One thing i really dont quite understand is why so many people use auction. I have been keeping track of the auction for quite sometime. And an interesting fact that i've noticed that is true between all planets is that only about 10-13% of auction has bids on it. To me that number is very very very low. When you consider that many things get bought without bid with just buyout maybe that brings it up to 20 maybe 25%. But that still means that 75% of what is put on auction goes right through. Those 75% of items are then paying auction fees for nothing. Which only hurts everyone as a whole. Then consider how many of those auction items are being sold for so little markup like 102%. And when you deduct the auction fee you get nothing and when you deduct the amount that people have paid for putting on orders they are paying even more. So Why are we not just trying to figure out a way to trade more person to person? Could we work out some sort of system and not let greed come into play? Could we work together in trading things with people even for just TT and no markup? If we started giving crafters better prices can they start giving us better prices? We have a pretty good community here i'm sure if we put our heads together and resources together we can come up with a better way of buying and selling then using the auction that clearly does not work to our benefit. Anyone ideas?
Dude I would love to have something else, but the truth is, it takes way too much time. I hunt for hours every day, what am I going to do with my eye oil? Wait at the quarry and hope for a buyer? Heck I even posted all my loot on the selling forum and I didn't get a single bite. I really have no choice to move my stuff. I just started TTing my madana hides ( I get like 200 ped a day), and TTing arkace timber as well (rarely sells on auction), and I can never find a buyer. So am I going to sell my eye oil on auction for 102%? heck yah I am ... its something, and when I list 800 peds of it at a time ... someone ends up buying it. Now what do I do with the rest of the loot? I kept my loot for a couple days, and I couldn't find any buyers at the quarry (I tried), so took a MS to calypso and sold like 80% of it on auction. Just a couple things are left unsold... was it worth it? Heck yah it was worth it ... i sold so many things, that even the unsold stuff will barely effect my stuff. I moved over 5K peds in just 2 days. This being said, if anyone actually buys stuff I would gladly sell to them. I only hunt, and there isnt a real demand for hunting loot. I sell my animal oil residue to a buyer... but thats the only buyer I have for any of my loot. I sell thyoid oil and eye oil on arkadia. I have listed large ped amounts of extractors (over 40 ped bundles), and they don't sell... so I am forced to go to calypso. I also want to note I am not complaining, I don't mind going to calypso and paying JBK 20 ped so I can make 200 ped in MU. That seems very resoanable. I am just answering to the OP who asked why use auction. Merry Christmas! oh .. and I do buy guns ... I bought 5 asi-20 desserts from a certain crafter. I looted 5 asi-20s with those desserts tho, and I will be putting in another order of asi-20 desserts after the new year (I will be taking vacation from dec 27-jan6). I have no complain about the crafters. Chillix, Kikki, both have great prices and have bought from both. If anyone wants my madana hides or arkace timber let me know. I TT them, so if you want em for tt sure thing. If you wanna give me 101 that would be great, but id still sell em for tt since thats who is getting them now =)
I reitterate what Sam said. Until I start seeing more public traders, my loot gets listed. (and nearly always sold)
This is spot on, ive only been here a short while and the biggest most obvious thing that stops arkadia from growth is traders in Quarry. Regular ore/enmat/animal oil/hides/wools buyer are essential to the hunting / mining profession. The moment 22 though, is that traders are intrested in money, and the money is on caly for as long as arkadia is small. and the traders are needed for arkadia to grow.
There are loads of reason why i use the auction, just to name a few: the stuff sells and i earn some markup it is a lot more efficient then trying to sell on the streets I can buy the items i want (if available) quickly I sell stuff other people need but wouldn't get otherwise I really can't be bothered buying low stacks from hunters/miners directly having more aution pages makes the planet more appealing for other players I believe that part of the auction fees go to the arkadia team, and i want them to make a living Besides your maths is wrong, most stuff on auction sells on buyout, especially mining and hunting materials. For every item that i don't sell on auction there are 10 i sell at buyout. But off course arkadia could do with more sellers and buyers.
