I'm trying to collect all the CIs and EIs so I spend a fair amount of time stalking the marketplace and I've noticed an annoying trend.

A lot of sellers throw stuff up for double or triple the average sale price (many times even over the price listed as the highest sale price). I won't pay three times what an item is worth, no matter how few of them are for sale right now. The marketplace isn't active enough to create a healthy competition. People seem to be using it as an excuse to price gouge unwary buyers. What happened to checking the price guide? Or even just looking at the average sale price on the marketplace and setting your asking price accordingly? I've also noticed that most new CIs are being sold for much higher prices right from launch as well. Before the marketplace, new CIs went for 2000 gold a set on average and didn't really start to inflate until they were retired. It was a good system that didn't put too much strain on the people having to buy them with gold each month. Now they start at 2000 gold each! O_O' What the heck happened?

So my question is this....what can we do about this? Boycott the ridiculously overpriced items? Contact the sellers? Have them arrested for extortion? :ninja: Let's discuss and see if I'm crazy or if other people have been feeling the pain of these high prices too....

If any sellers want to chime in and explain the reasoning behind the high prices, please feel free. How do you decide how much to charge for an item? What makes you think anyone is going to pay 7000 gold for a CI that sells for 3000 gold or less on average? How would you like it if you were the buyer searching for that item? Which price do you look at when you list an item? Highest Sale? Lowest Sale? Average Sale?

I'm not trying to fight here, I just want to know why the prices have sky rocketed since the marketplace launch.

I've noticed this too. I got my Dryad's Hollow for 1200 a while after it was released, but now it's going for crazy prices and people just don't want to buy anymore because of the prices. It's crazy.

i noticed that in mp, current cis are like 4k-5k. sometimes if you're lucky you can get it for 2-3k each. :/

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also i want to add that items that i've had for a long time have deflated a lot. o_o it's weird.

Deflated? Like, gone down in price? O.o

If things have deflated it's either because people don't know what to sell them for or the MP made it more readily available, bringing down the cost.

Anyway, people can sell things for that much because, more often than not, there's always going to be a person to buy it.
I rarely sell things in the MP just because I'd rather sell my items (usually the current CIs) to someone I know will appreciate it and not just turn right around and sell it for higher.

If an item is largely overpriced in the MP, I simply won't buy it. I'll either search through the Exchange for it or just count it as a loss. :s

Honestly, I don't buy from the marketplace...I just stalk the exchange. I find better deals in the exchange. I just don't think enough people use the marketplace for there to be an average on many items right now.

I'm wondering if the marketplace would be better off if they closed down the exchange. Maybe that would get the activity level the marketplace needs to make the prices sane. O_o'

but then it would be REALLY hard to discuss item/money trade and such. I think both are good. I have a few over priced items on my watch list and they just sit there until someone reasonable comes along.

I just do not pay for something that I think should be lower. One of the items I am watching is normally around 2K and the only one on the market is 10K. I am not paying 10K for it even though it's the only one up. I rather just wait for a reasonable price.

I think that more active users on the market place would for sure help bring prices down. There are always going to be those few people that like to way overprice things though.

What is actually happening.

It seems really crazy in the market right now because for a very long time items have been at a standstill as far as the natural progression of inflation. Some items....older items where going for gaggles more then they should have simply because it was hard to sell things so not many people really did. The marketplace at the moment is trying to even itself out because of all the bad economy in the past. It seems crazy....but really its normal.

Well, I've never been one to follow economics trends much (other than noticing how much faster my money runs out). I will say it still doesn't make sense for brand new CIs to be sold for three times what they were going for on the exchange. I'll also say there doesn't seemed to be anything normal about sellers not having good common sense in their pricing.

It would make more sense if the exchange became a place for discussion and item trading rather than sales, but I don't know how they'd change it. Maybe the marketplace would be more active if it didn't cost money to list items unless they sell or something... O_o'

It's just really broken and at this rate it is going to take forever for the prices to average out.

Cora's basically right. Older items have deflated because they were over-priced before, because people didn't bother selling because using the exchange was such a pain in the arse.

Current prices do appear to have jumped for the simple reason that they'd been artificially frozen before. Exchangers had an extremely bad habit of treating the price guide not as a record of past prices at all, but some kind of law that meant no-one was allowed to sell for more than the guide said.

Older CIs are selling for less than the current ones simply because there's more of them. Donations are a whole lot less these days, consequently the current CIs are more valuable.

Hmmm..well I suppose that makes the new CI issue make a little more sense...still annoying but more logical. I also still think the jump on many items is too large to be accounted for entirely with those explanations. Why are people listing items with an average marketplace value (not price guide value) of 2-3k for 7-10k? The prices are often even higher than the highest price the item has sold for. That defies common sense.

Yea I have noticed how all of the newest CIs has increase in value
Though I dont agree with the over pricing, I do price my items high only because I know they well sell
maybe not soon, but they will sell at least.
I do donated to mene to sell CIs and I just think if Im spending real money on it, why not get more
Some people say they donate to help mene so they dont not care about the gold, yea I understand that, thats them
I donate to help mene too, but why shouldn't I benefit for it as well? I'm just saying

I guess people are pricing there items high simply because they can

Originally Posted by jellysundae

Cora's basically right. Older items have deflated because they were over-priced before, because people didn't bother selling because using the exchange was such a pain in the arse.

