Kwoung wrote: »

Actually this is very concerning, as I also assumed from everything I have read that my fee was returned. On high value low profit items like potions, this could mean losing tons of gold when you thought you were making a profit.

Probably not a serious concern unless you were also unaware of the 7% house cut. If your profit margin is under 1%, whatever you're doing isn't worth the money.

Ghostbane wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Sort of stating the obvious here, but UESP is not infallible..

Of course not, we are not at wiki AI level yet!

I was citing an example of this information in the wild ( since 2016 ). Someone has corrected it since this thread. I know there are many out there who already know that you do not receive a listing fee back, I touched on that when I started this thread. More to raise awareness to new traders, like myself, who had been told otherwise.

Yeah, I should probably confess, I have a really bad habit of not keeping track of who started a thread. The comment was just neutral enough that I wasn't 100% sure whether it was intended as, "see, here's bad information," or, "but UESP says."

I'm also slightly biased against UESP after having met one of their staff at a press event a couple years ago. That along with a few errors I've noticed over the years, has solidly moved them from my preferred TES Wiki to, "well, at least it's very extensive, and some of it links to The Imperial Library."

So, I ended up restating your point, without going back and to see where you were in the argument.

Ghostbane wrote: »

As you can see from some of the responses here, and from my own guilds, many experienced traders were under the impression of a return as well

Yeah, I see that, and it's kinda bonkers. What's weird is, I'm almost certain this misinformation wasn't in the wild back in 2014. When I was first learning about guild stores, no one was claiming that the listing fee was refunded. This must have started sometime after summer of 2014.

One (weird), but distant possibility is that fees may have been reimbursed on consoles when they launched. There were some weird discrepancies between the PC build and consoles between Tamriel Unlimited and Imperial City, and most of these are very poorly documented by the community.

Hapexamendios wrote: »

I thought it was common knowledge the listing fees weren't returned. 🤷🏽‍♂️

Just goes to show how there can be parallel universes of facts, with one of them oblivious to the fact that what they believe was someone making a faulty inference from something they saw and people repeating that.

The guild doesn't see the listing fee, they only see half of the taxes (3.5%, ZOS eats the other 3.5%)... the fee is just lost to the daedric realms.

Eir

whole bunch of mathematicians in this thread

spartaxoxo wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

Actually this is very concerning, as I also assumed from everything I have read that my fee was returned. On high value low profit items like potions, this could mean losing tons of gold when you thought you were making a profit.

If you've been increasing your net worth via selling the potions, every time you sell them, then no. A simple test would simply be to subtract 8% from your list price, A, and compare the result to what you spent making the potions, B. If A is greater than B, then you're still turning a profit.

I will need to adjust the spreadsheet I use for this to take into account the additional 1% loss. But generally, I do not post items in markets myself when the profit margin has become that slim. That said, a lot of people seem to post final products for considerably less profit than simply selling the mats would have made, and sold a lot quicker to boot.

For me, it would be all profit. I gather my own mats, so there's no overhead.

@robertthebard

That's untrue because you still have an opportunity cost. In this case, the opportunity cost is the coin you would have earned if you had sold the materials directly. If the amount you make from selling potions is lower than the opportunity cost, you're operating at a loss because your materials were more valuable than your potion.

So for example less say you were trying to sell the fictional Potion of Proving.

And the potion of proving requires the following materials, and let's also give them prices you can make at the guild trader.

1 flower of courage = 100 coins
1 bag of salt = 100 coins
Total amount you can make selling the materials directly= 200 coins

You'd need to sell your Potion of Proving at a minimum of 201 coins to make a profit. 200 coins is even, and anything less is at a loss.

If one isn't going to sell the mats anyway, there's no lost money. So for me, no lost money if I were to sell potions. The mats for your example potion don't just spawn into the Trader, so, they come from somewhere. If I'm going to worry about this potion, I would get the mats from the source. I have purchased materials at the Trader one time, in 4 years, just last night, because I needed some mats to finish a daily, and didn't feel like grinding them out. Other than that, I haven't purchased them at all. So not, it's not "untrue". In my case, I gather my own mats, I have no intention, and currently no means, since I'm not in any guild, let alone a trade guild, to sell them unless I sell to a vendor, not going to happen, and so, no lost opportunity.

