In GW2, Trading Post plays you!
Min. 1% price-difference
Price agility in the current system is unnecessarily slowed down by this lack of a minimal increment, which reduces the probability that an item is near equilibrium at a given time.
And when prices are not near equilibrium, the consideration I raised remains a real issue.
As such I feel minimal increments are still necessary even without a relisting fee.
You are correct in saying that the lack of a minimum increment isn’t what’s currently slowing down price agility. What’s slowing it down is the penalty of 5% of the listing price instituted if you wanted to re-list your item for a lower price.
If that re-listing fee was removed price agility would be increased and prices would reach equilibrium faster. If the re-listing fees are removed, the discussion of a minimum increment, above 1c, is no longer necessary.
Guild: Member of Charter Vanguard [CV]
Logic will never win an argument on the forums…..only a sense of entitlement will.
Logic will never win an argument on the forums…..only a sense of entitlement will.
Regarding equilibrium price and assuming this is something desirable, what if the listing fee were simply removed for re-listing items? E.g. if you have a Dusk listed for 800g and someone lists it for 799g99s99c, you could click a button to re-list your Dusk for 799g99s98c without having to remove it and pay the additional listing fee. This might quickly drive prices to the aforementioned equilibrium. It would also reduce the significance of undercutting as people would effectively be forced to list their item at the lowest price at which they are really willing to sell it. It would also probably be simpler to implement something like this than calculating and setting a minimum price increment. It also would not prevent anyone from asking or bidding at exactly the price they want. Not sure if it would result in a bunch of extra TP server processing though as people flip back and forth undercutting their way to equilibrium. But it would be simple enough to implement a timer to prevent re-listing too frequently, e.g. once per minute.
Free re-listing might also get some of the lingering junk off the TP as people could re-list for free rather than leave it there in hopes that something they listed in a falling market will eventually get sell.
There are probably a bunch of holes in this idea, for which I will blame not enough coffee yet this morning…
Just to touch on this. If you were to implement free price changes to combat undercutters, you open Pandora’s Box. TP players would start Price Wars with each other, and the effects on the economy could be devastating. There wouldn’t be movement to price equilibrium, but rather you’d see a destabilizing of prices. It would be a contest to see which seller would be screwed the most.
Actually this Price War you speak of will not continue for very long past the equilibrium price, because by definition, at the equilibrium price point, demand will be able to meet supply. Any further Price Warring will only last until sellers realize that the market demand is outpacing their supply of goods, and that they’re loosing out on potential profit that could be realized naturally by market demand.
Just to touch on this. If you were to implement free price changes to combat undercutters, you open Pandora’s Box. TP players would start Price Wars with each other, and the effects on the economy could be devastating. There wouldn’t be movement to price equilibrium, but rather you’d see a destabilizing of prices. It would be a contest to see which seller would be screwed the most.
I’m sure there would be some of this, but I doubt it would destabilize prices on a global basis. Sellers duking it out just to “screw each other” would end up taking losses, and in some cases, massive losses. Buyers would benefit from these sellers beating each other up. Sellers that aren’t participating in the Price War, will just sit back and watch it happen….laughing all the way to the bank. Once those sellers drop out, the price should recover quickly.
The system as it is now forces a Seller to stay where he is, even if he’s undercut, unless he is willing to take an additional 5% loss. The new Seller that just undercut him gains all of the benefit by jumping ahead in line for virtually the same price, while transferring addition risk to the previous Seller if they want to retain their position in line.
Guild: Member of Charter Vanguard [CV]
Logic will never win an argument on the forums…..only a sense of entitlement will.
Logic will never win an argument on the forums…..only a sense of entitlement will.
Price agility in the current system is unnecessarily slowed down by this lack of a minimal increment, which reduces the probability that an item is near equilibrium at a given time.
And when prices are not near equilibrium, the consideration I raised remains a real issue.
As such I feel minimal increments are still necessary even without a relisting fee.
You are correct in saying that the lack of a minimum increment isn’t what’s currently slowing down price agility. What’s slowing it down is the penalty of 5% of the listing price instituted if you wanted to re-list your item for a lower price.
