Suggestion for market board

[TetsuyaHikari]

I believe there's a small, yet effective, means of improving the market for those of us that want to just buy a small handful of a particular item. Aren't you always frustrated to see that everyone is selling the item you want in large stacks, but all you need is like 1 or 5 of it?

Now, wouldn't it be great if we could select the quantity we want to buy? You know, once you select the cheapest item, a pop up box appears and you can push an up or down arrow to select how many you want, it will calculate your total, then you'd be done. The only reason I even thought of this is because of Phantasy Star Online 2. That's basically how the shop system works in that game.

Let's say you put up 999 grinders (a specific item in that game to help you grind your weapon to increase its stats). If someone only needed 20 or so though, they could access your shop (or in this case, simply find it by typing in the item name), select to buy 20, then complete their transaction. The remaining 979 would stay in the shop for others to buy as well.

Normally, the money you earn through the market board goes straight to your retainer. So, how different would it be to simply sell a portion of the product and have the same thing occur? I believe if we could work something like this into the market board, it would not only help people who are seeking a smaller amount of these items, but it would also help save us some storage/inventory space. I'm sure plenty of us have gotten stacks upon stacks of materia from spiritbonding, but usually only put up a stack of 5 (especially if it's an expensive tier IV) individually rather than altogether.

Well, you're using up 5 slots right there. Wouldn't it be better if we could just stack 5 into one slot to sell and if someone wants to just buy 1 of them, they could and you'd still get the money for that one while the remaining 4 stayed on the market? It's worth considering, I think. Something like this may have already been mentioned before and I wasn't aware of it, but if it hasn't... It would be great if you could make this into a question for Yoshi-P and send it his way, then see what he thinks about it.

[Waeksyn]

Not a fan of this. When I put up large amounts of an item it's because I want to sell the whole stack. I will price accordingly - ie, volume discount. Allowing people to then pick one or two is like allowing people to open the bag of 12 buns and only select 2 of them, putting the bag of 10 back on the shelf.

The only way this would work would be to allow the seller to select whether or not the stack can be sold in smaller quantity.

[TetsuyaHikari]

Not a fan of this. When I put up large amounts of an item it's because I want to sell the whole stack. I will price accordingly - ie, volume discount. Allowing people to then pick one or two is like allowing people to open the bag of 12 buns and only select 2 of them, putting the bag of 10 back on the shelf.

The only way this would work would be to allow the seller to select whether or not the stack can be sold in smaller quantity.

Or it would be like, you know... Allowing people to buy buns which only had 5 inside as opposed to forcing them to pay for more (i.e. 12) that they wouldn't want. This applies to the real world as well, imo. I hate being forced to buy a bigger box of something and pay more just because they don't have a lower quantity in stock.

[Razzle]

Agreed with OP. Forcing players to buy stacks only is pretty weird in the first place. That carried over from 1.0, I remember there been a few complaints about it but eventually players gave up or got used to it...

The closest thing I saw in other games, is allowing to sell bundles ADDITIONALLY to the normal "pick-your-quantity" set of items. When the player put something on sale he just picks if he wants to sell it as a bundle and force players buy all or nothing, or sell it normally and let them decide quantity.

[Aylis]

A lot of us have been asking for this very thing since beta as a simple QoL thing. The devs seem adamant about not implementing it >_>

[geordie]

Although i do find it annoying buying 10 items when i only need one i think being able to pick and choose how many from each listing would lead to more undercutting.

It would also force players who buy in bulk and relist in smaller quantities at a higher price to find a new way of making gil mainly leveling dol/doh classes which in turn
would increase supply forcing prices down more.

For these two reasons i would have to disagree.

[Kuolema]

Or it would be like, you know... Allowing people to buy buns which only had 5 inside as opposed to forcing them to pay for more (i.e. 12) that they wouldn't want. This applies to the real world as well, imo. I hate being forced to buy a bigger box of something and pay more just because they don't have a lower quantity in stock.

Or you could just go to the bakery and select individual buns.

[Gilthas]

One of the ways I get my stuff to sell is by selling them in smaller stacks.

[Razzle]

Although i do find it annoying buying 10 items when i only need one i think being able to pick and choose how many from each listing would lead to more undercutting.

It would also force players who buy in bulk and relist in smaller quantities at a higher price to find a new way of making gil mainly leveling dol/doh classes which in turn
would increase supply forcing prices down more.

For these two reasons i would have to disagree.

I don't see how that makes a difference. It's all pretty much comes down to QoL. In your case, you'd buy the whole 10, use 1, and sell the rest of the 9 you had left over. If there would be any undercutting resulted from that, it'd happen with or without the bundles? Unless I get something wrong...

All it will do is bypass the need to relist left overs for sale, and save slots for people who have to split their stack into a few bundles in order to sell them.

[XNihili]

It should be the seller prerogative to choose, not the buyer.
If there is a market for smaller stacks, smaller stacks will appear.
I used to make money this way in Alchemy.