Rip-off catshop prices

__Longshot__ - Sanctuary

I just do my questing and gather drops as i go. I setup shop at night and sell everything for 3x the store price, except celestones. I make about 50k-100k a night.

I also have done my Dragon Questing and was looking to buy the items and could not find them, then when i did see them, the price was very high. I said to myself, " hmm, either i can keep looking or just pay the price and get it over with, or go try to get the drop myself." I chose to buy and be done with it. No biggie.

Sigr - Heavens Tear

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Actually, the cat shops aren't a real free market. The time it takes to check all their prices means for most people, unless they already know the market price, they're going to buy after only checking a few shops. If you wanted a real free market, each cat shop item would have a little graph next to it showing the asking price vs. the average of the paid price for the same item across all cat shops in the last ~100 sales.

You might want to look up what a free market is considering cat shops are a free market because they are not regulated by the game, but by the sellers themselves as they are free to set the prices at what they believe will sell and then adjust based on whether or not anyone buys them at a decent rate, and then either raise or lower prices depending on what happens.

Kingpiccolo - Heavens Tear wrote: »

omg you should get banned for that, being greedy and selling all your things while robbing another player of his business.

It's always funny to set-up a shop claiming "Cheap DQ" with one that says "Cheaper DQ" and under-cut them by 700, and come back later to see they've taken their stall down, and you've sold a lot of yours.

Solandri - Heavens Tear

Sigr - Heavens Tear wrote: »

You might want to look up what a free market is considering cat shops are a free market because they are not regulated by the game, but by the sellers themselves as they are free to set the prices at what they believe will sell and then adjust based on whether or not anyone buys them at a decent rate, and then either raise or lower prices depending on what happens.

I'm not saying buyers and sellers aren't free when it comes to cat shops. I'm saying that the cat shops as currently implemented introduce an additional cost (time to search shops) which degrades their free market nature.

e.g. Prior to the Internet making price-shopping relatively easy, a lot of times driving around to different stores to compare prices could end up costing you more in gas than the money you saved by finding a lower price. So people often just bought the item they wanted at the first place they visited rather than shopping around for the best price as they would in a completely free market.

Stock markets strive to reduce this sort of external cost, as they are an impediment to the efficiency of a free market. Since the cat shops do not reduce this cost, they are not a very efficient free market.

Sigr - Heavens Tear

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I'm not saying buyers and sellers aren't free when it comes to cat shops. I'm saying that the cat shops as currently implemented introduce an additional cost (time to search shops) which degrades their free market nature.

e.g. Prior to the Internet making price-shopping relatively easy, a lot of times driving around to different stores to compare prices could end up costing you more in gas than the money you saved by finding a lower price. So people often just bought the item they wanted at the first place they visited rather than shopping around for the best price as they would in a completely free market.

Stock markets strive to reduce this sort of external cost, as they are an impediment to the efficiency of a free market. Since the cat shops do not reduce this cost, they are not a very efficient free market.

Stop, just stop. Each comment you make is dumber then the last.

XPapewaiox - Lost City

Sigr - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Stop, just stop. Each comment you make is dumber then the last.

What the hell? The poster you're criticizing is one of the only posters in this thread who seems to understand free market economies. His comments were insightful, thoughtful, and easy to understand.

Each time you try to criticize facts and call them false, YOU look like a bigger idiot. Read up on economics, no excuse for being ignorant of simple facts like these when Wikipedia is available 30 seconds before you post.

Zoe - Heavens Tear

XPapewaiox - Lost City wrote: »

What the hell? The poster you're criticizing is one of the only posters in this thread who seems to understand free market economies. His comments were insightful, thoughtful, and easy to understand.

Each time you try to criticize facts and call them false, YOU look like a bigger idiot. Read up on economics, no excuse for being ignorant of simple facts like these when Wikipedia is available 30 seconds before you post.

Oh there is always a person who will hate on anyone who knows what they are talking about. Those haters are typically people who abuse the system and don't want anyone knowing how things actually work because then they can't abuse them anymore.