If that re-listing fee was removed price agility would be increased and prices would reach equilibrium faster. If the re-listing fees are removed, the discussion of a minimum increment, above 1c, is no longer necessary.
Hmm I’m sorry if I wasn’t being clear in my wording but I meant the exact opposite.
Lack of a minimal increment IS slowing down price agility because there is no incentive to undercut any more than the minimal increment.
Even without a relisting fee the most rational thing to do is undercut by 1c on ANY item, because the only factor that affects Fill Time of an order the Listing Time: how much you undercut does not factor into the equation at all as long as you undercut. And this results in an extremely slow 1c by 1c bidding process towards equilibrium on any highly priced item, and will remain so even without the 5% relisting fee. This is why a minimal increment would still be beneficial in increasing price agility.
What I agree with you on is that 5% relisting fee is ALSO slowing down price agility.
What I’m trying to say is we should address both of these factors slowing down the market instead of just tackling one and calling it a day.
(edited by Kaon.7192)
Arbitrary increments would not work anyhow unless Anet chose to step in and “regulate” certain markets, thus emulating a real-world market on a more more realistic level.
Regarding the ability to modulate listing price without impacting the need to actually pay to relist (more in a moment), another MMO I used to play finally got around to introducing such a system. The way they did it was if you list at X price, you immediately lose X(Y%) cash for the listing fee. If someone undercuts you, even by the minimum increment of 1, you can relist at X-2 (undercutting them by 1) at X(0%) because you’ve already paid a higher listing fee. However, if you decide to relist at a higher value than what your item is currently at, they added a different “tax” function. Instead of paying X(Y%) in tax again, ie the whole fee, you merely paid (Z-X)(2Y%) for the listing fee, which is twice the listing fee difference between the old price and new price. Using numbers so it’s less confusing (it’s confusing me just trying to work it through), if you list at 100c, the fee you pay is 5c. When someone lists the same item at 99c, you are able to relist at 98c without paying the fee again as you’ve already paid a higher fee. Now, if you wanted to relist at the other direction, for say, 200c, you would pay 10c for the relisting fee (200-100)(2*5%). While this is the same price you’d pay if you cancelled and relisted, it does hinder the mentality of “I can relist this higher to get more money” which can raise prices much higher than demand asks for.
….. unnecessarily ……
My brain completely missed that word when I responded to your previous post. My mistake.
I don’t feel that a different minimum increment, beyond the current 1c increment, is necessary if the cost to re-list at a lower price is removed though. This is where we disagree.
Also, I think it would be far easier to implement the single change rather than implementing 2 changes, one of which requires a calculation of an increment (whether it be a constant 1% or a calculated value based on actual sales) when the other (removal of the re-list fee) will push prices to equilibrium well enough without it.
Guild: Member of Charter Vanguard [CV]
Logic will never win an argument on the forums…..only a sense of entitlement will.
Logic will never win an argument on the forums…..only a sense of entitlement will.
(edited by Charismatic Harm.9683)
Rather than some system of minimum undercut wouldn’t a system that supports a bid/offer range solve the problem, and make trading a lot more interesting? If every market order came with a min and max price that adjusted to all future offers, then your 5% investment would be protected as a seller who got there first, and as a buyer you would be spared continuously re-posting your offers.
This way you could stake your claim on any range from 0%-n% and anyone who attempts to undercut you has the same choice and doesn’t get in front for ‘free’ with a 1c undercut.
Making it “more interesting” is not a solution. Nor is there any reason to “protect” someone’s listing just because they’re the current lowest listing. If you’re being undercut regularly, that’s the market’s way of saying “cough up a lower price if you want to sell, this price aint working for you or others.” Nor does it address the other factors of a market.
Making it more interesting was only a side benefit because there is a reason to protect your ‘claim’ as the first person to offer an item for sale at a certain price.
If someone is going to cut in front of me they need to ‘prove’ they are willing to make the sale at a value significantly less than my price, not just a minimal 1c non difference. The system should be FIFO within a given range, and my suggestion lets the seller set that range rather than the system having to enforce a range we cannot agree on.
