Suggestion: Make Auction House Fees Commensurate with Level / Rarity

[IBNobody]

In SL, you currently have to pay a base fee to list your items in the auction house. (The fee also scales a little based on the offering price.)

25c for an 11 hour listing
50c for a 1 day listing
100c for a 3 day listing

If your item doesn't sell, you are out that fee.

This is a problem. You get very little cash in-game, especially at lower levels. Most of the cash you get is from scrapping equipment that you cannot sell.

Instead of these base listing fees, why not scale these fees with the rarity and level of the item? A level 5 orange/uncommon shouldn't cost 100c to list for 3 days. It should cost something like 10c.

That's my 2c...

[Johnaudi]

Actually the fees are made only during the time and price, not the lvl... Second : you forgot the 3 hours tag

[IBNobody]

Actually the fees are made only during the time and price, not the lvl... Second : you forgot the 3 hours tag

No, I'm suggesting lowering the base cost based on level and duration and asking price rather than just duration and asking price.

[Arterra]

Why not make it simple... A percentage of the listing price you put.

Maybe make it more economical; have it scale so that after large amounts the percentage drops down a bit. so that let's say you put something for 100k, and the fee for tree days is 15%. that's actually a whopping 15k you might lose for a normal 100k item, making the loss of not selling quite bad. Once you reach 100k listing price, the percentage scales down, let's say to 8-10% of listing price, so as to maintain a sort of average min max fee no matter what you put.
It would also lead to items pricing around these scaling points, making it easier to stabilize prices.

[Zbooo]

Honestly I don't have an issue with this, myself with the money I make back from selling items a 100+ credit fee doesn't affect me.... It all depends on what you sell, if you sell the newest greens you should have no problem giving some money back to SL.

[Lysdexic]

Doing it by level would work, people would create lvl 1 chars with all their slots on that char.

A transition to % based would be great, but even the current setup keeps the junk somewhat out of the CS.

[IBNobody]

Doing it by level would work, people would create lvl 1 chars with all their slots on that char.

A transition to % based would be great, but even the current setup keeps the junk somewhat out of the CS.

Not character level, item level.

[Lysdexic]

Not character level, item level.

Missed that, my apologies.

But that would still make an imbalance on the twink items, IMHO.

[AOmonsta]

Hey back in beta days, minimum fee to post item was 100 credits. So be happy with this decrease.

[IBNobody]

Missed that, my apologies.

But that would still make an imbalance on the twink items, IMHO.

Howso?

If an uncommon (orange) level 6 item costs 10c base (plus % of asking price) to list for 3 days and the prices were reasonable (30-40c), it would be fairly balanced.

If a rare level 6 item cost the full 100c base (plus % of asking price), that would still fit with how things are today.

What I'd like to see is being able to list low level uncommons for a reasonable price, and low level chars being able to afford them.

[SssoulSsshine]

I love that the cost has gone down to list lower priced items...I posted an idea to have a "99-credit" auction house where things could be listed for 99 credits without a whopping fee. I don't want to just liquidate everything, especially when there is a good amount of stuff people might want.

The balance has swung the other way, however, now it is way TOO cheap to list expensive items.
There is (almost) no "penalty" for listing things at a very high price if they don't sell.
Using for example, a 3 day listing:
500 credits, cost 105, you can list 5 times before losing money
1000 credits, cost 110, you can list 9 times before losing money
2000 credits cost 120, you can list 17 times before losing money
5000 credits cost 150, you can list 33 times before losing money
10000 credits, cost 200, you can list 50 times before losing money

This encourages higher prices, and buying out the store and listing for 10X the price it should be, because if you sell one you are ahead of the game. And if it doesn't sell, well, you can try another 49 times before you are losing money.

I think somewhere in the 1000 - 2000 credit price is about right; it should cost somewhere between 8-10% of the selling price to list for 3 days if you don't sell it, not 2-3% like it currently is for items 5k-10k, and even less for really silly 100-500k items.

[bronislav84]

I support this thread and all attempts within to not make people poor on the fees.

[SssoulSsshine]

I support this thread and all attempts within to not make people poor on the fees.

I wholeheartedly agree that people shouldn't be made poor on the fees. However, there needs to be a reasonable cost to listing the items. If you can list an item 50 times for 3 days before the fees eat up the cost of the item, that's too cheap. It encourages people to vastly overprice the items.

If there is a reasonable, let's say 10% of the cost of the item, you will encourage people to be reasonable with the price they list things at. If you want to list 10 of the same items, you should have to sell one of them just to cover the cost of listing all 10. If you haven't priced them well enough to sell more than one out of the 10 items, you should lose money.

For 200 credits, it might be worth throwing a Grog Gun up for a ridiculous 10k.
You might (should!) think twice about such a silly gamble if it would cost you 1000 to list it for 10k.

[Ubernewber]

I wholeheartedly agree that people shouldn't be made poor on the fees. However, there needs to be a reasonable cost to listing the items. If you can list an item 50 times for 3 days before the fees eat up the cost of the item, that's too cheap. It encourages people to vastly overprice the items.

If there is a reasonable, let's say 10% of the cost of the item, you will encourage people to be reasonable with the price they list things at. If you want to list 10 of the same items, you should have to sell one of them just to cover the cost of listing all 10. If you haven't priced them well enough to sell more than one out of the 10 items, you should lose money.

For 200 credits, it might be worth throwing a Grog Gun up for a ridiculous 10k.
You might (should!) think twice about such a silly gamble if it would cost you 1000 to list it for 10k.

I agree the prices need to be lowered :/