Please implement a listing fee!

[synaesthetic]

Let's say you've got 10 items up for 5000 gil each. Someone comes in and puts up another item for 4000 gil, undercutting the other 10 sellers. If the other 10 sellers want to undercut, they'll have to pay again to do so. Some probably will do it, but others may not because they'd be losing money in fees as well as the lower sale price. Let's say 3 people undercut the 4000 price to 3800. Then some buyers come along and snap up the 3800 items and the 4000 items. The remaining 7 listed items are all still 5000, and thus anyone else who puts something up will either put it up for 5000 to match the current price, or they'll undercut, but the rate at which they do is slowed.

In the current system what happens is that one person who lists for 4000, all 10 of their competitors come back and undercut because it doesn't cost them anything to do so. The average price falls to below 4000 and now anyone who lists anything will do so at the lower price, causing the average price to fall even more. Undercutting once upon initial listing is far less likely to crash the market than being able to freely undercut an infinite number of times.

Does this leave the market open to being cornered by people who have either lots of gil or lots of stock or both? Sure it does. But so does the current market. Free listing doesn't stop this from happening, because it happens all the time.

Will listing fees alone fix the economy? Of course not. People need items worth selling and right now everything is worthless. SE desperately needs to change things so that people have something of value to sell, but even if they do that, with no listing fees, the market is extremely vulnerable to being crashed intentionally by market flooding RMTs and botters. It'd be a far greater risk to try and crash the market by flooding it with massively undercut items if you were being charged every time you do it.

[Xystic]

Will listing fees alone fix the economy? Of course not. People need items worth selling and right now everything is worthless. SE desperately needs to change things so that people have something of value to sell, but even if they do that, with no listing fees, the market is extremely vulnerable to being crashed intentionally by market flooding RMTs and botters. It'd be a far greater risk to try and crash the market by flooding it with massively undercut items if you were being charged every time you do it.

Your trying to justify that listing fees is the lesser of the two evils, the current market and the listing fee market, but I'm telling you, listing fees is a greater evil then the current one.

In the current one you have an opportunity to battle high commodity players on the same turf all the way to the cost price of producing goods because their isn't a penalty. While in listing fees, you get knocked out instantly, you don't even get a chance. The difference is, atleast you can make your money back, while in listing fees, they will push you to a guaranteed loss.

Trying to say listing fees can slowly lower the rate of undercutting appears logical but it isn't. If people see the market looks it is going to be flooded, the first thing a person will do is drop his prices instantly to the minimum profit margin. They aren't going to play 1 gil undercuts with you because the first person to lock in at the minimum profit margin wins, cause everyone else is guaranteed a loss if they relist. People look at this market and see a 1 gil profit margin and leave. Many argue that these people are stupid but they aren't. They have huge commodity behind them. They can sit in this market for a long time. Even though they make a 1 gil profit only, its still covers the cost to make the item and 1 gil on top. While a person who has sold nothing makes nothing to cover the cost of making the item and therefore cannot stay in the market, eventually, making you leave the market. The player then raises his prices back up and continues on and will rinse and repeat as needed to kick people out.

Your trying to argue that these type of people are going to sit here and undercut you slowly when they know if they bring it to the point where you take a loss, you won't undercut because you face losses. At this point you are forced out of the market. These people do not follow the lets undercut by 1 gil or undercut reasonably because they have listing fees as a tool on their belt, that allows them to kick people out of markets, specifically players with small commodities.

I am not joking when I say if we implement listing fees, we give these players one crazy tool to use and abuse.

Your hoping people nicely undercut or slowly deter undercutting but because players know they can force people out of the market with listing fees, they aren't even going to slowly undercut you, they get straight to the point because first person there wins.

The market boards are a battle ground for merchants. This is why some of us enjoy sitting on the market boards. Its our style of endgame content. Some end-game merchants won't tolerate your intrusion on their market and if they had listing fees to back them up, your pretty much out of the market the instant you decided to enter his market. On top of the fact, you even lose gil for just coming on board, "thanks listing fee"~

While in the current market, these players do not have a way to corner you in the markets or kick you out. The best they can do is slowly undercut you to make sure they get the maximum amount of gil.

You have to keep in mind. The people undercutting you now, weren't thinking about your losses and gain when they undercut you. What makes you think they are going to play nice when we give them listing fees and the ability to totally remove all their competition?

We can have 100's of nice players, but it only takes 1 to lock an entire market.

[RinKaen]

If people see the market looks it is going to be flooded, the first thing a person will do is drop his prices instantly to the minimum profit margin.

This, I saw something that was going to flood the market.. Vit IV actually, was selling for easily 120+ at that time. I sold mine for 100 because I knew it was going down. The current price as I'm reading now is 49k. I lost 18k give or take, but I knew no one was going to buy undercut goods till it got insanely cheap.

Also I've held the Cotton kecks market for some time, selling LQ for 2k a pop. I sold at least 10+ a day. Someone has came in selling theirs in at 2k too, but I haven't sold anything in days, and now there are people undercutting. I have over 15 kecks not selling now. What do I do? I've gone in and switched my prices to 1500 losing me lots of money. if it sells I'm at least getting some of the money I used to buy my mats.