There is not a major thread complaining about being outbid by 1c on buy orders because it is free to relist, it’s just a hassle. I think the only reason a sell order costs 5% is to prevent using the TP as storage, but if that where not there then it would only be a major hassle to have to keep re-listing items for sale every time the pseudo bot traders strike you with a 1c undercut. In lower volume markets, getting as many if not all sales is important so these sharks strike within minutes of any listing. They are not really offering buyers significantly lower prices, just trumping your offer with a meaningless undercut. If they now have to place a range lower than mine, that 5% fee will penalize them if they are not really willing to sell significantly lower.
(edited by Elric Of Melnibone.4781)
I haven’t followed this thread very closely but I strongly disagree with removing the free market capabilities of the TP. 1c is a very significant amount over the lifetime of your playing. I have purchased probably around 100,000 items since launch. If I was prevented from buying from people who undercut by just 1c that would have added up to a loss of 10g by now. Are you going to argue that 10g is an insignificant amount as well? I am 10g richer because I bought from people who wanted to sell faster instead of slower. They got what they wanted and I saved 10g.
You want to make everyone lose money and wait longer why exactly?
You want to make everyone lose money and wait longer why exactly?
It strikes me as a protectionist position. Some people want to post their item for price X and then have government regulation (the ArenaNet enforced 1% undercut rule) protect their price point from competition by making undercuts more expensive.
Like I said before, it’s a solution looking for a problem.
Server: Devona’s Rest
A problem we’ve been told to assume actually exists: the intended FIFO system can be circumvented without cost. There is a cost (1c) but we’ve been told to treat that as negligible.
The question them becomes “what cost is both non-negligible and will not damage the market?” We’ve ben allowed to use algorithmic answers, in no small part because fixed or flatly formulaic values have already proven unsatisfactory.
Something as simple as providing a rough clock that tells you the average number of ‘for sale’ offers processed per 6 hours with the average taken from the last 24 would do amazing things to the whole undercutting logic. If you knew 15,000 had sold in the last 360 minutes, would you even bother undercutting? What if 3 sold in the last 6 hours? Is jumping that line worth shaving a copper? What if you really need to keep your capital flowing? If it’s sold less than 1 in 6 hours, would you lower your price more or less? In this case more information may make your choices harder, and I think that leads to better gameplay.
“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.
Knowing trading volume would help, even if it’s just over the last 24 hours. And I’m talking real trades, not removed bids and pulled items.
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
You want to make everyone lose money and wait longer why exactly?
It strikes me as a protectionist position. Some people want to post their item for price X and then have government regulation (the ArenaNet enforced 1% undercut rule) protect their price point from competition by making undercuts more expensive.
Like I said before, it’s a solution looking for a problem.
So you’re saying that the people pushing for these 1% minimums, are really just pursuing anti-competition policies?
In GW2, Trading Post plays you!
^^ That’s what it looks like to me … I still haven’t seen a reason for why it should be anything but how it works now, other than some purely academic “because it’s not designed that way”
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Just to touch on this. If you were to implement free price changes to combat undercutters, you open Pandora’s Box. TP players would start Price Wars with each other, and the effects on the economy could be devastating. There wouldn’t be movement to price equilibrium, but rather you’d see a destabilizing of prices. It would be a contest to see which seller would be screwed the most.
Care to prove this? Outside the short term I mean. In real life it costs me nothing to list something on ebay or amazon, I can easily just change the price to whatever I want without a fee. Why hasn’t our market just exploded?
I actually agree with the relisting side of the argument. I already paid a higher fee to put my item at a higher price, it shouldn’t cost me anything to drop the price. Relisting an item right now is expensive and does contribute to holding prices a bit higher. Allowing prices to drop I feel would be a good thing to your average trading post user.
Another option is to have a smaller fee for relisting, lets say 1% of the change in price for a minimum of 1 copper up to the normal listing fee.
Delarme
Apathy Inc [Ai]
Apathy Inc [Ai]
Just to touch on this. If you were to implement free price changes to combat undercutters, you open Pandora’s Box. TP players would start Price Wars with each other, and the effects on the economy could be devastating. There wouldn’t be movement to price equilibrium, but rather you’d see a destabilizing of prices. It would be a contest to see which seller would be screwed the most.
Care to prove this? Outside the short term I mean. In real life it costs me nothing to list something on ebay or amazon, I can easily just change the price to whatever I want without a fee. Why hasn’t our market just exploded?
