Auctions
Auctions
General
There are two ways to auction those items you have no need for: the message board and the NPC auctioneer. There are benefits and drawbacks to either method.
Both methods of auctioning have the same benefit, you can get money for an item you have no use for. Rather than throw the item in the trash to be lost forever, find out if anyone needs it. Place the item up for auction.
It is important to note: You can not use both auction methods for the same item. If you place an item on the NPC Auctioneer then it is not available to be auctioned on the board. You can announce the auction on the board but no bids or deals should be accepted. When using the Auctioneer, let him manage things for you. He does a great job.
Message Board
These are some suggestions for placing items for auction in the forum that should help you get the best price for your items.
1) Consider placing your items on your vendor or the Auctioneer in the Brit bank first, Especially the smaller items that are not worth a lot. You have quite a bit of control over how the item sells on the auctioneer, sometimes more than here in the forum. You will also find that the prices you get that way are usually very good, Usually because the auctioneer is used much more than this forum & by more players. If you have one of those REALLY SPECIAL high end items, or a list of several VERY GOOD items, they may do a bit better here.
2) PLEASE describe all items FULLY!! This means a complete description of ALL properties, age, repair status, # & type of magic charges, color, if it has been used at all or not & whatever else you can come up with. (Please ID ALL magic items first!) This applies to any item placed here as well as on the auctioneer in the Brit Bank! The better your item is described, the better chance you have of selling it for a good price.
3) PLEASE keep the number of items you are selling in any one thread to no more than about 8-10, and number each item separately on single lines. If you get too many items in one thread it will become confusing and you WILL NOT get good money for all your items. Sell those really really great items separately.
4) PLEASE know what the item is worth on THIS Shard!! before you set any sort of a starting bid. Just because you can get 850K for the Silver Ubber Club of Whacking on OSI does not mean that that is what it is worth here. Check out past auctions & talk to various players to get a fair market value if you have no idea, and also remember that the numbers you get are usually on the high end. The statement "I saw one of those sell for 250,000 3 months ago" does not always mean that that is what they are worth right now.
5) PLEASE PLEASE! Set a REASONABLE starting price/bid IF you feel you must set one. DO NOT start the item out at what you think the most it is worth. If you do, you will get only 1 mayber 2 bids, if any. An auction is a way of selling an item for what is the actual fair market value at the current time. You will do considerably better by starting the item for 50-60% (or even less) of what you feel it is worth and let the bidders push it up. The more people you can get interested in your item and to place even 1 bid on it, the more will come back and bid just a little higher because they may get it for the extra 5K. If you go back and check the auctions on this board that have sold well, you will see that most have a lot of bidding going on due to a low start price and you will see that is really how the best prices are also obtained. Also note that some of those items went for more than what they were actually worth solely because of players trying to outbid each other.
6) ALWAYS Set a specific ending rule/time for the auction. Remember that this shard is played on from all timezones around the world and not everyone will know what '3pm Saturday CST' means, as well everyone sees a different posted time on their computer screen. Also, not everyone will see the auction in the next 24 hours. What seems to work best is to close the auction at a set period after the last bid placed. (Most common are 24 or 48 hours). This ype of closure actually promotes the bids to get in early & often as everyone is hoping that theirs is the one that will cause everyone else to drop out, and allow players to earn a little extra gold for that item they just gotta have. If you set a fixed time for the auction to end (e.g. 3pm Saturday) you are promoting everyone waiting until 2:59 to place a single lowball bid. The results from this are that you will NOT get the best return for your item, and some players will miss the cutoff due to time zone miscalculations..
7) Once the item is placed here, do not turn around and place it on the auctioneer in game or sell it privately. This is not fair to the players that bid on your item. And I will guarantee you that the players that bid here WILL note that it was done and ignore your future items. If someone contacts you ingame with an offer, ask them to place it on the board. You will do better in the long run that way and you will probably find out that the person that was bidding here on the board will better their offer anyway. If there are NO bids on your item after 48 hours, then close the auction off. If there IS a bid on it, YOU HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO HONOR IT!! No matter what anyone else has offered you elsewhere.
8) When the auction is ended. Declare it so. And make arrangements with the winning bidder to get the item to them ASAP. You can drop the item off to them at their place in a .owned bag for gold return via L&F, or you can meet them in game, or you can receive a .owned bag at your place with the gold that you would place the item into & return via the Lost & Found.
And as a final note: Please remember that you win some and you lose some. By this I mean that there are times that that great item will not sell for what you thought it was worth, but there are also going to be other times that that little item goes for way too much. Overall if you are fair & generous in your dealings on this shard, you will be treated even more so.
It is after all The World of Dreams!!
Min. Bid
On some items up for auction you may see a minimum bid. This practice should be used sparingly if at all. Asking for a minimum bid tells other players what you want for the item. This is by no means absolute! Bidders are free to offer a lower amount if no one has met the minimum bid. It is then up to the seller to decide to accept that bid or not.
If you decide a minimum bid is necessary for an item keep a few things in mind:
- Demand: Is this item going to be in high demand to a large or small group of players?
- Magics on the item: Is this a powerful item or weak item? Does the item have a charged effect? Is there a skill bonus? Is it silver? Is it a "slayer" weapon?
- How much would you pay for this: Decide how much you would pay for the item and then take off a percentage. Just because you would pay 50K for an item doesn't mean everyone will. Maybe you should ask for 25K for the item and let people bid what they can afford.
