At the time of my writing this, (July 13, 2004), the marketplace seems to be filled with 90% overpriced junk, and only about 10% of it is even buyable. The rest is so highly overpriced, it's almost a scam if someone actually buys it for that price. I'm unsure how much of this is greed, and how much is simple ignorance.
In any case, a vending pass and the marketplace can actually be very useful and effective tools. My aim here is to show potential venders how to sell items effectively using the marketplace. I might add a section later for buyers if there's requests for it.
Reasons to consider a vending pass:
The 1000 gold for the vending pass is restrictive in a way, because we're all reluctant to spend that much gold on something that isn't an item. However.. you really should look at this as an investment. If you've ever spent an entire day... or even several hours in the exchange bumping your thread and trying to get someone to bid on your items... only to end up selling them for a very cheap price, you really should consider getting a vending pass.
More Advantages:
♣Items in the marketplace can be searched for individually, which means you've got a better chance of your 'shop' being found by someone who actually wants to buy your item.
♣It's automatic, and doesn't have to be carefully watched constantly. You can sell items while afk. wink
Tips:
Now, to get into details... when you have a vending pass, you can go to the marketplace and click on 'my store'. Inside your store, when you choose to place an item for sale, you get this window:
Sell Item by: Buy Now and Auction both have advantages and disadvantages. I won't get into that here... though I may later if people ask me to. The main point I want to make is that although the default is to have both auction AND buy now prices, you CAN choose to ONLY auction with no buy now price, or ONLY buy now with no auction price. Decide how you want to do it before you place the item up for sale, and if you don't want anyone to use the buy now option.. don't put a ridiculously high price on it.. just opt for auction only!
Auction Duration: This partly depends on which options you use to sell the item. If you are using only the buy now option, my advice is to set the item to be listed for as long as possible, so it'll remain up for a long time without you needing to mess with it again.
If, on the other hand, you're using only an auction with no buy now... or even if you're doing both together, you'll want to temper this urge for a long auction somewhat. Here's why: In an auction... frequently, most of the bidding takes place in the last hour, or even the last ten minutes of the auction. People who frequent auctions know that if they bid too early, they'll just get outbid... so many wait until right as the auction is ending to try and place their bid when time is nearly up and they're less likely to be outbid.
Also, consider that no one in their right minds is going to want to bid on an item worth 200 gold when they have to wait 14 days to find out if they get the item, and will most likely be out bid in the last ten minutes of the auction. So putting a long time on an item will often merely drag out your ability to sell the item while no one bids until the auction gets closer to closing. I certainly won't bid on a 200 gold item that's on a 14 day auction. Forget it... I'll wait till it has 14 minutes left. wink
My own personal guide is to set the auction for a single day for items worth less than 1k, 2 days for items worth 1-5k. The higher the price of the item, the more willing someone might be to wait and see if they get it, and the longer you can set the auction for without simply causing yourself unneccessary delay.
"Buy Now" Price: Don't make your buy now price higher than what the item is worth. Make it something someone might actually buy it for. Most of my items are sold at buy now prices... I hardly ever have to wait for an auction to end. I don't sell things super cheap either, generally. I just make sure my buy now price is reasonably under the NPC store price for commons.. I don't usually calculate it, but at least 5% savings is generally good. Of course, the more you discount it, the faster you're likely to sell it.
For uncommons or rares, I usually put them up at slightly under the highest GEN listing for the item. (For uncommons and rares, it's also good to take a look at the other prices in the marketplace for that item. Even if the GEN is 200-500... if there are six of them in the marketplace with buy now prices of 200 gold, likely yours won't sell if you price it at 450 or 500 gold.)
I don't usually sell donation items in the marketplace... the exchange still seems to be a better place for that, in my opinion. You could apply the same principles as for rares and uncommons to them though.
Starting Bid Price: If you're using both auction and buy now, (or auction only), put your starting bid price a bit below the buy now price, but make SURE that you don't put a lower price than you're willing to accept for the item. It's really unfair to tie up someone's gold in bidding on your item and then cancel it at the last hour because you don't think you're getting enough for it. Remember not to drag out your auction too long... unlike e-bay where it may take someone hours to find exactly what they're looking for even with a search (and so longer auctions allow more people to see your sale..), in Gaia anyone can search the marketplace for the exact item they want and find it instantly.
Minimum Bid Increment: This is VERY important! Don't neglect it! I'll give you an example... let's say you put a Creme Pinstripe Shirt up for sale. NPC store price is 1500g. You put in a 'buy now' price of 1400g, and a starting auction price of 1200g. So far so good.
Now, you put the minimum bid increment at 500g. WRONG! You've just guaranteed, by putting in that bid increment, that you won't get more than 1200 gold for that item. Why? Because now the first individual to bid will bid 1200 gold, and the second would need to bid 1700 gold, which is more than the item is worth. Therefore, once someone has bid the minimum, no one else will bid.
(Yes, I've actually SEEN things like this, and even worse, they had ridiculously high buy now prices too, so they lost out.. I'd have bid higher than their current bidder if I hadn't had to bid more than the item was worth in order to do so because their bid increment was too high.)
Putting in a minimum bid increment that's too low also isn't good. If say, you put in a bid increment of 1g instead of 500g, you could get 20 bids on the item, but still only be getting 1220g for it. Remember, most of the 'bidding' will likely take place in the last hour, or even ten minutes of the auction. You don't want too many increments between your starting bid and your buy now price, or it's unlikely you'll get anywhere close to the buy now price for your item, regardless of how many bidders you get.
Your aim in setting the bid increment is to slowly drive the price up with successive bids so that you get closer to your 'goal' of the 'buy now' price. A good increment for my theoretical auction here would be either 25 or 50 gold.
And that's it. Hopefully at least a few people will find this helpful. ^^