I actually agree with the relisting side of the argument. I already paid a higher fee to put my item at a higher price, it shouldn’t cost me anything to drop the price. Relisting an item right now is expensive and does contribute to holding prices a bit higher. Allowing prices to drop I feel would be a good thing to your average trading post user.
Another option is to have a smaller fee for relisting, lets say 1% of the change in price for a minimum of 1 copper up to the normal listing fee.
Real Life comparisons dont work very good. Ebay and Amazon doesnt need a gold sink for example. Also, whatever you post on there, it propably doesnt have a velocity as high as items in GW2.
I am also pretty sure, if you would be storing whatever you want to sell via amazon in their warehouse, they would charge a listing fee, otherwise you could use them as free storage.
Tin Foil [HATS]-Hardcore BLTC-PvP Guild
Bloin – Running around, tagging Keeps, getting whack on Scoobie Snacks.
Bloin – Running around, tagging Keeps, getting whack on Scoobie Snacks.
(edited by Wanze.8410)
Real Life comparisons dont work very good. Ebay and Amazon doesnt need a gold sink for example. Also, whatever you post on there, it propably doesnt have a velocity as high as items in GW2.
I am also pretty sure, if you would be storing whatever you want to sell via amazon in their warehouse, they would charge a listing fee, otherwise you could use them as free storage.
Commodity markets like oil and NG, or even raw materials like lumber and ores, and potentiall stock markets, are probably more accurate real world examples of the trade post’s high velocity markets insofar as the sheer quantity supplied, traded, stockpiled, and consumed.
Real Life comparisons dont work very good. Ebay and Amazon doesnt need a gold sink for example. Also, whatever you post on there, it propably doesnt have a velocity as high as items in GW2.
I am also pretty sure, if you would be storing whatever you want to sell via amazon in their warehouse, they would charge a listing fee, otherwise you could use them as free storage.
Commodity markets like oil and NG, or even raw materials like lumber and ores, and potentiall stock markets, are probably more accurate real world examples of the trade post’s high velocity markets insofar as the sheer quantity supplied, traded, stockpiled, and consumed.
But it still makes no sense to use real life economy to prove a point when arguing a virtual economy.
Tin Foil [HATS]-Hardcore BLTC-PvP Guild
Bloin – Running around, tagging Keeps, getting whack on Scoobie Snacks.
Bloin – Running around, tagging Keeps, getting whack on Scoobie Snacks.
True, you cant exactly stand at a bench for 30 seconds and basically kitten out a brick of high quality steel in real life.
Way to take a tangential track instead of sticking to the topic.
I’m asking Smooth what proof he would have that the market would just collapse if people could suddenly relist for a lower price without a fee.
I think its a fair solution to the original problem.
If two people get in a 1c war and constantly relist their items cheeper and cheeper eventually the market will just buy their items anyway. And for items with high velocity like ecto you arnt going to even bother with the 1c undercutting game anyway unless you are offloading a lot of ecto at once.
Delarme
Apathy Inc [Ai]
Apathy Inc [Ai]
If the re-listing fees are removed, the discussion of a minimum increment, above 1c, is no longer necessary.
If the re-listing fees were removed, minimum bid/ask increments would be all about minimizing price delays – which, while valuable, doesn’t tend to get people riled up.
What I agree with you on is that 5% relisting fee is ALSO slowing down price agility.
The 5% isn’t just about price delays; it adds a significant liquidity risk that pushes prices up. It’s the difference between small differences in price from markets reacting more slowly, and non-trivial inefficiencies stemming from unnecessary risks.
The 5% fee is there to encourage sellers to choose a fair price the first time. If the price is reasonable the item will eventually sell in short order even if it’s undercut for a time. But too often sellers want immediacy when it comes to sales and aren’t willing to wait an hour, a day much less a week for an item to be sold.
The 5% fee is a penalty for asking too much and not understanding the current trading range for that item.
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
The 5% fee is there to encourage sellers to choose a fair price the first time. If the price is reasonable the item will eventually sell in short order even if it’s undercut for a time. But too often sellers want immediacy when it comes to sales and aren’t willing to wait an hour, a day much less a week for an item to be sold.