Vinat - Sanctuary

dull claws ARE in short supply on sanctuary, this would logically raise the price a bit, but 9.7k is absurd, like someone else has said. reason for this is because the players who would actually need dull claws (unless you're a high lvl doing lvl 31 dq for some unknown reason) really cannot afford 100k to get the 10 they need for the bank, or for the aeropet. thats 200k for a lvl 30 untamed, and that is way too much at that lvl. not to mention dull claws are only ONE of several items you need for the bank quest...

and op said something about selective shop locating... that sounds to me like you deliberately place it in a town where 1- not many others would be selling dull claws, 2- more people might be desperate for them for whatever reason (like the people who sell "quest herbs" for insane prices right on top of the npc who issues the quest), or 3- the people who don't know what they're worth. either way.. you're going out of your way to be able to sell them at an inflated price. your logic of "i cat shop for 16 hours and at this price the shop stays open longer" is just... stupid. sorry, but it is. you're the first person i've ever heard of who specifically allocates X number of hours for cat shop and sets prices according to that. i think what most people do is only set up shops for overnight while they sleep or while they're afk for an expected several hours. if youre so concerned about not wasting time standing in an emptied shop.. either get more inventory, or don't stay afk so long.

but hey, good for you if people actually buy it. and good for you if you can have a clear conscience while you're ripping people off, because that IS what you're doing. i can only imagine what you're gonna try to sell lvl 61 dq items for. S>mystical mask 30k each lol

and actually it would have been a wonderful experience in learning, compassion, and humility if you had sold that card #21 for 10k. how upset would you have been? now put yourself in the shoes of the person who wants to buy dull claws.

Sigr - Heavens Tear

XPapewaiox - Lost City wrote: »

What the hell? The poster you're criticizing is one of the only posters in this thread who seems to understand free market economies. His comments were insightful, thoughtful, and easy to understand.

Each time you try to criticize facts and call them false, YOU look like a bigger idiot. Read up on economics, no excuse for being ignorant of simple facts like these when Wikipedia is available 30 seconds before you post.

What the hell right back at you, but I'll break down why his argument is false.

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I'm not saying buyers and sellers aren't free when it comes to cat shops. I'm saying that the cat shops as currently implemented introduce an additional cost (time to search shops) which degrades their free market nature.

Searching the cat shops in no way, shape, or form degrades their free market nature since the buyer is in no way forced to buy at the first opportunity. If they were forced to buy at a certain price, then it wouldn't be a free market, but since they are not, it is. They make the decision to buy at price X instead of looking for price Y while someone else will take the time to find price Y, or even price Z not to mention someone else can and does take the opportunity to undercut all three to sell faster (which does happen) which means that it is indeed a free market. Just because one or two people don't bother looking for a better deal doesn't mean 8 other people won't do so either.

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

e.g. Prior to the Internet making price-shopping relatively easy, a lot of times driving around to different stores to compare prices could end up costing you more in gas than the money you saved by finding a lower price. So people often just bought the item they wanted at the first place they visited rather than shopping around for the best price as they would in a completely free market.

Businesses that sell the same or similar item are in direct competition with each other and will have competitive prices to lure buyers to their store, and not their competition's store, and they will ADVERTISE their prices meaning you didn't have to drive around trying to find the best price. Stores also had (and some still have) catalogs they sent out, ads on TV, and fliers they mailed out which makes the whole second point false. In fact, people will drive out of their way to get a better deal even at the additional cost of more gas.

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Stock markets strive to reduce this sort of external cost, as they are an impediment to the efficiency of a free market. Since the cat shops do not reduce this cost, they are not a very efficient free market.

This part has nothing to do with anything.

In short, his post sounds credible until you look closely instead of just nodding docilely like sheep.

bzbee

LOL come on people.

No one is forced to buy at a higher price. We are not talking about a monopoly here. Do bear in mind that most items are can actually be farmed.

If any seller is able to charge a high price and feed off another player's laziness, it is not the seller's fault.

Again, no one is forced to buy at a higher price. If someone chooses to buy at a higher price rather than shop around or farm it themselves, they deserve to pay a higher price.

I for one admit that some DQ items are ridiculous priced, especially dull claws. However, I refuse to buy them at those prices. Unless I see a good reasonable price when shopping around, I actually farm those items.

I'm in my 60s now and I can truly say I've only bought DQ items when they were priced cheaply. Otherwise I just farm. But at no time do I blame the sellers for pricing items high. It is my choice whether I want to pay the high price. If I do, it is my own fault.