As being a mix of a miner and crafter i like to add my perspective to it as well: To answer the original question: I use auction as only stuff being sold via auction will end up in the MU graphs - thats what everyone uses to find out what stuff is worth.. Everything traded outside auction will leave the tracked market with wrong figures - both ammount-wise and also MU-wise. I made my remark about buying ores and enmatters outside of the auction already at quarry - it falsifies the MU actually. If only the most expensive things stay in auction and dont get sold right away and everything else gets traded outside auction, the official MU people relate to is still the one from auction. Also a remark regarding bids - they usually only appear while stuff is below the average markup and mostly gets started by a professional trader (my personal experience). The moment stuff gets near the average MU people dont bid anymore or want to buyout right away. There is definitely room for traders both to sell and to buy - I myself used Spiritghosts service to sell some tools as they didnt sell while on auction. BUT more important than that is - i would never ever move my stuff to Calypso to sell it there as it would be contraproductive. So Why are we not just trying to figure out a way to trade more person to person? Nothing wrong in it generally and already happening. People have to invest into something to get it done. Someone has to have enough spare PEDS to buy the stuff even in personal trade. I could buy all day if i really wanted and had constantly PED rolling in - which isnt the case as people dont buy enough on Arkadia yet. Could we work out some sort of system and not let greed come into play? Sadly - i doubt it. There is always at least one person trying to take advantage of the niceness of others. So greed will always get into it - if not on open surface then definitly behind the back of us. Could we work together in trading things with people even for just TT and no markup? I already do that - both personally and through others because otherwise i couldnt afford half of my crafting else. But then again - are people willing to buy at Arkadia as well? Why not tell a crafter if there is stuff you would like to see available instead of importing it from calypso? If we started giving crafters better prices can they start giving us better prices? Of course carfters will give better prices. But again - look up and remember that MU will develop by things sold via auction. I had several orders in the auction constantly - they bind my money while not finished by the way. What people do is openly discussing that they put the stuff into auction for just slightly above the order to not sell it to a crafter's order - you see yourself what cycle happens here. P.S. Arkadia is pretty young and i think people have to think more ahead than on calypso i.e. If you want to hunt spontanously - fine. But dont expect to sell everything then afterwards as fast as you hunted it. I started in 2008 and Calypso wasnt near what it is today. Back then it was pretty normal that hunters made contact with potential buyers BEFORE they would hunt
Hello there, RexDameon I fully agree with what you are saying, and that is why I opened up my services a bit earlier this month. I try to link sellers to buyers etc without them having to spend time themselves spamming in Celeste Quarry. As I spend most of my time in Celeste Quarry selling my own goods, I thought I could just sell other peoples goods for them aswell, thus saving people time. I myself am interested in maybe buying ores and enmatters from people and setting up a tradebase to Arkadia but as I am fairly new I dont have the peds to do this yet, but I eventually plan to make contracts with the crafters to perhaps get them the resources they need for prices I payed from other people. A few ideas that I came up with about this issue is to promote Arkadia's forums on other planets, so one can get a sense of what is being sold/happening here before they plan trips. Some people might not come to Arkadia because their favourite gun is not being sold there etc etc, random stuff like that. At the moment, from what I have gathered sitting in Celest Quarry, most of the time the crafters require resources to craft but the sale prices on the current market are too high for them, thus chasing them away or forcing them to reconsider their planet options. I dont mind doing for the community but as I said, I am a new player and can only do so much. If I manage to make someone happy by selling them something for the same price I bought it for then I am happy. Harmony has also made a valid point that people are attracted to planets that seem to have more Auction Activity, sure sometimes it may generate a false sense of the planet, but the attraction is there. Take a look at Rocktropia for example, It used to have 1 or 2 auction pages but since the competitions came out they have moved up to 16 pages the last time I checked. Although the event attracted people to go there, there is hardly any market for the ores there, forcing people to either TT it or risk space. Here we atleast have a favourable amount of the resources but the people selling them are sometimes offline when other people are wanting to buy it, or opportunists are snatching them up for low prices and throwing them straight into the AH for more, thus damaging the economy even more. One reason I am skeptical in investing what little amounts of ped I have into my trading idea is whether people would buy my goods for roughly the same price I payed. I want to know that if I buy X amount of Y from someone, that someone will buy it from me and use it. Shops should have helped the economy, but one might think otherwise. In some cases it has helped the economy, but it is still in it's early stages since shops are fairly new. Well , these are my opinion anyway, everyone has their own opinion after all I have a thread in the services post if people need more information, Thanks for reading, and enjoy your Christmas
I've sold a few big stacks on the auction as it's the easiest method I have of selling them as I don't login that often and they take months to build up to a size viable to sell. So I can't build up a regular group of customers. It's very rare that I have a stack not sell on buyout and get returned a week later, I usually attribute it to being too big if it does. What I don't understand is why people only put it on for a day, a week costs exactly the same amount. If they don't sell then either people have got to few items in the stack or they've priced it too high. My usual stacks are over 100ped but a few have been in the 400-500ped range like the animal hides I sold last year. Even now some of my stacks are bigger than the whole amount sold in a month and in the case of a few rare hides in the entire year. But I've got the float on my ped card to do it and I'm only hunting low level mobs so I've barely spent in 6 months that some did fighting a single Huskk If my log is correct since the begining of November to now, I've lost 50ped and thats a tt - no markup on stacks counted.
I have suggested way back that what we need is a new market based trading system ... But that is only do-able by MA. jc
I use auction pretty actively and am pleased with how it works, doing both auctions and orders. I like it because I'd rather be out hunting, mining, socializing/partying rather then standing and broadcasting for hours on end until someone buys or sells me stuff. AH is a great medium to use IMHO. I wish shops were used more though, they should be the true medium of sales instead of AH, but the AH has it's place as well and I do use both forms of sales and purchases. There are a few trusted people who do well as traders and I recommend using them as they would be cheaper then AH costs, but AH is 24/7 where any traders are logged in time only. Just my opinions!