Remember, the higher you set a minimum bid the more people you possibly exclude from the bidding. On most items it isn't even necessary to ask for a minimum bid as the bidding war for the item can easily surpass your hopes.
Benefits
Message board auctioning does have a few benefits. First, you can see who is interested in an item. You can easily see what the current bid is on an item. If you are looking for something it is easy to see what is being offered and what the current bid is. You can decide at that time if you are capable of bidding.
Another nice thing is you can look though all of the posts and see what types of items went for how much. This is useful if you want to make use of a minumum bid or want to know how much you might expect to get. This also helps you determine how rare a particular item might be.
Most of the players visit the message board at least once a day, if not more. The wealthy players can often be found bidding on those items they need to round out their character.
No commissions! If you make a deal with a player for an item you get 100% of the sale price (unless it is a group auction).
Drawbacks
You have to keep track of things. You decide when the auction ends and who wins the bid. It is your responsibility to make sure the player gets the item and you get the gold for the item. If you have a large number of items to auction it may be difficult to keep track of them all. You have to set up the delivery and payment for items with the other players.
NPC Auctioneer
The NPC Auctioneer makes life much easier when it comes to running the auctions. You can find him in the Brit Bank.
Selling
The auctioneer has 5 categories - weapons, armor, clothing, decorative, and other. To put an item up for sale, drop it on the auctioneer. He'll ask you what category you want to place it in (You can only have 3 items for sale in each category at a time, and there can only be 150 items in each category at a time.) If the item is a backpack, bag, pouch, etc, you'll get to name the item at this point (same as player merchants.) It'll then ask you for a minimum bid and how long the auction should last (1-7 days.)
You can no longer place items with an owner's mark up for sale.
When you place an item up for auction, you can (optionally) enter up to 4 lines of text (40 character each) describing the item. This description will appear on the item's selling page. Enter a blank line to end.
There's now a minimum price to create an auction. When you place an item up for bid, you need to have 10% of the item's auction price available in your account, up to a maximum of 100 gold. If the item does not sell, this amount will be charged to your account. If the item is sold, then only the normal 10% of the selling fee is taken. This is to try to prevent the auctioneer from being clogged up with worthless items with outrageously high prices. If you want a mimimum price on an item, that's what merchants are for.
You can now remove an item you've placed up for auction if no one has bid on it. The option will replace the "Bid on item" button.
Xanola's Warning I have not yet had time to confirm all of this information, so some of it may be out of date
Bidding
Before you can bid on an item, you'll have to have enough cash in the auctioneer's account to cover it (Its strictly a cash-up-front operation.) When you place a bid, that money remains in your account, but is unavailable (so, if you 60k in your account and are the high bidder on 2 items at 10k each, you'll only have 40k of your deposit available to bid on other items or withdraw.) Drop money on the auctioneer to add it to your account. Say "status" to the auctioneer to find out how much money you have in your account and how much is available. To remove money from your account, say "collect". If you're the high bidder on any items, the money to cover those bids will be unavailable.
To see what's up for auction, say "buy" to the auctioneer. You can then select a category and browse through all the items. To place a bid on an item, press the bid button and enter your maximum bid. This won't be the new minimum bid for the item - the minimum will be the minimum that it was before, but the extra will be used to cover future bids by other players. You can add more money to your maximum bid at any time, but you can not remove money from your max bid.
Minimum bid increments have been added to the auctioneer, dependant on the current price: If the price is less than 100 gold, the minimum increment remains 1 gold Between 100 and 999 gold, the minimum bid increment is 10 Between 1000 and 9,999 gold - 100 Above 10,000 - 1000 gold
If the current bid on an item is 2K and you bid 10K the new minimum bid is 2100 gold. If someone else then bids 8k, your preexisting 10k bid will be higher than that already, bringing the new minimum bid to 8100 gold with you still as the highest bidder. When someone bids on an item right when its about to close, the auction deadline will be extended to 10 minutes.
When the auction finally closes, the item will be placed in the winner's bankbox The final price of the auction will be deducted from the buyer's auctioneer account and placed in the seller's account (minus a 10% fee.) If there were no bids, the item will go into the seller's bankbox and they'll be charged 50 gold for the listing.
Benefits
The greatest benefit of the NPC auctioneer is that you can place items up for auction and don't have to worry about anything else. The auctioneer keeps track of the current bid, who has it, and delivery.
If you say "Status" to the auctioneer you'll now receive a menu with 3 options: Check items you've bid on, Check items you're selling, and view transaction log.
Check items you've bid on: If there are any items on which you are the current high bidder, this option will display them, regardless of what auction category they're in.
Check items you're selling: If there are any items you have up for sale, this option will display them, regardless of what auction category they're in.
View transaction log: When an auction that you're involved in ends, a message about the results of that auction will be added (The messages are along the lines of "You bought a widget for 5000 gold", "You sold a gadget for 2500 gold", "The auction for your doo-dad ended with no bidders", and so on) This option will display all such messages from the last time you checked, then erases the log.
Drawbacks
First off, if bidding on an item you don't know who else is bidding. You also can't see how much they are willing to pay for an item. This makes it a little difficult to guarantee you will get the item.
Second, as a seller you lose 10% of the purchase price up to 100 gold on an item someone has won. If the item does not sell you lose 50 gold due to listing fees.
