Price Fixing in Bazaar

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Picaresque, Jul 27, 2015.

  1. Goth Augur

    What trips me out is what people try to sell on the bazaar... I mean why do some people even waste a slot trying to sell some collection items for <500 plat..

    Back when i fooled around with selling collection stuff i would buy out anyone less than 1k. and people that sold for <500 i would buy out even its a loss. heck sometimes i would buy and destroy stuff.

    Why? not sure lol but toying around with low quantity low price stuff makes no sense on the bazaar. No one is making any plat selling stuff so low. I can kill 1 mob and get more plat than i would buy all the low priced junk.

    I remember buying out an entire set of collection items that where <100p. Couldn't tell you how many i bought. could have been over 10k in items. i marked it all up and sold a couple items that probably more than doubled what i spent...
  2. Riou EQResource


    Well traders have like 100 slots and unless you constantly fill them all, something is better then nothing. As long as it's not taking the place of something useful to sell and you don't go to fill trader with low stuff all the time (like you wait till you get real items to also dump them too on trader) it should still be worthwhile.
  3. Usullx Lorekeeper

    This is not even considered Price Fixing.

    What happened to you is the same as someone buying a grandfather clock at a yard sale for $200 and selling it on Ebay for $250 later in the day. PEOPLE DO THIS ALL THE TIME.

    You seriously are going to complain about someone attempting to make 5K off your 100 potions you made? You should be glad someone bought your goods.
    Hiladdar likes this.
  4. Matari Augur

    This is price fixing at it's finest. Buying out the small players items to increase an items price is not the same as buy a single item and selling it for more. Before Kronos this wasn't an issue. The only reason this tatic works is because of the small bazaar population.
    Garshok likes this.
  5. EQgamer23 Elder

    Clearly you don't understand the definition of price fixing.

    You're actually about someone buying an item at a lower price, and re-selling it at a higher price... and you think the GMs should get involved?

    My recommendation to you (aside from perhaps buying an economics book) would be to continue to make and sell the item at a lower cost!! It seems you have a few possible outcomes to this:

    1. you make 200pp per item indefinitely - yay you.
    2. The person sees that you are going to consistently undercut him/her, and they re-price to 200pp, thus lowering the market price - yay you
    3. The person sees that you are going to consistently undercut him/her, and they leave the market to sell other items - yay you.
    Garshok, Motherlee and Mayfaire like this.
  6. Goth Augur



    lol i like playing with people who chronically undercut. Heck most items people buy at anypirce if they just happen to be looking that day.. but some people undercut you as soon as you lower your price...

    so like you could have them just undercut 5+ times before anyone would even look at the item. then i buy it once they have kicked them self on down so i can make a good profit.

    heck most of the time i dont even have to undercut. all i have to do is match them and they drop it even more..

    one thing i could not figure out is how some traders have the same item but at 2 different prices.

    that would be fun to do as i can play with the undercuters but then have most of my stock set at what i want to sell at.

    IDK bazaar is a fun game if you have tons of plat to just throw around.
  7. Kravitz Augur


    Yep I have no clue why people bother with putting any item worth below 10k on a trader. Why 10k? The price of a Krono on live servers is about 1100k so 10k is about 1% of that. This is about what 1pp is nowadays because of inflation of plat and how flooded the servers are with plat. Think if 10k as being what 1pp was when you first started playing EQ back in 1999.

    There is price fixing in EQ vs real world, although you can't price fix for more than 2-3 weeks at a time, a bit longer when an expansion rolls out. I price fix spell runes all the time when a expansion rolls out, making sure noone dares match my buyer vs how much I will sell them on trader, monopolizing the spell rune market for a month or two. You are wrong if you don't think so. The reasons are the ones I outlined earlier:

    1) archaic system that only allows you to sell 100 unique items or buy 200 items vs close 1 million items tradable items in the game, so less choice to sell or buy things

    2) holding your account hostage philosophy - while any player can be a trader/buyer you can't do 2 things at once i.e. keep a buyer/trader up 24/7 and still play the other aspects of the game on the same account, which leaves only a small minority of people using the bazaar system, which makes it easier to monopolize your product with less competition
  8. EQgamer23 Elder



    Exactly. People need to stop using the term "Price Fixing". Price fixing involves collusion of multiple parties on the same side of a market. People are right to say "Price Fixing is illegal" but the problem is, this isn't price fixing.

