Is there a better way?
Let me start by saying I have really enjoyed being in GTC and hope to continue to be here and see this guild flourish. It has been beneficial for a lot of people and a great guild to be a part of.
Lately, I have seen a huge drop off in the benefits of GTC. Personal sales have plummeted, and it appears total sales for the guild have went way down. I regularly feel 3 traders every night before I log off, and the next day I will have sold up to a dozen items in 2 of the traders, yet I would be lucky to of sold 1 or 2 in GTC.
The biggest issue I see is the COD system and the sales from the leadership. When you go through our history of sales, it is more and more becoming an overwhelming amount of sales from the leadership and less and less sales from the actual members. And this is happening across several of the guilds we are in. I am not at my Xbox now, but just off of the top of my head, you regularly see large sales from XT4xm4nX, Taxman Upgrades, The Merchant 34, The Merchant 36, relog and receive, gives you deals, etc. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am assuming most of these, if not all, are ran by the leadership, and I am sure there are a few more that I am missing. I am assuming this because of the bulk items you see them selling that are above and beyond what any regular members would likely have access to.
I think what has happened because of the COD system has been a complete 180 from what the stated purpose of the system is.
1. Is to generate more revenue for weekly guild bids. I think it is implied here that the purpose of the guild bids is to serve the members with a great trader. But more and more it seems the great trader is only supporting sales from the top. If you take out the sales from all of the bulk names mentioned, our sales would be pretty bare.
2. It should alleviate some undercutting. This is the biggest issue. I am assuming you all have received so much bulk items, that you can not get rid of it fast enough. I bet most members saw this as a good thing for alleviating undercutting. But now, instead of alleviating undercutting, the leadership is the one doing the undercutting. Every time I look to post an item, the usernames posted above are the ones offering the cheapest rates for every item. And it isn't just the cheapest rate for our guild, it is one of the cheaper rates in the game. But it is just enough to undercut us. It isn't enough where it is worthwhile for us to by and resale, it is just low enough to make sure the guild items sale before our items, but yet the guild is maximizing profits.
I fear we have went from a guild that is meant to provide a great trader to serve the membership to a guild where the members have to compete against the guild itself for sales. And the members are losing because the guild has cheap access to seemingly unlimited items.
On a final note, as I partly mentioned, sales in total here seem to be way down compared to every where else. I wonder if Rawl'kha has become kind of an obsolete area to have a trader. I personally never go there, and don't know many people who do.
Again, I don't say this to bash the guild. I have loved being in this guild and hope to continue to be. It just slowly seems the benefit of being here is fading to where you have to ask yourself if that guild slot is better fit by a different guild. I think there is a good intent for everything that has been done that has caused them, but I think we are having unforeseen consequences. I also have heard up to a dozen other members express similar sentiments that I have posted here without me bringing it up. After hearing these, I just finally decided I would be the one to say something. I am hoping we can somehow inspire some change to where we truly serve as a trading guild that has one of the top revenues for its members (and not just a high revenue from bulk sales).
IMO, there is no such thing as undercutting in a free market system. It is simply competition. Prices of items are based mostly on supply and demand. If a person has accumulated a large quantity of items, it will naturally push the price of that item. If one particular gamer is sitting on a gaggle flock of items, he/she can and probably needs to sell at a lower price.
The COD list was offered free will, and noone held a gun/sword to anyone's head. I personally participated in the COD mailings in the past and benefited from it. The person who bought these items has every right to benefit from it as well. I mean, there's only so much armor one person can craft.
Ingots, ore, cloth, etc are commodities. After several months of thousands of gamers farming these things to resell so they can buy the rarer stuff, the commodities market has swelled. Combined with a gradual decrease in the number of gamers logging in to purchase items, prices will naturally fall. If anything, it's the 12 hours of tiger or dreugh farming that hurting prices.
Chuuuck1 You make a lot of very good points here. I want to take some time here to respond to some points you made that aren't entirely accurate and also to let you know what some things we can do to rectify certain issues moving forward.
1. Of the GamerTags you listed only the Taxman GT's are leadership and they are all mine. If you look at the price points on those items they are all above global minimums on those items significantly above in fact. 800 for lining and 2500 for wax are not bottom barrel prices. Nirn I have not even seen listed on the store in the past few weeks.
2. The COD List is not used very often by our members and in fact I do not sell anything that I receive from this list as it is all food and herbs. So no issues there.
3. The bulk of the product I have on hand is due to a few non members who like to farm and were listing raw material and Nirn way under market value. I talked these people in to sending me that product and then i resell in bulk close to market value so the buyers are forced to at least price close to what the going rates are. If I discontinue this practice you will see Nirn & Raw Material on the market within days well under what is up there for now and the in game economy will collapse. I spend hours every day trying to stop this from happening. If I stop what I am doing you wont be able to sell a Temp Allow for over 4K I can promise that. So in short the COD system is doing exactly what it was intended to do.
