It's not really "consignment" is it?

[McBain]

I've had this on my mind for a while. When you sell something in CS, you pay a price up front depending on how much it costs and the duration of the listing, but if the item doesn't sell, you don't get that money back. Traditionally, when an item is sold on consignment, the seller only takes his percentage when the item is sold. Sort of like how Ebay works. If your item doesn't sell, you don't get charged any of the fees. That's kind of the whole point of consignment: if no sale is made, neither party is in debt to the other.

So....how does the CS system in PL/SL make sense for the seller? And why don't you get your money back if the item doesn't sell? IMHO it should be considered a returnable deposit.

Just thoughts that were on my mind grapes.

[Moogerfooger]

I don't know about you, but you get charged an insertion fee on eBay, regardless of whether your item sells or not. It's less than the final percentage cut eBay gets if your item sells, but it's still (or used to be) always there. Or at least the last time I sold something.

But overall, yeah you have a good point. Most true consignment shops only get a cut if the item sells.

[WoundedEagle]

I don't know about you, but you get charged an insertion fee on eBay, regardless of whether your item sells or not. It's less than the final percentage cut eBay gets if your item sells, but it's still (or used to be) always there. Or at least the last time I sold something.

But overall, yeah you have a good point. Most true consignment shops only get a cut if the item sells.
But at least we know where the money goes pm eBay... All that gold just disappears. What is the solution?

[Moogerfooger]

It serves as a deterrent from everyone listing hundreds of relatively useless junk items....I've seen systems in other games where there is no listing fee unless your item sells like McB suggested....in some ways I liked it, because you only paid a percentage (5%) if it sold...but you also had to wade through dozens of pages of junk sometimes because you could sit there and list 100 trash items for low prices.

I thought maybe a possible solution is to have a minimum listing price, like 1000g, for any item...but charge a 5% flat listing rate if it sells. But then you just get people listing items worth 200g for 1000g.

[Doubletime]

I like the current system for exactly the reason Moog mentions. It prevents people from listing items that really have little to no value and from clogging up CS. It also is a deterent from having people list items in CS at inflated prices on a toon to allow alts to then attempt to trade those items in-game for less than the CS price. Not that people would do such a thing. :dread:

While it doesn't prevent it under the current system, it at least creates a disincentive because of the escalating cost of such listings based on price and the fact it is paid up front.

[McBain]

hmm, I haven't sold anything on Ebay in quite a while, but I'm fairly certain listings were free the last time I did. Is the insertion fee a new-ish thing? I remember that there were certain "premium" listing options that cost money, but basic listings didn't cost anything up front.

Good points though. Maybe the cost deters people a little, but there are still plenty of trash items listed in CS, although perhaps not as many as there would be otherwise. I'm not sure that would bother me though. It may help to drum up more competitiveness in the market and lower prices (good for buyers obviously, not as much for sellers). I think overall the market tends to regulate itself. Nobody is buying trash items through CS, and if they do, the profit margin has to be so small for the seller that it's probably just about equal to liquidating it. You can also easily use the filters when you're looking to buy something to hide all the trash stuff anyway.

I think the biggest junk deterrent factor is the limited selling slots, rather than the listing price. Since, by default, each player can only sell one item at a time, most players won't clog that slot by attempting to sell trash items. Likewise, most people won't spend platinum for additional slots just so they can list all their junk items. Sure, there would be always be exceptions to the rule, since there are plenty of folks out there who just don't have any common sense when it comes to selling, but overall I don't think it would change much from the CS we see today.