Other players vendors

[Mystery Man]

So today i am sitting in my house hidden shortly after we had this server reboot and see im selling things left and right from 1 of my vendors but no one was around, so i did alittle tracking to find the person who was buying everything and after it was all said and done, i went to go check out the vendor they had to find everything they just bought for sale on their vendor at a higher price...I wont name names, because i am not like that...Im just saying i dont think its right for someone to go and try to sell items crafted to help out younger players who cant afford to buy crap at a higher price...Dont go making it harder for someone to have to keep restocking things cause you may be to lazy to do it yourself..

[Yoda]

It happens.. when it happens to me (and it has in the past) I usually use it as an indication that my prices were too low, so much so someone saw profit to be had.

[Mystery Man]

I just dont think its right esp for something that takes a few minutes to craft

[Melkor]

While it's not my thing, lots of people on WOW, their whole game is buy low sell high. I'm sure that there is a bit of that here too. It's a free market, like it or not, it's going to happen. Personally, I price things that if they are sold, I'm happy regardless of who buys it.

[Yoda]

the obvious solve is to leave less room for profit if it concerns you

[+Colibri]

This issue has been raised before, I don't really like it when people "steal" like this, for example if you had these things prepared for newbies. Though, this is a game and vendors are a part of that game. The purpose of vendors is to sell things, and your vendor seems to have done a good job about it.
There were ideas about making vendors accessible only to young players (so that in the menu, you could set up to which age players can still buy from it), or so that you could set the vendor to lock the sold items for a certain time - for example, making the sold items to be non-resellable on vendors for 2 weeks.

For now, just fine tuning the price a bit would probably help.

[Allynne]

I've had similar issues with a few specific players "abusing" vendors in the same manner for reselling. I put the term "abuse" in quotes, because not everyone agrees that it is abuse, and I accept that, but that is how I personally feel about it. I've adjusted pricing, etc to reduce "abuse" potential, but apparently some people would rather buy you out than take the few moments to craft their own materials to sell. I think that the reasoning may be that if they buy all your X at a low price, then they have all the X on the market, at least until you can restock, and they can then dictate new higher prices and profit ... just a theory. Sort of a poopy practice, but that is just my opinion as well. Just be sure to charge enough that no matter who buys your stuff, you are still happy you sold it. If there are things you want to be sure go to new players, put them in the new player donation box or give them to ETA to distribute (if they are still in the business of herding newbies).

I have been able to successfully talk to one of the people I caught "abusing" my vendors and the issue stopped, but for a few others, speaking reasonably was not fruitful (in some instances met with outright hostility) and I had to ban them from my vendor house. Not the solution I would have preferred, but a solution nonetheless. One person in particular was "abusive" enough that I finally shut down my MZ vendor and now only sell from the vendor house. If you are in a private home, you can simply ban offenders if you'd like.

[Pariah]

Going to become the new Meme King...

[tiggerjlk]

I have never had a vendor (yet at least), but I think someone reselling isn't wrong really.

If I go to a used car lot to trade my car in, I might think it is worth 7k, they might offer me 4k. I accept the trade for 4k. A week later I might see it in the lot with a price tag of 9k.

I go to a flea market and buy an item for 30.00. I take it home and sell it on eBay for 100.00.

Buying an item, marking it up and reselling it is pretty standard practice in the real world, otherwise the stock market system would have failed long ago, and there would be no such thing as resell shops.

There are large groups of people who travel through the Midwest looking for low priced items, to take back to New York and sell and a much larger inflated price. The reason they can do that, is location and demand.

You do have a right to feel jaded for sure. It is frustrating seeing your items resold. Just imagine how Vangough would feel seeing what his painting sell for now a days.

In order to stop the process of reselling your goods, this shard would have to eliminate the free market and set everything to a fixed price, so no one has an advantage over anyone else. Historically, that has never really worked out very well.

[Allynne]

Lol, I love Chucky. Thanks for the meme.

