The Sell Forum... *rant*

When I first got here, I would buy items out of the sell forums with almost no problems. It was alot easier, cheaper and more reliable than trying to buy something in the game.

But the problem I'm getting (and usually its with the greens) is that people wont hold up their end of the deal. If you put down a starting bid, or a buy out price, that's fine. Infact, I encourage you to do so. I am not a rich person, I spend my time in PVE having fun as opposed to grind farming. The only thing I bother to farm are Charr Hides. So I rely on buying things here, or in the game to get the weapons and supplies I want.

I bid what I can, and if its not enough, then I'm out of luck. But what gets to me is what I've been getting lately.

I'll see an item that has no requirement for a bid. It also has no "I will not sell if the price is not good enough" listed. Then when it becomes apparent that I am the high bidder and its not enough for them, they decide to edit in that they wont sell to my bid, or that they will only sell for a set ammount. And they do this after my bid. And right around the time the auction should be ending.

Am I wrong to be pissed off at this? I realize we have the trading rater system now, and I could simply just rate them badly. But it seems only logical to me, that if you dont add in those requirements before hand, you need to just suck it up and take what was offered.

Its not right to rip people off, but if I'm bidding as much as I can, and I'm the only one bidding, then its wrong to up the price because they arent happy.

well, i would understand why you would be quite put off and i dont blame u, but if the price for an item is off wat the person expects, he has the right not to sell. theres nothing u can do abbout it

then they should mark what they expect from the beginning, or they take what's bid.

well in normal sales, the seller usually puts the starting price lower than their reserve and keep the reserve hidden, to attract more bidders

Quote: Originally Posted by Arcanis the Omnipotent

Yes, bidding is fun. But when the bidding ends and the guy isnt happy with the low bid, then he decides to make his reserve known.

At which point no one else bids, and I'm screwed out of an item.

You didn't get screwed out of anything, the seller obviously isn't satisfied with your offer and isn't any more obligated by the Trade Forum Guidelines to respect any bids he doesn't want to than he would be in game.

The only thing you can do is lower his trader rating, which you already mentioned in your post.

This is really more appropriate for Site Feedback than anything else, since this will only be solved by changing the Trade Forum Guidelines.

that's cause most people are crappy salesmen/women.

Rate them badly and they will go away.

Yeah, tried that last night. The Trade Rating system went down with the server upgrade.

I generally expect people to not make noobish offers on stuff, like 1k for an axe grip of enchanting +20%. When such offers are made, I generally ignore them. Except for one time when i got a 1k offer for a 5/1 Vamp String, then accidentally talked him up to 50k.

yeah, if you're going to make hidden reserves a break in the rules, then lowballing should be too.
when someone sais no minimum on an item like an 8 15>50 fellblade, they arent expecting someone to start off with 1k, and if by some fluke you win the item, you should not expect them to SELL it for 1k, because you yourself know damn well you wouldnt in the same situation.
as soon as bidders show common courtesy, sellers do too.

Quote: Originally Posted by unienaule

Why not simply state a minimum bid? You could simply put it at 10% of current market prices, at that price, surely there would be interest in it, and you'd prevent totally crappy lowball offers. There's simply no reason not to put in a minimum price (heck, even 10 times merchant price might serve the purpose) except plain laziness on the part of the seller.

Got to agree with Arcanis here. The Sell forum as I see it now is indeed a terrible mess. The following are some of my observations (primarily from a buyer's viewpoint), and they piss me off sometimes.

Auctions with no stated ending time. I could simply never understand this. Why not state an ending time? The seller doesn't lose anything - he doesn't have to sell if bids don't interest him at the ending date, and a new thread can simply be started with unsold items. The buyer can then know for how long he needs to hold the money he put in on the auction or when to wait up to, and not simply wait around forever in hope of the auction actually ending.

Sellers who simply disappear off the face of their earth. No in game names left, PMs not replied to, threads not updated for weeks or more. If you're not going to bother to check back on your auction once in a while, why start it?

Sellers who sell in-game. Most of the time, I have no issue with that at all, but PLEASE at least check back to see if the leading C/O is higher than your in-game offer before selling. Or if you've sold the item in-game, at least have the decent courtesy to mark it as sold on your auction so buyers' don't go bidding on missing items.

Reserves as well. Please state that there are reserves IF ANY. Hidden reserves are fine with me, but please let me know that they EXIST, and if my bid has made the reserve or not, instead of simply letting me think that I might get that item.

Now, I'm not going to deny that all buyers are saints (that's a rant for another day), but if sellers would actually make the effort to make things easier for buyers, half the problems running rampant would have been solved easily..