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary

Vinat - Sanctuary wrote: »

1- not many others would be selling dull claws, 2- more people might be desperate for them for whatever reason (like the people who sell "quest herbs" for insane prices right on top of the npc who issues the quest), or 3- the people who don't know what they're worth.

I notice you're a pessimist. I view somebody who sells the needed items near the NPC as "helpful", but of course I still shop around.

Vinat - Sanctuary wrote: »

your logic of "i cat shop for 16 hours and at this price the shop stays open longer" is just... stupid. sorry, but it is. you're the first person i've ever heard of who specifically allocates X number of hours for cat shop and sets prices according to that.

So, what you're saying is that you've never heard of somebody using a maxi-max strategy that is completely rational, market-driven, and financially successful, and your conclusion is that said person and their logic is "stupid"?

Sure, of course it is.

Vinat - Sanctuary wrote: »

and actually it would have been a wonderful experience in learning, compassion, and humility if you had sold that card #21 for 10k.

Giving something away to some unknown rich player for basically free doesn't teach any of those things.

Bobncut - Sanctuary

XPapewaiox - Lost City wrote: »

What the hell? The poster you're criticizing is one of the only posters in this thread who seems to understand free market economies. His comments were insightful, thoughtful, and easy to understand.

Each time you try to criticize facts and call them false, YOU look like a bigger idiot. Read up on economics, no excuse for being ignorant of simple facts like these when Wikipedia is available 30 seconds before you post.

Wikipedia? Oh. Maybe I shouldn't have spent four years getting a PhD in economics (with a specialty in how markets work), then. I must have been wasting my time because the way I learned it, this kind of pricing (using the differential search costs of players to sort them into those willing to pay a premium for goods and those willing to spend time shopping) is actually most likely to be GOOD for the economy. A seller who is patient (i.e., will be AFK for a long time) should be setting prices to reach buyers who are extremely inpatient. The OP's pricing heuristic (keep raising price until the inventory is not clearing out when he comes back to the game) is perfect for finding the market price for this segment. That doesn't make this the right price for all. Other people will want to move their inventory more quickly, will set a lower price, and will win the business of more patient shoppers. If the overall menu of prices is too high, customers will shift to self-supply or do without and the prices will have to come down for inventory to move.

If the many consumer advocates in this thread want to spend their time advising people where they can get better deals, that too would help the economy (although, I can't promise it would be an improvement once we net out the value of your own time). I've done some of that myself when I see quest aerogear offered at 100K. But, the thought that someone will inevitably learn the hard way that information is valuable doesn't bother me so much. They won't forget that lesson.

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary

Bobncut - Sanctuary wrote: »

If the many consumer advocates in this thread want to spend their time advising people where they can get better deals, that too would help the economy (although, I can't promise it would be an improvement once we net out the value of your own time). I've done some of that myself when I see quest aerogear offered at 100K.

Funny you should mention that, because last night I saw quest aerogear offered at 70,000 in Lost City and thought, "That's exploitive", so I set up a shop with drastically lower prices with the intention of flooding the market with cheap Wave Pacers and driving down prices to more reasonable levels.

The result? Same as always: nasty foul-mouthed messages, because I'm now viewed as stealing somebody else's business and ruining the game for them.

So the moral is: raise your prices and people will hate you, lower them and other people will hate you. But hey, at least you get to pick which group you prefer. b:victory

BearHunter - Sanctuary

Jayde_videl - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I often see catshops buying a certain item for a low amount and at the same time in their selling section, you see the exact same item being sold for a much higher price. Here's a picture to show you what I mean by that.

http://img72.imageshack.us/my.php?image=001pf3.jpg

Most players are greedy, plain and simple. They probably see someone offering to buy an item for a specific high amount and think that's what the item is actually worth. 2+ mil for a bikini top (as an example)? Yeah... right...

