Until the introduction of the multi-bidding system, at which point they had, in some cases (particularly in mid- and low-tier locations), doubled. These days, taxes cover just a small fraction of the weekly bid costs and external revenue streams are no longer optional.

All this could be fixed if guilds could set their own tax rate. But until that happens, all I have to say to anyone who's considering leading a trade guild is this: "Are you out of your f***ing mind?!"

Amazingly insightful post and i want to thank you for sharing this. It seems like starting up a trade guild isnt something i have time or energy to do, espesially since the payoff will be none existent - based on what you wrote..and you should know, beying a GM and all. Did you ever at least get rich of beying a GM?

As the leader of one of my guilds put it: a *** ton.

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

Did you ever at least get rich of beying a GM?

Most trade guild GMs--myself included--are wealthy, but the direction of causation isn't what many would expect, and most GMs would tell you that they are wealthy despite being a GM. In other words, we are GMs because we're wealthy; we are not wealthy because we are GMs.

Aside from having the financial resources to support the guild, the things that make a player wealthy--notably time and an understanding of the game's economy--are also the things that a good trade guild GM would need.

If you think you can Just make the guild and members will appear, it won't work that way. If you want a trader location at the very least you'll have to charge dues. When people pay dues they expect a lot from the guild. Just the privilege of having the selling spots isn't enough for most people. I work with one of the most prominent trading guilds on Xbox NA. It's a lot of work keeping members happy and engaged. It's also a lot of work policing the trolls and keeping a friendly environment for everyone. If you have the time, it's fun and rewarding. If you don't, it will become tedious and start to feel like a job. Good luck, whatever you decide.

I am no GM, so just can argue from a member perspective.

I would not join your guild, because:


1.) you start at ZERO and can't afford a guildtrader in a top location like mournhold or Elden Root.

So not many people would visit your store, I would sell nothing, make no profit. So I prefer the existing older ones, as I can sell stuff for 2-3 million there each month.

So as a trader guild you are not attractive.

2.) PVP guild
I am not much interested in PVP, but if I were, I would not join either. As you stated, you play solo and have just 1 friend, so you could not help me to get better.

3.) PVE guild (Raids, undaunted dailies, trials)
Almost like 2.) It requires some experience and a lot of cooperation with other players to assemble groups that will have success and not fail in difficult content, insulting each other and becoming frustrated. I think you first should be member in such a guild, and after 6-12 months of experience, you could think about creating such a guild again.

As you see, each type of guild has different requirements, among them definately not the plan to quickly make some extra money. It requires compassion to one of the topics (Trading/PVP/PVE). And it is extremely time consuming, on xbox EU the leader of the successfull and large top trading guild Vigilant Vendetta just resigned yesterday because of real-life workload and handed over the guild to other experienced guildmasters from the Brotherhood of Chaos.

I hope I did not sound rude, just wanted to help you to see with a clear description that you might have wrong expectations.

Reverb wrote: »

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

redspecter23 wrote: »

Starting a trade guild in order to make a profit won't likely turn out the way you want it to. Most trade guilds have to do fund raising in order to stay viable. If you can make it work without the fund raising, that's hard enough as is. If, however, you're basically crowd funding your guild, but also taking a cut of that profit for yourself, your guild will not be too happy about that.

If you want to make money, join a trade guild. If you want to sink a pile of gold and effort into a project, then you start your own.

So the guild leaders of top trading guild dont make a profit of it? Thanks for the elaboration!

Every trade guild GM I know, and most trade officers, put huge amounts of their own gold into the guild to keep it viable. It’s becoming more and more common to put RL money into the guild as well in the form of Crown Store items for raffle.

Even the highest performing trade guilds are not self sustaining. Having a kiosk is essential for your members to make gold, which is essential to keeping your membership full, which is essential to the guild collecting sales tax revenue. But the taxes will not be enough to pay for your kiosk. The funds must be supplemented with either raffles and /or auctions or mandatory dues. (Dues are more common on consoles because there aren’t addons to help track raffle entries. Raffles rather than dues are the norm on pc).