Quote: Originally Posted by Akhilleus

Quote: Originally Posted by Arcanis the Omnipotent

Quote: Originally Posted by Arcanis the Omnipotent

you wanna know why most sellers dont put in thier "reserves" (a minimum bid and reserve are COMPLETLY different)? because all the lowball newbs flame thier thread for the price being too high, and it ends up getting closed.
the minimum bid simply exists to keep people from doing the following:
"i bid 1,000gp!"
"i bid 1,001gp!"
"i bid 1,002gp!"

it cuts out all the people who simply want to waste everyones time because they think its cute to offer absolute crap offers.
but if the seller posts the minimum bid at 100k that gets rid of these people, the reason a reserve is not posted is because thats the MINIMUM amount you will sell the item for, and if its posted, people simply hug that number and bid in small incriments, or flame it for being what they think is too high.
since the VAST majority of people on this site lowball everything to death, if someone posts a reserve they might as well save themselves a headache, not post a reserve, and post nothing but a b/o instead.
the best way a legitimate trade should be done is a minimum (or no minimum) bid is placed, then once the reserve is hit, the seller sais "the auction will go on for so much longer, and the b/o wins, if the b/o is not hit in that timeframe then the item will close to the highest bid" (thats how i carry out MY auctions) rather than keeping a hidden reserve, making a timed auction, and when the price isnt hit they yank the item. but like i said, due to the incessant lowballing seen here by many people, most sellers options are drastically limited.

The real problem right now is the sliding (actually more like "collapsing") economy. People expect old economy value for their items, and they hold out far too long trying to get a little more for their shiny thing, and realize many days later that their item won't get higher offers, and then go back to the old top offer and it is no wonder that those people retract their bid or say it has lapsed: value is eroding every single day. If it is worth far less today than yesterday, it surely isn't worth what a person bid on it a week ago.

The problem you are seeing, Archanist, is what attorneys and other professional negotiators call "irrational emotional attachment." Sellers still think of their items in terms of old economy value and prices, so they don't sell even though they will never get better offers, and they often demand "no lowballs" but then don't get any offers at all. Not much you can do about that: hidden reserves are okay (wise, when you want activity in the thread but know that some absurd bids will certainly be made) and having a short time frame on your auction may not be an option when so many people use this forum that your "24 hour" auction may be completely lost on page 17. My advice is to bid what you are willing to pay and then wait. I can't tell you how many times I placed a bid that 2 or 3 people went on to beat, but the seller held out for more, then finally came back to people and one by one the bids were retracted until he came back to me and I happily paid what I had originally bid. If the seller decides to keep the item, so be it: I keep a lot of mine. But if she really needs inventory space or money, she may eventually come back to you and give in to reality and sell you the item.

Though you didn't ask, here are a few tips for getting good value in a buyer's market if you are selling:

My very few auctions are exceptional items, and they are ecto only. Example, http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=67638

There are a lot of reasons why.ecto only auctions are fantastic for ensuring a reasonable bid increment ecto only auctions appeal to the wealthy people who buy high end items ecto only auctions are more secure trades that do not require trust or moderation when you cannot hold anymore gold anywhere, ecto is the only way to go And here are a couple of my auctioning secrets:low ball bids and off topic discussion are good things, generating interest and keeping the thread bumped I always try to stick in a few things that are very hard to value or that reliably get a few low ball bids on purpose to generate bumps on my thread (good choices are unusual shields or HoD swords) keep your auctions to a couple of themes and only around a dozen items set reasonable buyouts (everyone wants the most possible, but people decide whether you are expecting too much on the basis of your buyout prices on the items that they can value, even if you have some items they cannot value; plus it helps to have a few things bought out quickly to show that you are selling for somewhat reasonable prices) set your own buyouts, not buyouts your friends told you to use: how much do you really want, regardless of whether you might have been able to get more? Pick an amount that you know someone would take and you can be willing to live with

Great tips from many posted here. I dont think ppl should get upset with hidden reserves, as someone stated earlier - starting low and not stating reserve gets the thread interest and low bids are free bumps. Low ball bids are annoying, but they keep ppl bumped. If I state hidden reserve i may not get a single bid. Dont get mad, the reality is if u want some of the higher end items u should go out and earn the appropriate money for the item. I think many ppl dont state reserves because they dont know the fair price for the item they are selling. My biggest complaint are the lowballers who try to pm me ingame every ten minutes acting as if they gave me a very fair price.

great tips, gonna apply them to my sell threads where possible