I saw that too and I thought about it. Whoever did it first is small economy genius. From the posts here it's safe to say that most people here do not have economy or business related jobs so they don't really get the concepts of market and business. Well never mind that. But in some of these shops the price difference is like B:1,8K sell 3,4K or something.

think of why is that: I came from grinding and my invent is full. Selling to NPC is ridiculous and I don't have time for overnight shop as I'm about to set out again (raising funds for hiero or whatever stuff) What to do? keep my mats and pray that I don't come across a different one and have to ditch something on the side of the road? Don't go at all and set up a shop hoping maybes somebody will buy ALL to free the slot (no use if they leave 3 of them unbought-slot stays occupied) OR

Get rid of stuff for 1,8K (mid-mats) immediately, get my free slots and go grinding again. it's over 2x higher than NPC and about their selling price 3,4K, 3,5K versus Arco usual 5K. Also not bad. And because the shop is re-supplying itself (which is the genius concept here) it's finally able to lower the price from usual 5K to 3,4 or 3,5K since mats are coming in constantly.
The shop would be in constant risk of getting overwhelmed by sellers and not getting sold quick enough. Therefore the selling prices is lower than average which is excactly what was complained in the beginning of this thread. There's no way you can or should want to farm in such quantities to actually low the prices. Now finally someone's found the simple way to solve this. Self-resupplying shops.

Target of these shops are everybody who needs to empty their inventory before setting out for new grind trip. Finally a way get rid of them fast and higher than just sell to NPC whatever is left after keeping a nightshop (admit it- you all have done it).

Drazo - Heavens Tear

IMO catshops can be really useful because you have a fair chance of not only buying items you'll never get from any NPC and save you a lot of time with things like DQ but also a chance for buying bargains particularly cash shop items where they may also drop the price slightly. It's time consuming looking through all the cat shops in areas like west archosaur (and taxing for your memory) to find the cheapest but it makes it more challanging, and the reward is cheaper goods. b:victory

With catshops you're paying for the item + the time and effort it took to get that item.

Kuschel - Lost City

It only really matters how much the person is willing to pay for them.

Also, only the people on Heaven's Tear can really speak in this thread here... the economy from Lost City's PvP server is a lot different because priorities are different.

We save our money for Heiros 'cause that idiot's gonna come by and try to roll us like 5 times a day...

They save their money for... I dunno.

Flauschkatze - Heavens Tear

...cakes and tea b:pleased

Kingpiccolo - Heavens Tear

Refined cake and tea with citrine shards. Because that mob is going to come by and try to roll us like 500 times a hour.

Coraline - Lost City

I think the only reason you sold dull claws for that high is because they are kind of hard to find. Maybe the buyers were too lazy/too much in a rush to shop around first and didn't want to wait a day or so until someone else were selling them for a cheaper price. I know I was yelled at because I was asking in Archo for a bronze mp charm and someone was trying to sell it to me for 90k when I bought one the day before for 80k.
I know ingame money is easy to come by and I have an average amount of it but I will not buy something for a way overcharged price. I just think people need to shop around first.
Last night..I needed one more egg for my all class bunny and someone was selling it for 80k. I mean srsly...thats messed up but I just went to the aH and found one for 18k..so problem solved. Anyway..lots of typing but bottom line is people just need to shop around for things and not be in such of a rush.

Solandri - Heavens Tear

Sigr - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Searching the cat shops in no way, shape, or form degrades their free market nature since the buyer is in no way forced to buy at the first opportunity. If they were forced to buy at a certain price, then it wouldn't be a free market, but since they are not, it is. They make the decision to buy at price X instead of looking for price Y while someone else will take the time to find price Y, or even price Z not to mention someone else can and does take the opportunity to undercut all three to sell faster (which does happen) which means that it is indeed a free market. Just because one or two people don't bother looking for a better deal doesn't mean 8 other people won't do so either.

You're mistaking money as the only cost that is relevant to the market. It's not. The way cat shops are implemented (with no way to quickly search all of them), time also becomes a factor. Stock markets attempt to minimize this time cost with stock tickers that instantly report recent sale prices. Doing so improves the efficiency of the marketplace. (You keep dismissing this has having no relevance, when it's the entire point of what I'm saying.)

I'm not saying the cat shops don't follow free-market principles - they do. What I'm disagreeing with is the assertion that there is no room for improvement. A world-wide cat shop search would help minimize the spread in prices, and allow people to more quickly determine for themselves what a fair market price is for an item. People pricing stuff too low would quickly realize they're undercharging. People pricing stuff too high would see their sales dry up. That would tighten up the distribution of prices across cat shops, giving more focus so people could more easily see what the "fair market value" of an item was.