The 5% fee is a penalty for asking too much and not understanding the current trading range for that item.
The 5% fee is less about an incentive to list fairly than it is about taking gold out of the economy and punish those using the TP as storage. This is part of the reason the tax will never be changed to “on sale” as it is now.
What would happen if they put the 15% on the backend, with a 5% penalty to remove an item and a 1% re-listing fee? I would think at one point you’d want to at least incentivize moving items that are listed far above the current price point anyway.
[TAO] Founder/Owner and Administrator for the NSP Server Website
I’d rather see Anet introduce a maximum listing time than any other taxes first. For all I know, there could be listings as high as 400-500% the current price of an item that are over a year old still on the market. If there was a way to scrub the market of old listings that didnt involve wiping it clean, which would severely impact established prices, you might see more markets be less unreasonable.
Second, and this might be worth me moving to it’s own topic, instead of taking listing fees out of your inventory gold, it takes it out of your “drop box” at the trade post. If you dont have enough gold there, it goes into the negative, and you’ll need to pay it off in order to pick up items waiting for you. Additionally, the option of taking buy listing fees out of the same “drop box” so you do not need to be at the TP npc to pick up gold just to list a buy order for something.
So you’re saying that the people pushing for these 1% minimums, are really just pursuing anti-competition policies?
That’s the way the suggestion strikes me, yes.
Server: Devona’s Rest
If the TP is indeed arranged as a priority queue instead of LIFO or FIFO, then you can construe the OP’s request to mean that he/she wants a lower “graininess” to the priority queue.
Currently, the “graininess” is set to one copper. The OP would want it set to 1%. Any items within one percent of the top offer would be equal in the eyes of the queue and would be processed in the order received.
This would be doable by the devs, but it would not be trivial to implement and the benefit would be negligible in my eyes.
Forgive me if this point has already been mentioned (as I stopped reading 100% of the posts after page 4) but while a 1c undercut may be insignificant to the buyer if it only happens once, it becomes more significant if many sellers start undercutting by 1c (or more than 1c each, but less than 1%).
E.g., suppose an item is listed at 1g, and 50 sellers view that 99s is lower than what they want to sell at (maybe it eats too much into their margin, whatever), the result is that you get 51 listings at 1g. Now if each seller is allowed to undercut the previous by 1c, the result is that a buyer can purchase the item @ 99s 50c. The net result is a lower price for the buyer(s) that eventually may become significant because all those 1c’s add up.
Forgive me if this point has already been mentioned (as I stopped reading 100% of the posts after page 4) but while a 1c undercut may be insignificant to the buyer if it only happens once, it becomes more significant if many sellers start undercutting by 1c (or more than 1c each, but less than 1%).
E.g., suppose an item is listed at 1g, and 50 sellers view that 99s is lower than what they want to sell at (maybe it eats too much into their margin, whatever), the result is that you get 51 listings at 1g. Now if each seller is allowed to undercut the previous by 1c, the result is that a buyer can purchase the item @ 99s 50c. The net result is a lower price for the buyer(s) that eventually may become significant because all those 1c’s add up.
this is an unrealistic and insignificant point as on most expensive items it would take thousands of ppl undercutting by 1c to make even the tinyest of difference to the buyer and that just never happens. when someone undercuts by 1 copper it hurts the previous seller and the buyer. nobody is benefitting but the one abusing the system and undercutting by such a small amount
Forgive me if this point has already been mentioned (as I stopped reading 100% of the posts after page 4) but while a 1c undercut may be insignificant to the buyer if it only happens once, it becomes more significant if many sellers start undercutting by 1c (or more than 1c each, but less than 1%).