Current prices do appear to have jumped for the simple reason that they'd been artificially frozen before. Exchangers had an extremely bad habit of treating the price guide not as a record of past prices at all, but some kind of law that meant no-one was allowed to sell for more than the guide said.

Older CIs are selling for less than the current ones simply because there's more of them. Donations are a whole lot less these days, consequently the current CIs are more valuable.

You worded that so much better then I did, thank you for the clarification ^.^

Originally Posted by Saravi Boo

Hmmm..well I suppose that makes the new CI issue make a little more sense...still annoying but more logical. I also still think the jump on many items is too large to be accounted for entirely with those explanations. Why are people listing items with an average marketplace value (not price guide value) of 2-3k for 7-10k? The prices are often even higher than the highest price the item has sold for. That defies common sense.

Actually its a bit of both sides going on. On one side you have the fact that the market doesn't necessarily have enough sales to have evened out enough for the average to be completely accurate yet, and on the other hand you do have a small portion of peoples greed.

Well...Can I mentally slap the greediest ones? ^_^'

As well as boycott their overpriced merchandise of course. ^_^ And encourage others to do the same.

... Is everybody familiar with the old supply and demand model?

There's a demand for CI's. Usually more demand than supply. Especially in the marketplace, where sellers can see competitors and adjust accordingly. However, if there is no competition, see monopoly, the seller can sell at whatever price they believe can get them the maximum profit and still be bought. It's just how the free market works. You're free to not buy the product. But there's usually one or two people willing to spend a lot of money for old CI's. It's the buyer's job to make the price go lower... Definitely not the seller's.

Also, about the deflation of old items: In the exchange, pure and item offers are accepted. In the marketplace, it's pure only, which limits the amount some people can offer significantly, making the buyer pool a lot smaller. By lowering the price, there's a higher likely hood of it being bought.

Also, the average price is sometimes absurdly low for certain items due to actions that rise by 1 or 5 or 10 gold... Not that many people bid...

Originally Posted by Saravi Boo

Well...Can I mentally slap the greediest ones? ^_^'

As well as boycott their overpriced merchandise of course. ^_^ And encourage others to do the same.

Maybe that would help
its worth a try

Hatake Ayumi said it just right, take what I said and what she said and it makes prefect sense
-to me-

Originally Posted by Saravi Boo

Maybe the marketplace would be more active if it didn't cost money to list items unless they sell or something... O_o'

But it doesn't cost the seller (or buyer) anything to list/sell items...

There's an item I want that is being sold for 4 TIMES the average price.
Unfortunately, its the only item of its kind that is up but I just want to shake the seller and slap them in the face.
Its been up for weeks and no one has bought it. In fact, everything this particular person is selling is ridiculously priced!

Its beyond frustrating, and a lose lose. I'm not buying the item I want, and they're not making any money.

Liquid: What item is this? Just curious.
And not buying it is your choice. If the seller is smart and sees that there's no demand at the price they are selling it for, then they will lower the price.

Also, if one person lists something at a ridiculous price, say 10,000 when the average price is... 3,000 (and it's the only listed item of its kind up on the marketplace), then it may encourage others to sell because they see a profit.

I'm one of those people who sell things at relatively high prices because I want profit. If I see the above situation happen, I go and list an item that I'd otherwise be reluctant to sell for the price of... ~7,500 gold.

There's just too few people entering the market for it to be very stable. Monopolies can happen all over the place. Best way to fix the market: Tell your friends to join/ ask more people to use the marketplace.

(inmyhumbleopinion)

I'd tell my friends to join if I had any friends outside of mene. lol. ^_^'

Thanks for letting me know that CK! lol. I thought I remembered seeing something about a listing fee when the marketplace first launched. O_o' Guess I either read it wrong or it changed and I didn't notice. ^_^'

There was never a listing fee. :lol:

Originally Posted by Liquid Diamond

There's an item I want that is being sold for 4 TIMES the average price.
Unfortunately, its the only item of its kind that is up but I just want to shake the seller and slap them in the face.
Its been up for weeks and no one has bought it. In fact, everything this particular person is selling is ridiculously priced!

Its beyond frustrating, and a lose lose. I'm not buying the item I want, and they're not making any money.

If you're talking about who I think you are then I don't think this person has any intention of selling, as everything they have up for sale has a zero too many on its price.

Let them get on with it, ultimately it's they who are the loser :)

Saravi Boo - Probably you saw the bit about, "It's possible in the future we may have a listing fee, but we don't right now. We'll let you know if it changes!" There's not likely to be a listing fee in the foreseeable future. xD We just need to give ourselves the wiggle room if it ever needs to change. Again, it's not likely to change anytime soon. As you've noticed, the Marketplace is still in a constant state of flux and prices aren't rising and falling at proper rates just yet.

I honestly imagine that unless a lot of our older members return and start using the Marketplace (creating supply of old items as well as new items plus a demand for items they missed out on) or a load of new members join us (creating demand for old items and supply of new items), the Marketplace is likely to be in flux for another six months at best.