Either of these fundraising options require time and vigilance to track. Raffles require stockpiling the prizes in advance and keeping them separate from your personal inventory, documenting the entries per member, using a RNG tool to select the winners, and the time spent mailing them out and following up throughout the week with winners who inevitably have full mail. You’ll also want to spend time hyping the raffle to encourage participation and encourage donation of raffle prizes so it’s not all on your shoulders, which also requires tracking and acknowledgement.

Roster management becomes your new top priority in game. Only active sellers earn their spot on the roster, so a sizable chunk of your weeks will be spent recruiting new members and kicking inactives and people who aren’t selling.

And every Sunday night you get the fun of finding out if any of your blind bids were enough to win a kiosk. If so you’re lucky enough to start the process all over again for the week! If not you have a steep loss of revenue and member engagement. Well established guilds can weather a week without a trader and will lose less than 10% of their membership over it. Startup guilds will see a membership exodus though.

All of this has been heightened by the multi-bidding system.

I don’t want to scare you off of the idea, running a trade guild can be very rewarding in the community bonds it forms, and in the sense of accomplishment if gives. But it is a lot of time and work and is important that people know what they’re getting into. It’s absolutely not a way to get rich.

Based on what you (especially!) and others wrote i am now 100% positive that i under no circumstances have the slightest chance of going through with such an endevor like creating a trade guild. My initial idea was contributing with a lot of startup capital, recruiting officers and making them take care of the guild and recruiting - then simply being the big boss colecting my gold. The last thing i want to do is actually be social and spent the little time i have to play on guild management!

Thanks to all for your comprehensive anwsers!

GrimTheReaper45 wrote: »

As a trading guild gm, it is a ton of work. Running a trading guild is as much work as a real life job. My officers, co gm and I spend about 3 hrs a day farming mats, The other gm and I spend about another 3-4 hrs a day between advertising guild in zone chat, putting together auction and raffle packages, managing roaster and spreadsheets for gold donations and promotions, demotions and kicks.

That is just the daily operation of it. Never mind starting one and actually building it. Also as far as your "good monthly profit", I dont know a SINGLE trader guild that is making profit. Any money left over from a week is from your other bids and goes straight back into those other builds. Most trading guild gms and officers are broke unless they are stealing from the gb.

I'm not broke, and I'm not stealing from the bank. But, we do have a member who is extremely active and soaks a lot of the operating costs personally. So, I'm a bad example.

markulrich1966 wrote: »

I am no GM, so just can argue from a member perspective.

I would not join your guild, because:


1.) you start at ZERO and can't afford a guildtrader in a top location like mournhold or Elden Root.

So not many people would visit your store, I would sell nothing, make no profit. So I prefer the existing older ones, as I can sell stuff for 2-3 million there each month.

So as a trader guild you are not attractive.

2.) PVP guild
I am not much interested in PVP, but if I were, I would not join either. As you stated, you play solo and have just 1 friend, so you could not help me to get better.

3.) PVE guild (Raids, undaunted dailies, trials)
Almost like 2.) It requires some experience and a lot of cooperation with other players to assemble groups that will have success and not fail in difficult content, insulting each other and becoming frustrated. I think you first should be member in such a guild, and after 6-12 months of experience, you could think about creating such a guild again.

As you see, each type of guild has different requirements, among them definately not the plan to quickly make some extra money. It requires compassion to one of the topics (Trading/PVP/PVE). And it is extremely time consuming, on xbox EU the leader of the successfull and large top trading guild Vigilant Vendetta just resigned yesterday because of real-life workload and handed over the guild to other experienced guildmasters from the Brotherhood of Chaos.

I hope I did not sound rude, just wanted to help you to see with a clear description that you might have wrong expectations.

Thank you for your honest opinion. It wasnt rude at all. Appriciate it.

code65536 wrote: »

Well, the biggest problem is that ZOS does not allow us to set tax rates.