[Davenmyr]

The biggest (and really only problem) I have with someone buying me out to resell is they are intentionally trying to drive business from my vendor(s) to theirs. If you are the kind of player who really likes vendoring you work hard at keeping stock and variety up so people recommend new players, and previous buyers come back because they know you are stocked. Its more about the long game. Eventually you want people to know you have things, so they come back, or recommend others. If someone is constantly cleaning you out nobody ever finds your vendors on uoex, and you effectively lose any chance at establishing a buyer base.

All that said, it is a game, and the system allows it (and it helps keep money changing hands either way), life goes on, I try not to get worked up about it.

[venus]

[quote="Davenmyr"If someone is constantly cleaning you out nobody ever finds your vendors on uoex, and you effectively lose any chance at establishing a buyer base. [/quote]

Did you just claim that when people buy all your products you are denied the chance to have customers?

As Tigger said, this is how a free market works. If you are upset with how fast your vendor is being used, raise your prices. Or if you are upset with one person buying your goods, it was already suggested that you have a vendor inside a home and ban that person from entering.


I don't understand how anyone can be upset when things on their vendor sell for prices they've set themselves.

[Allynne]

I think the point that Davenmyr is trying to make is that when Mr. Reseller comes and keeps you cleaned out of stock, then Player A comes to shop, you have no inventory to sell (unless you happen to check your vendor very frequently and re-stock accordingly). Player A then looks around other vendors on the shard and very likely the only choice is Mr. Reseller's vendor (since he's doing this to many people), probably for at least twice what he bought the item. Player A also mistakenly assumes that you don't ever stock your vendor because it is always empty when he looks, and doesn't return to look again in the future. Yes, you've sold your item, but you are not building a customer base. You lose customers. Mr. Reseller stole that opportunity from you.

It seems pretty petty to many people, I guess. Most people probably wouldn't care as it doesn't affect them, but if you enjoy the vendoring aspect of the game because it makes you happy to run a virtual store, and you take a little pride in keeping your vendor stocked for the newer players, it makes you unhappy when people do this type of thing to you. On a shard where everyone can be 120 everything, there is no reason that anyone needs to play the re-sell game. Mr. Reseller could make his own items and sell them for whatever he wanted, but he chooses instead to "steal" customers, and it is probably too much trouble to take the time to craft his own goods for sale anyhow.

[+Nyx]

The trouble is in the fact that while some of you may enjoy the vendoring aspect, another portion of people enjoy the 'deal hunting' aspect of finding a good value on items and then turning them for a profit. Wanting to find a way around their way of playing the game is essentially saying that one's own game happiness is more important than someone else's.

Also, Allynne, you mentioned that there's no real need to do this since it's possible to 120 everything on our shard. By that same token, no one needs to play the vendor game you mentioned - since there's plenty of mobs out there dropping plenty of gold. You could all just be farming instead of selling items and becoming angry that someone has bought them to resell. You see my point? There's no reason to get upset about people doing this, because it's a free market and you've made a sale. You haven't lost any customers - because your items sold.

If you're really that worried about it, try contacting the person and seeing if they'd be interested in buying your items directly from you, in bulk, to put on their own vendors. Then they wouldn't go to your vendors to buy, they'd already have their orders filled by you.

[Allynne]

+Nyx, I've actually done that (bulk order filling) in the past for a few people who were courteous enough to approach me about it. The arrangements were mutually beneficial. And please don't mistake my trying to relay the "abused" vendor perspective to those who can't wrap their head around the point of view as me being upset. I'm very happy as I am. I'm not upset. I'm just trying to make a point. I see both sides of this discussion, don't get me wrong.

But there is a reason to vendor. New players are NOT 120 everything, and they need to buy at least basic things to get them by until they are. After they become self-sufficient, they won't need vendors for much, but until they are, I'd like to sell them the stuff they need at a reasonable price. It makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Mr. Reseller takes advantage of that. If it makes him happy to "cheat" money out of new players, then more power to him, I guess. The new players pay more for the item (usually a lot more). The customer doesn't find me with inventory in stock, so doesn't return. I know it is an acceptable practice on this shard (and irl), and I'm not campaigning to do anything about it, but I think it is pretty base behavior. That's just my opinion, for what it is worth.