    Because there is no differentiation at all on items in the bazaar, think of them all like a commodities or the stock exchange, where each item is an individual stock. If you watch prices, and buy low, then sell high, you are playing the game correctly, not illegally.

    Seriously though, I know you don't like what's happening to you, but I haven't seen a single argument that demonstrates this person is doing anything wrong. It's not even a grey zone - it's pretty clear cut.
    Bigstomp and Garshok like this.
  9. Smallpox Augur

    Price Fixing
    Price fixing is a conspiracy between business competitors to set their prices to buy or sell goods or services at a certain price point. This benefits all businesses or individuals that are on the same side of the market and involved in the conspiracy, as prices are either set high, stabilized, discounted, or fixed.

    Reseller
    One that purchases goods or services with the intention of selling them rather than consuming or using them. This is usually done for profit (but could be resold at a loss)
    Motherlee and svann like this.
  10. Kravitz Augur

    Well multiple parties is relative cause I can have multiple traders and buyers, which I do, which allows me to easily price fix items. Now it wouldn't be price fixing if I was only allowed 1 trader or buyer per person physical person playing. In a way, I am multiple people (multiple accounts) controlling the price of specific items in the game.
  11. Smallpox Augur

    This would be true if you (and your other accounts) were the only ones in the game selling said item(s).
  12. Andronicus Elder

    This thread is kind of a dead end. The Original Poster unfortunately had no clue what he and/or she was talking about.

    Someone on the Bazaar bought his and/or her goods at his and/or her LOW price and resold them.

    Sounds sensible. The price OP placed was too low.
    Hiladdar likes this.
  13. Matari Augur

    Who are you trying to convince? Certainly not me and clearly others as well. The solution to this problem has already been suggested and hint it involves no GMs.
    Hiladdar likes this.
  14. svann Augur

    Thats like accusing Walmart of price fixing because they have 2 stores with the same prices.
  15. Matari Augur

    Yep, and Walmart goes around buying out a specific item from every retailer, just so they can charge more for it.
    Kravitz likes this.
  16. Bigstomp Augur

    Someone in the bazaar is more than welcome to buy all my goods and mark them up in price.
    I'd personally be very happy with that situation.
    Mintalie, Garshok and Elricvonclief like this.
  17. Battleaxe Augur

    While I generally won't bother I occasionally like playing with people who price gouge.

    I locate an item, say a collectable, that is offered by twoish players at a ridiculous price, say 50Kpp. I check to see which is the most abusive and what I have.

    I offer 3 of that item for 10Kpp. If I'm bought out I offer 4 at 8K. Then 10 at 6K. When they stop buying I move on to another item they are selling. I once was asked how many of a tradeskill item I had left after lowering my price 4 times....over 100 left.

    I also did this with Othni oocing my last 20 or so in PoK for 18K for a full set.
  18. Kravitz Augur


    Sorry I don't buy your junk, it has cooties:D
  19. Bigstomp Augur


    I de-cootied it, I promise.
  20. Kravitz Augur


    You can try that all you want, but people like me know what specific items to price gouge and price fix i.e. Kronos and spell runes, how are you going to farm them quick enough? This is why I stated you can price fix in this game to a certain time interval (2-3 weeks at a time). There is no way you can
    1) farm certain items quick enough
    2) not every player keeps up a trader/buyer (very small portion of the eq population does)
    3) restriction of 100 items you can sell (unless everyone suddenly decided to put up spell runes or Krono for sale)

    This makes it very easy to clean out the market for a set period of time and just price gouge/monopolize it.