Did ZOS ever explained why? I would gladly pay higher tax to the guild instead of more or less standard dues every week. It might be large difference in income for guilds (obviously, for example, that during events we have more sales), but it should be predictable. But it would allow more people join trade guilds. As of now, joining a guild with mandatory dues is a risk for a new player.

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

SteamKitten01 wrote: »

As others have said, being a GM of a successful trade guild is A LOT of work.

First there's recruiting, an absolute essential task for a new guild. You need to get your numbers above 50 members ASAP so you can at least bid on a trader. Many of these players will be brand new to the game and know absolutely nothing about trading because very few established players will want to join a new guild that has yet to win their first trader bid. You'll be spending pretty much the entire next month recruiting as you'll want to build up your number of members as high as you can since more players = more money coming into the guild that you can use for trader bids.

Then there's the trader bids themselves. Once upon a time, you could almost afford trader bids in a lot of locations based purely on sales tax. These days, bids in MANY different locations across Tamriel have more than doubled what they were a year ago which means you need to do a lot of fundraising (raffles, auctions, required dues) to make ends meet. Not to mention that now with multi-bid, you not only need to gather up enough gold to make your first trader bid (and very few guildies will be willing/able to put in any gold before you win your first bid so most will be coming out of your own pocket), but you need to gather up enough gold to place a few backup bids too.

Then there's all the other general guild maintenance activities. Purging inactives off the roster, dealing with guild drama that pops up from time to time, scheduling other events for the guild...

And let's not forget the guild hall. At this point, it's almost expected that a successful trade guild has a guild hall with all the set crafting stations, mundus, transmute station, and more. That's a lot of money (both gold and crowns) needed to invest on completing your hall.

Yes, a lot of GMs are wealthy, but a large portion of that wealth that we earn (from selling on our and other guild traders) goes straight back into the guild to make sure that we make ends meet and can continue to place our ever-increasing bids. I don't know of anyone running a trade guild that is actually making a profit off their guild and not feeding every last penny the guild earns in addition to all their additional contributions that they themselves are making (whether direct gold or items for auctions/raffles). You pretty much need to be already wealthy in order to have the gold to get a new trading guild off the ground.

Judging by the responses in this thread , why on earth would anyone WANT to become the GM of a trading guild? If its such a time and money sink , and it legitimately sounds like a second Job - what are the advantages here?

The community. Strong bonds are formed within the guild. The raffles and auctions are a lot of work but can be a lot of fun if you have strong member engagement. Coordinating the events is a lot of work but also very rewarding and fun.

There’s also a pride factor, seeing your own guild name on a top trader kiosk, seeing your tabard in front of a high-traffic wayshrine, seeing this active and bustling community joking together, coming together for trials and pledges, offering guidance to new members, all while making collective tens (or hundreds) millions of gold in sales and think “we made this happen!”

And honestly I think some of us are just predisposed to wanting to track and measure things on a spreadsheet, it’s soothing and enjoyable in its own way

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

Judging by the responses in this thread , why on earth would anyone WANT to become the GM of a trading guild? If its such a time and money sink , and it legitimately sounds like a second Job - what are the advantages here?

I think pure trading guilds don't really exist. What I observe in the trading guilds where I am member, the guildmasters are active PVP players in Cyrodiil.
I guess they created the guilds as PVP or all purpose guilds, to meet other players, chat, organize campaigns and raids.
Then they used the guildtrader of this guild to start selling their own stuff, and once they made enough profit to be able to pay for better locations, they had a name that was known all around Tamriel.

From that point on, it is a question of pride and also responsibility towards the other guildmembers, to keep this progress going.
If you somewhen have your trader in Mournhold, you want to keep it, as there you can sell you stuff the quickest way.

The vindicta vidici guild had so many requests a year ago, that the guildmaster started the second one, vigilant vendetta. So we had 2 traders in mournhold. I sell carpets and food in one, furniture and motifs in the other. More sales as I can offer a wider variety of products.

So it is not mainly a monetary advantage (just as a sideeffect of quicker sales in top locations), but a complex mix of boosting your ego, getting friends, being admired, having fun playing with people you know well.