Whether the PWI developers wish to implement these improvements is another matter entirely.

Businesses that sell the same or similar item are in direct competition with each other and will have competitive prices to lure buyers to their store, and not their competition's store, and they will ADVERTISE their prices meaning you didn't have to drive around trying to find the best price. Stores also had (and some still have) catalogs they sent out, ads on TV, and fliers they mailed out which makes the whole second point false. In fact, people will drive out of their way to get a better deal even at the additional cost of more gas.

Advertisement only works up to a certain level. Once you exceed that level, it becomes spam (junk mail for RL store). If everyone advertised their prices on the trade channel, it would scroll by so quickly that it'd be useless. After you exceed a certain number of participants, you have to develop a more efficient means for people to find what they're looking for. The auction house does a halfway decent job of it (needs better search functionality). The cat shops don't have any facility for this (other than spamming the trade channel), which is kinda my point. They are rather inefficient as free market tools go.

anelle

WarrenWolfie what faction (if any)do you belong to?

Stickygreen - Heavens Tear

anelle wrote: »

WarrenWolfie what faction (if any)do you belong to?

/facepalm
necrofiliac......

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary

anelle wrote: »

WarrenWolfie what faction (if any)do you belong to?

We started our own little faction called "Plunder" (because we're all about the booty).

So far it's just 4 regular players and a few casual players, but we like to help each other out as we learn the game.

Neios - Sanctuary

Hmmmm overcharging. Everyone is going to have various views/opinions on it.

Me? I rarely get complaints. The times I do, its from other shops who are po'd that my items are cheaper than theirs and are selling. Boo hoo.

Don't like my prices? Lower yours. b:chuckle

walkingthepath

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

"What a rip-off!"
"9.75k? na thanks..."
"you lost your mind?"
"NNNOOOOOOOOOB!"
"9.7k for dull claws?! omg!"
"lol stupid noob"
"lowr yur prices"
"OVERCHARGING (censored)!"

My girlfriend and I have been playing PW together for a little less than two months now, and together we've accumulated about 6,000,000 in coins by selling stuff in cat-shops.

It seems like each day, we Alt-Tab back to the game to find the same two things:

1) A bunch of messages telling us how stupid we are for having our prices so high that nobody will ever buy our stuff
2) A bunch of notes telling us we've sold ~50k-300k worth of stuff that day

I admit, we're both level 33 "noobs" to the game, and frankly I don't know if what we're doing is the most efficient way to make money or not. But we're pretty laid-back about actually leveling up / completing quests / etc..., and hey, we're having fun.

We've been gradually raising our prices and trying to balance things out so that our stock sells at roughly the same rate we can replenish it, but it seems like no matter how "ridiculous" we set our prices, people keep buying.

So what, if anything, is a "rip-off" price? I get accused of it all the time, but it's somewhat hard to believe when I keep selling out.

First off, calling somebody "noob" (the word is a shortened form of "newbie", meaning, quite literally, a new player) is misused and abused in the first place. No one is "new" who has a level 80 character. Period.

It's just a way of insulting a person, or belittling or discrediting their experience as a gamer. The less true it is, the more it outrages the person. This is an injurious and malicious tactic that people use to inflict emotional harm on others.

Second, I've actually run into both sides of this before. I was playing another online game (name omitted) and sold for "the going rate", then was treated to an outraged player calling me all manner of offensive names (yes, noob included, even though I'd been playing for several years).

Why? Because he didn't like the price, obviously.

If enough people agree that an item is worth 5,000 coins, then the value imparted unto the item IS, and for as long as this continues, always shall be, 5,000 coins. It does not matter how much it costs to find/buy/make/etc; only how badly others want it.

However...

Many people seek to intentionally "rip off" players who either have less knowledge of the item's worth, or no time to find it themselves. These cutthroats are giving everyone a bad name, and in all games.

How high should the price be? I have no idea. Use your best judgement, and alter accordingly. If you're legitimately trying to do things the best way you can, nobody can expect you to apologize for it.

I do like the suggestion of a search function. Listing common prices might go a long way to alleveiate the problem.