Player Auction - 2/27 @ 21:00 shard time

[Muolke]

Now that everyone has gathered a bunch of items from the IDOC it would only make sense to have a player auction so you can sell items you don't need or buy items you may want.

What:

Player Auction hosted by Muolke

When:

2/27/2021 @ 21:00 Shard time

Details:

You may proceed to the auction location via the teleporter under "shops".

All auctions will begin at 100,000 gold. Seller may designate a hidden reserve price if he/she desires on any item except deco items. All deco items will be no reserve auctions. Limit of 2 items per player.

Fees:

25,000 gold listing fee per item (non-refundable) plus 5% of the total sales price.

PM Muolke if you have any question or would like to list an item.

[Wil]

Seller may designate a hidden reserve price if he/she desires on any item except deco items. 25,000 gold listing fee per item (non-refundable).

Howdy,

Both of these elements ring up no-sale for me. Reserve auctions are a waste of time. I have better things to do than play against a concealed rule. And I'm certainly not going to pay you 25k gold to maybe possibly sell something at an auction folks have skipped because of the reserve.

Regards,
Wil

[Muolke]

Seller may designate a hidden reserve price if he/she desires on any item except deco items. 25,000 gold listing fee per item (non-refundable).

Howdy,

Both of these elements ring up no-sale for me. Reserve auctions are a waste of time. I have better things to do than play against a concealed rule. And I'm certainly not going to pay you 25k gold to maybe possibly sell something at an auction folks have skipped because of the reserve.

Regards,
Wil

Cool story bro. So don't come.

[Melkor]

[Muolke]

Just to address the 2 "objections" (he frequently ridicules player auctions btw) -

1. The 25,000 gold listing fee is due to the fact that the selling fee is only 5%. Most player auctions have a selling fee of 10%. Having a lower selling fee along with a small listing fee will actually end up saving most sellers quite a bit of gold and prevents people from putting up silly items that won't sell.

If an item sells for 2 mil gold with a 10% selling fee that's a 200,000 gold cost to the seller. If an item sells for 2 mil gold with a 5% selling fee plus a 25,000 listing fee that's 100,000+25,000 (125,000 total) cost to the seller.

2. This is a 100,000 gold auction. Meaning all items start off at that amount. There's already an item that has been submitted that are worth tens of millions of gold. Without a reserve you likely won't have those items because sellers don't want an item worth 20 mil gold selling for 1 mil. The reserve price is a "safety net" for sellers and will always be below market value of the item so buyers can still get a great deal on items.

[Melkor]

Just make the starting price the reserve.

I’m mostly just joking around by posting the meme.

[Wil]

(he frequently ridicules player auctions btw) -

By "frequently" you mean exactly one other time, for exactly the same reason (reserve prices) during which you jumped all over the player who held the auction for reacting badly to the constructive criticism.

viewtopic.php?p=75965

[Muolke]

ITEMS WILL BE ACCEPTED UP UNTIL 1 HOUR PRIOR TO THE AUCTION TO ALLOW PLAYERS TO SEE THE ITEMS AVAILABLE - COME TO THE AUCTION IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN ADDING AN ITEM TO THE AUCTION.

World Teleporter >>> Shops

[Johnny Warren]

If an item sells for 2 mil gold with a 10% selling fee that's a 200,000 gold cost to the seller. If an item sells for 2 mil gold with a 5% selling fee plus a 25,000 listing fee that's 100,000+25,000 (125,000 total) cost to the seller.

The reserve price is a "safety net" for sellers and will always be below market value of the item so buyers can still get a great deal on items.

Firstly, good on ya for making a player event. The more the better. I hope you've bought up some nice participation rewards from the player event stone for everyone.

Unfortunately 125k is often my whole profit margin on a sale! Its a significant cost for me because I usually sell super close to the line. I usually don't participate in player auctions due to the fees involved, feels like the auctioneer makes a load, while the sellers make scraps. I think a listing fee or percentage fee would be ok, but both means it's hard on sellers.

The main thing that turns me off an auction set up like this is the idea of a hidden reserve. If the reserve is a safety net and always below market prices, why not make it a publicly known reserve, or as suggested, just the starting price? By keeping it hidden it feels far more like the seller is hedging their bets; "hopefully a bidding war will make me heaps of bonus gold, if it doesn't I'll just keep my item and sell it later." It's a win/win for the seller and it will turn away buyers because if the seller is always in a winning position, how can the buyer ever "win" in that scenario? It also creates massive feel bad moments:

"Woot got that BC for 1.5mil less than market price and I needed one!"

"Sorry the hidden reserve was 500k more sir, the item is not yours."

"But, nobody outbid me..."

For full transparency I've only ever been a seller in one player auction in the past and I lost a fair amount of gold on both items I listed. I did not put a reserve on either item because I disagree with the idea of reserves in auctions.

[Wil]

The theory of reserve price auctions: build excitement and momentum by starting the bids within all buyers' price range without asking the seller to risk losing their item to a low maximum bid.

The reality of reserve price auctions: set a high reserve, waste everybody's time bidding on an item no one will win, collect the names and interest levels of potential buyers and using that unfair advantage, negotiate a private sale after the auction.

[Muolke]

The theory of reserve price auctions: build excitement and momentum by starting the bids within all buyers' price range without asking the seller to risk losing their item to a low maximum bid.

The reality of reserve price auctions: set a high reserve, waste everybody's time bidding on an item no one will win, collect the names and interest levels of potential buyers and using that unfair advantage, negotiate a private sale after the auction.

This is just plain dumb. Out of all the items submitted so far that have a reserve price (some don't) only 1 has a reserve price that is more than 50% of the market value of the item.

Ebay uses this system and they're very successful.

If you don't like the rules then don't come. Why are you wasting so much time on something that you're not even going to partake in? Go back to reselling your houses for absurd prices and let the people who actually take the time to run an event do it without you constantly ridiculing them.

[Melkor]

Out of all the items submitted so far that have a reserve price (some don't) only 1 has a reserve price that is more than 50% of the market value of the item.

With Reserves that low, they could be starting bids instead

Also this because I have a problem:

[Muolke]

ALL SLOTS FOR THE AUCTION HAVE BEEN FILLED - TO VIEW THE AUCTION ITEMS USE THE TELEPORTER AND CLICK "SHOPS" THEN "PLAYER AUCTION".

Many great items with no reserve including a Blaze of Death NPS, Runic Tinker Tools, Runic Sewing Kit, and all deco items.

[Muolke]

PLAYER AUCTION IS TODAY:

2100 Shard time

4pm Easter Time
1pm Pacific Time
9pm UK time
10pm Europe time (France/Germany/Italy/Spain)

[thuanlinh]

I am not sure if we are able to get an update from this auction. I actually would like to submit items in the future but definitely don't want to submit items that would not sell. If not it's all good.