E.g., suppose an item is listed at 1g, and 50 sellers view that 99s is lower than what they want to sell at (maybe it eats too much into their margin, whatever), the result is that you get 51 listings at 1g. Now if each seller is allowed to undercut the previous by 1c, the result is that a buyer can purchase the item @ 99s 50c. The net result is a lower price for the buyer(s) that eventually may become significant because all those 1c’s add up.
this is an unrealistic and insignificant point as on most expensive items it would take thousands of ppl undercutting by 1c to make even the tinyest of difference to the buyer and that just never happens. when someone undercuts by 1 copper it hurts the previous seller and the buyer. nobody is benefitting but the one abusing the system and undercutting by such a small amount
Maybe I’m confused here, but how does an undercut harm the buyer? Are they harmed because they aren’t buying from your higher price? You and many other posters have said that 1c doesn’t matter, because of the most expensive items don’t trade often enough. That argument has some serious blinders on it, since the vast majority of items on the TP are low cost items that are moving in quantity. In those cases, a 1c difference adds up to a noticeable saving. If you are involved in large scale trading, those 1c undercuts are where your profit margin lies. If you want a “real life” example, look at the history of e-books with Amazon. They made a boatload of money off of the idea that quantity has a quality of it’s own.
Lastly, a lot of folks in this thread keep talking about how 1c undercuts are “meaningless” relative to the high cost of upper end items. Psychologically, this may be true, but money(real or virtual) and price differences are not “relative” concepts. They are absolutes. If someone is willing to buy “Twilight” at 1c under the listed price, then they’re probably a cheap kitten who is going to carry that attitude into every transaction on the TP. Changing the minimum undercut isn’t going to change the buyer’s behavior in the slightest. It can only affect the seller, which given most buyer’s drive to pay the least cost possible, will drive down prices for everything. Eventually, people will start posting .9% over their costs, so they can’t be undercut on big-ticket items. For low-end item, we’re already there.
Also, the fact that the risk is there to be undercut by 1 copper, when you want to sell a precursor, for example, is one reason, why usually buy offers get filled faster than sell listings, which is better for the buyer.
Tin Foil [HATS]-Hardcore BLTC-PvP Guild
Bloin – Running around, tagging Keeps, getting whack on Scoobie Snacks.
Bloin – Running around, tagging Keeps, getting whack on Scoobie Snacks.
Lastly, a lot of folks in this thread keep talking about how 1c undercuts are “meaningless” relative to the high cost of upper end items. Psychologically, this may be true, but money(real or virtual) and price differences are not “relative” concepts. They are absolutes. If someone is willing to buy “Twilight” at 1c under the listed price, then they’re probably a cheap kitten who is going to carry that attitude into every transaction on the TP. Changing the minimum undercut isn’t going to change the buyer’s behavior in the slightest. It can only affect the seller, which given most buyer’s drive to pay the least cost possible, will drive down prices for everything. Eventually, people will start posting .9% over their costs, so they can’t be undercut on big-ticket items. For low-end item, we’re already there.
money may be an absolute but the VALUE of money is relative and thats the true point here, eventually you have so much money that that 1c really doesnt have any value and you, as the person buying the undercut offer, are not getting a better deal at all.
Let’s simmer down a bit, this is getting necessarily heated. I believe the issue in question is, does a minimum increment of of 1c effectively represent a different willingness to pay or willingness to buy from the original price being compared against, and does that answer change relative to the end price of the item.
Obviously, in some cases 1c is just fine, but is that true in all cases? Why or Why not?
It’s much harder to prove that it is the same price because “technically” it’s a different price, so the origin lies on those who believe that it’s not an effective difference. I think an argument can be made somewhere, but lets do it as academically as possible. have to run, but I’ll be back to check on this shortly.
Other arguement in this discussion. The moral of the honest Stockbroker. The task of a honest stockbroker is to provide a solid sealing for direct buyers and to provide a solid bottom to direct sellers. The people undercutting the Stockbrokers should be the people that have gained the items ingame and have the patience to wait for their item to sell and on the other end the people that want to buy and wait a bit for their items to overprice the Stockbrokers.
Question now becomes: wil a 1% undercut/overprice rule make more people want to become a stockbroker. Secondly is 1% the right difference.
On 1) With a bigger increment between prices the sealing and bottom wil become much easier to detect and might draw some more people towards the bottom / sealing.
On 2) I think a 1% difference is too small. It would give just 15 or even less steps of pricing between the bottom and the sealing. i think 1 promille ( 1/1,000 ) would be better.
Co-founder and Co-leader of: Global Guild of Dark.
The real issue is re-listing fees not undercutting. I have made a post about it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Tradepost-Improvements/first#post4158366