4. Now in reference to the fall off in sales and your success in other guilds. Well that is a real problem. I assumed that a lot of that was impart to lack of game activity and that perhaps Rawl'kha might possibly be starting to be yesterdays spot. I intend to move our Store to Orsineum ASAP. Its so close I don't see a reason for us to move beforehand. I expect this would be a solution to a lot of the problems.
5. I encourage members to consider making sure that you are listing @ market values and I will continue to find way to rectify the issues you have brought to our attention but i do disagree with your analysis of why these issues exist.
I hope this helps answers some questions and also puts you at ease with our plans moving forward. Contact me or reply to this message if there is anything else you want to discuss further in detail.
~Tax
Furthermore... Our store has always been since the beginning one of the stores where you will find the cheapest product. This is a big reason why a lot of people come looking at that store. Other shops hold min price settings on single stacks and I don't disagree with these standards it just isnt one we have adopted as of yet. Possibly moving forward it is something we can consider.
i dont know about the cod deal hurting anything, but i have seen a huge downfall in person sales lately. i am in three selling guilds, and two of them dont have traders this week. so i moved a bunch of stuff to this one and lowered a bunch of prices but i am not selling much. im used to signing on and having the mail system tell me i sold like ten to fifteen items. i think i sold two items in the last two days.
it may very well be that my prices are still too high. at least i hope that is the problem. ive had a psijic fragment sitting in the store for a week, and i have never had one of them last longer than a day.
so if someone should tell me what the now going rate is for dwarven oils, grain filters, voidstone ingots, ambrosia frags, and lastly, glass fragment pages it would be severely helpful.
master enchanter. sexual deviant. general scourge to all things considered holy.
Chuck, very well written and interesting read. You should post more often.
I agree with most everything Tax stated as far as the CoD list, and I'm pretty damn sure he's spot on with how bad the market would collapse if massive quantities of an item hit shelves everywhere (can we say pig farming?). I will however be the voice of reason and admit to disagreeing with our store being one of the cheapest. If you watch the sales records, you typically don't see us buying from our own store. I can hit any trader in Rawlkha and get whatever I want for less than its listed for in the GTC store...if they have it. THAT is why I personally believe we gained so many repeat customers in the past, is that we had everything. We have active members doing all sorts of content and getting the difficult to obtain items and selling them. In the current meta of this game though, the BiS items and such are all BoP, and can't be sold. Any guild that has vet 16s in abundance is getting the same goods as us, and they're selling them cheaper (my opinions on that are a whole separate rant). IC materials for example are one of the most needed items in the game currently, but everyone can go farm dungeons and the sewers. Every guild has the materials. Even tax's "bulk discount" sales in the guild store price them around 400 per piece. Area chat sells them at like 200 each, which is low, but other guilds like Elden Root Squad and the like are made up of mostly area chat traders, and thus they price closer to that. Guilds in Elden Root and Rawlkha both sell them below us, often around 250-350 per piece depending on the material. A lot of this has to do with certain other guilds leadership and members and their self righteous idea that things should be cheaper, but as I said, different rant. Point is that we have had a reputation in Rawlkha for some time now as being the expensive guild, but the one that will have whatever it is you're looking for. I'm honestly short on suggestions as to how to combat that in the current meta.
Not sure what you sell. But if your having a hard time moving items (of the same type) try a staggering of prices lower then normal.
This does a few things. 1st it searches for the range of the pricing point on your item. 2nd buyers (if they need multiple of the same thing your selling) will buy the cheapest and if the staggered prices are small will keep buying up the list.
Bulk pricing? At least for me, I almost never buy a single item, I would rather hunt down the list for a cheaper price in bulk.
You make a lot of good points Chuck and I agree with a lot of it. Personally, I haven't really made much use of the COD system we have in place. Also there are fewer players than there were a few months ago and overall sales are down. Sales were very slow for me last week as out of three trading guilds only we had one so I had a very slow week. Also I feel like the market has been flooded with bulk raw materials.
Also wish to add that I agree with Tax that Rawl'kha seems like it may be yesterday's spot. I know RTU didn't have a trader the past two weeks, but I feel like I was moving a larger volume of merchandise there when we had the Elden Root Trader. Not sure moving it to Orsinium is a good idea or not but it might be worth trying.
I am afraid that the biggest problem with trading for the last week is Fallout 4. I have seen big drops in other guilds and expect to see earnings trend downward for a while.
Fortunately, Trader auctions will also fall as raising the money for bids gets more difficult .
The advantage of being in a trading guild may become harder to justify for some people. Personally, I do not like hawking my items in banks and blacksmiths, so as long as I make enough to cover my dues, I will stay in. That is, at least, until ES6
Yeah Fallout definably has the population down this week, all my friends were playing yesterday. However I expect a bit of a pickup with the Orsinum launch on Tuesday.