Partial Buy for Marketplace

[Bun_Vivant]

You're assuming....
1. That I actually have the money to do that repeatedly. As a new player, I'm at about 150k in gil.
2. That I have plenty of slots for selling stuff. I've only got the 2 retainers that the game gives me, so that's ... 40 slots?

And that's why letting people buy portions of a marketplace listing is a bad idea: with only 20 slots per retainers, sellers aren't going to want to use up a precious retainer slot to sell mats one at a time. So sellers will quit bothering to sell at all, and the marketplace will have fewer items at higher prices because of the reduced competition.

Buyers may want the marketplace to work more to their advantage, but that's a recipe for disaster.
Things are fine the way they are now, which is how they've been for years.

[EorzeaWanderer]

No. Because letting the seller control the quantity allows sellers to offer "bulk discounts." That's the only way sellers can differentiate themselves other than by price.

Came here to say this. Other than a creator’s signature, which most likely no one cares about because it can get removed, price and quantity are the only way sellers can differentiate their goods. Removing quantity/price interactions from the game does nothing but make the market board less interesting.

[kcj]

And that's why letting people buy portions of a marketplace listing is a bad idea: with only 20 slots per retainers, sellers aren't going to want to use up a precious retainer slot to sell mats one at a time. So sellers will quit bothering to sell at all, and the marketplace will have fewer items at higher prices because of the reduced competition.

Yet, you just listed a very good reason to have partial buys: You can list all of the item in one slot rather than having to spread it out among multiples.

I have two full pages of inventory full of drops, not counting consumables. There's no way I'm going to be able to resell, assuming that I just stop playing the character; in any sort of time less than months.

[Bun_Vivant]

Yet, you just listed a very good reason to have partial buys: You can list all of the item in one slot rather than having to spread it out among multiples.

I have two full pages of inventory full of drops, not counting consumables. There's no way I'm going to be able to resell, assuming that I just stop playing the character; in any sort of time less than months.

My two main crafting characters each have 6-8 full retainers of mats. If I stop playing the character, I don't really care what happens to the mats -- they're just bits in a game database after all, with no inherent value.

The problems faced when a player stops playing a character should not be foremost in the developers' minds.

[SannaR]

Yet, you just listed a very good reason to have partial buys: You can list all of the item in one slot rather than having to spread it out among multiples.

I have two full pages of inventory full of drops, not counting consumables. There's no way I'm going to be able to resell, assuming that I just stop playing the character; in any sort of time less than months.

You can probably get rid of a lot of those drops if they're sold by a shop. Depending on how hard it is to get the drop and if you're going to even be crafting any time soon You could just npc sell those materials. Freeing up some space in the process.

[Avoidy]

Came here to say this. Other than a creator’s signature, which most likely no one cares about because it can get removed, price and quantity are the only way sellers can differentiate their goods. Removing quantity/price interactions from the game does nothing but make the market board less interesting.

It's real interesting going to another world to buy stuff because everyone on my world is selling 99 of something I need 2 of.

[Bun_Vivant]

It's real interesting going to another world to buy stuff because everyone on my world is selling 99 of something I need 2 of.

It's also an opportunity to make gil: buy more than you need off-word, sell it for slightly more than the bulk price but in smaller stacks back home.

[kcj]

It's real interesting going to another world to buy stuff because everyone on my world is selling 99 of something I need 2 of.

I would rather buy 10 of an item at 1,000 gil than 99 of the same item for 2,000 gil. Not only is the 10 items listing cheaper but I'm also not stuck with 89 of something I don't need and probably won't be able to sell except at a loss.

Yes, I was opposed to the idea when I originally encountered it in other games....but I grew to like the idea after having spent some time using it.

[Shibi]

I'd have to say nope to this. Retainer space is expensive, and the only way to make money is to move stock fast.

The common way to move stock fast is to price the bulk stacks so they carry a cheaper price over the singles further down the list. Buying one unit from a cheap stack of 99 means you buy it under the higher unit cost of the singles also posted, and leave the seller with a non-full stack that takes longer to sell one at a time.

I would support it if retainers were removed as the method of marketboarding, and we could just place our sales into the marketboard directly without any slot limits.

Partial Buy: By that I mean the ability to buy some rather than all of a stack. It's frustrating from the perspective of a relatively new player to need 1 and have to buy 99....assuming I can even afford it!.

You can try what I do for the rare use materials. Buy the entire stack, then list them in smaller quantities for more gil, sell those and make a good profit.

1. That I actually have the money to do that repeatedly. As a new player, I'm at about 150k in gil.

I have a few characters on that server, I'll look out for you and drop some millions on you.

[Jojoya]

The problems faced when a player stops playing a character should not be foremost in the developers' minds.

And I don't think it is.

One of the things that does need to be in the developer's minds is the new player experience. Players have quit games when they felt like the player market systems are too far above what they can afford as a new player.

Allowing partial stack purchases at least allows the new player to get what they can afford, creating a better experience for them and creating a larger pool of potential buyers for the long term.

From a seller perspective, there's another advantage to it - you're going to encourage the other player to buy from you instead of deciding to become your competitor. Half of what I sell is usually because I was willing to be lazy and buy from another player but what was listed was unreasonably high in price and/or in excessively large stacks compared to what a player would need to use. I decide to stop being lazy, farm up a massive amount of the item above what I need, then list the excess in smaller stacks and/or tank the price to something more reasonable for the type of player most likely to purchase. It becomes a lot of fun when I find someone buying up my items to resell for profit yet I'm sitting on a supply large enough to keep relisting for days.