How would people feel about having more transparancy in trading threads? In particular sales threads?
I am thinking that perhaps adding a rule that a price must be set that the seller is willing to let items go for? Even if this is twice the actual market value?
Then something about auctions. Auctions need to have a set end date and bids should be posted within the thread so we don’t get these magic last minute bids via PM.
Obvious pros would be that it would be easier to get deals done and easier to appraise items.
Only con I can think of would be people losing out on money when they go “pm offers” and hope for someone to overvalue the stuff.
I only accept offers when I’m absolutely unsure of the price. Since I was young, it’s become standard practice for sellers to set prices in online games. So, I usually set my own prices for both buying and selling in these games. You’re free to choose your selling and buying amounts, and most prices are readily available with a little research. However, I find it difficult to agree with the rule that prices must be included in listings. If you don’t know the price, you can receive offers, and it’s a free market where people can sell for more (or buy for less).
Dude people here “sell” the item even without having them. “Its smart not to keep the peds stuck” its like they only fishing for buyers and they already have a seller.
This is obviously ridiculous.
Your item, your right to decide what to do with it and how to sell it.
Desperate people will sell for hal the value to resellers.
Motivated people will sell for whatever they agree with an interested buyer.
People not in a rush and wanting to make a bigger profit or not to lose too much, will ask too mch for it and will patiently wait until it gets sold, if ever.
Such transparency is bad for “motivated people”. All of a sudden you cant convince a buyer your shit worth double than the average market, and everybody else are “desperate people”. So dont be upset for been flagged as “ridiculous”.
You would need to run an objective control of inventory/price veracity/enforce bid execution/artbitrage discrepancies/etc. Without it, those rules would become a pile of useless text.
And i dont think MA would want to dedicate such resources to it. Especially within the frame of “free market” philosophy MA operates.
The trading section was better back when there were more auctions and posted prices rather than “PM me with offers.” I suspect there are a lot of “ghost offers” on the forum now, where the main point of a sales thread is not to sell an item, but to collect information from potential buyers about their willingness to pay (information which buyers would have rational incentive to keep private if they did not believe they were actually involved in negotiations).
On the other hand, the more structure imposed top-down by the forum itself, the less creative freedom Entropians have to innovate outside-the-box offers and auction formats.
There was a period of time during which precision in a sales thread attracted more potential buyers, and extreme vagueness was viewed with suspicion but not enforced against. Sadly, this dynamic seems to have faded and vagueness has become the norm.
We shouldnt be able to edit our post in the sells threads. sure your item do as you want but you have came to a PUBLIC forum to sell it there should be more clear rules people shouldnt have 10 post for each and every item they are trying to sell so they can bump ALL of them and take up the whole front page. the worse are prolly the people who will actively nuke their thread AFTER the sell so any sale data is that much harder to find. was alot better when there was admins here who actually enforced the rules that are in place in all parts of the forums not just where convenient for them.
I think the trade forum works fine as is. I have always been able to buy and sell things comfortably over the years. Yes, the “accepting offers” only sellers are annoying, but it also serves as a red flag for me and saves me the time from dealing with said sellers.