How does the materials trader work?

I think the idea of the materials trader is buying and selling stuff from players, with the price changing based on supply and demand.

However, at this point the price for common materials is an unreasonable 15g per material (if you want to buy it). If you want to sell you get 3g. This doesn't really seem like a reflection of supply and demand.

Anybody know how this works?

People are buying more than people are selling. So the sell price goes up. High demand, low suply. What's wrong with their model is the money you get for selling should go up too in this case.

My point exactly, what's the point in selling stuff to them for vendor price?

Well, I think that the material trader is broken right now.

I think that there is supposed to be a 200% markup on items. For example, you could sell 10 shells for 50, or buy 10 shells for 150. (50 + 200%*50 = 150).

But, I think the logic used to operate the traders is incorrect. It seems to swing much farther than a 3x markup. Most of the items have a 15x markup. (sell for 10, buy for 150)

I don't know for a fact that it's a goof, but it sure seems like it is to me.

Personally, I would like to see it with an 80% markup. (Buy for 80, sell for 144). That seems to be what a well-run business would do. Then, if it was large quantities you would still try to find other players for the trade, but for buying or selling small quantities, most people would just use the traders.

To make a material trader that "auto-detects" the price should not really be that hard. It should start with 3000 of each item in stock, and then just slowly lower or raise the prices as needed to keep the reserves as close to 3000 as possible. I don't understand why the traders are so off at this point.

becasue if its not in demand and you want to make space in yoru inventory for other things what else are you going to do delete them

i sell the common stuff to the material trader all the time

The only problem here is 2 things: equating a human quality to something that doesn't necessarily reflect the real world and the power of the monoply. I would assume that is purposefully way out of whack to keep it as a challenge and to also keep some sort of economy in the game. Makes it worth your while not to simply rely on a materials trader for crafting supplies.

But if we wish to take a look at it in the a real world sense then a well run business would sell at a 300% mark up if it could (ie pharmacutical companies routinely sell patent drugs well above the 300 percent markup. They get a prescribed, no pun intended, time before any other company can begin selling generics or knock off versions of the drug. Heck the cost of a pepporini pizza is somewhere near $2.00. Domino's sells them for about what 11 bucks? thats around 550% markup) but competition usually keeps businesses in check hence why a monoply is a bad thing if no one is around to keep prices in check.

i check the prices at both the materials trader and the merchant before i sell anything

sometimes the trader offers only 1 while the merchant offers 3-5 for the same thing

Lets just hope those two NPCs never talk to each other..