You don't get your listing fee back. Start selling expensive items in the hundred thousands to million range, and it'll be very apparent.

AlnilamE wrote: »

I never thought this was refunded. I always understood it to be a gold sink of 1% regardless of what happens to the item.

This. I've never actually read it was refunded and also assumed it was just part of the gold sink mechanic. I'm a casual trader but I built my own profit/loss spreadsheet and have always set prices with that in mind. I do use ATT/MM and TTC to gauge selling price but use the spreadsheet to decide if the margins are acceptable.

robertthebard wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

Actually this is very concerning, as I also assumed from everything I have read that my fee was returned. On high value low profit items like potions, this could mean losing tons of gold when you thought you were making a profit.

If you've been increasing your net worth via selling the potions, every time you sell them, then no. A simple test would simply be to subtract 8% from your list price, A, and compare the result to what you spent making the potions, B. If A is greater than B, then you're still turning a profit.

I will need to adjust the spreadsheet I use for this to take into account the additional 1% loss. But generally, I do not post items in markets myself when the profit margin has become that slim. That said, a lot of people seem to post final products for considerably less profit than simply selling the mats would have made, and sold a lot quicker to boot.

For me, it would be all profit. I gather my own mats, so there's no overhead.

@robertthebard

That's untrue because you still have an opportunity cost. In this case, the opportunity cost is the coin you would have earned if you had sold the materials directly. If the amount you make from selling potions is lower than the opportunity cost, you're operating at a loss because your materials were more valuable than your potion.

So for example less say you were trying to sell the fictional Potion of Proving.

And the potion of proving requires the following materials, and let's also give them prices you can make at the guild trader.

1 flower of courage = 100 coins
1 bag of salt = 100 coins
Total amount you can make selling the materials directly= 200 coins

You'd need to sell your Potion of Proving at a minimum of 201 coins to make a profit. 200 coins is even, and anything less is at a loss.

If one isn't going to sell the mats anyway, there's no lost money. So for me, no lost money if I were to sell potions. The mats for your example potion don't just spawn into the Trader, so, they come from somewhere. If I'm going to worry about this potion, I would get the mats from the source. I have purchased materials at the Trader one time, in 4 years, just last night, because I needed some mats to finish a daily, and didn't feel like grinding them out. Other than that, I haven't purchased them at all. So not, it's not "untrue". In my case, I gather my own mats, I have no intention, and currently no means, since I'm not in any guild, let alone a trade guild, to sell them unless I sell to a vendor, not going to happen, and so, no lost opportunity.

If you're selling a potion, you can sell the mats. If you weren't selling anything you'd have a point. But you are selling them, you're just turning them into a potion first. Which means you should factor in the price of ingredients.

Even if you're just vendoring them it's worth checking the price to vendor the mats vs the potions.

You show a Minus 10 listing fee, then a Plus 10 Refund - so those wash to Zero

You got 35 to guild bank and 35 Comission = 70 gold

Subtract 70 from 1000 you get 930 gold ... NOT 940

you lose the listing fee in any scenario. it literally says that next to 'listing fee' if you mouse over the question mark next to 'listing fee'. how could anyone get this wrong??

when you list an item, the fee comes out of your gold and you never get it back, regardless of whether you sell the item or cancel it.

edit: furthermore, while it isn't usually a big deal if you get it back or not because it's just 1%, if you list an item for 1M, the listing fee is 10k. that's 10k that you'll never get back. that's definitely important to consider when listing high-value items, especially in terms of what price you list the item at, to ensure you'll make a profit given a potentially expensive listing fee

Probably end up with the same results as posted earlier, but I need to look at it from a different value point.

I want to sell an item.
I want 1000 gold for it.
I list it for 1080 gold.
Breakdown is
1000 asking price
70 taxes
10 listing fee
1080 Total listing price

If it does not sell, I get the item back and am out 80 gold
If it does sell, I get 1000 gold and am out 80 gold

I paid 80 gold into the system to try and sell an item for 1000 gold profit
Buyer pays 1080 gold for the item. I get 1000 of that.

What happens to the 160 gold from both me and the buyer?
I would guess that 140 gold goes to the guild (70 gold on each end)
and that 20 gold gets cut from the game (ZOS sink)

The stock mail when getting the gold from a sold item says nothing about getting any fees back. Only the mail from Awesome Guild Store does that.