Info: Live Auctions

[Dajoka]

Does anybody ever get sick of searching for an item for several days when you would rather be hunting, crafting, mining etc? I know there is a directory of stores on the forum, but most too many are storage units - or more often bought as investments (this should be obvious due to the incredible number of owned shops with nothing in them, or more frustrating, shops with items in htem not for sale. I see many people selling items on this forum, or taking bids, but would it not be fun, and productive to have auction events where people could purchase what they need live - It would also give retailers who do beauty, clothes, coloring, or texturizing an opportunity to show off their wares if you will. When these types of items are put into the regular option, people are unable to see why that basic pair of pants is 30 ped, when they can't see the color or texture put into it. If there is interest in participating in a live auction either as a seller, (of course you can place a reserve price) or a buyer, please respond to this thread. I am willing to host these events, and broker the auctions. I suggest they be held in he bars!

 

[Futurama]

Does anybody ever get sick of searching for an item for several days when you would rather be hunting, crafting, mining etc?

Live auctions would take a lot more time...


Auction, orders and forum buying/selling section is a lot more practical.

 

[soothsayer]

not a bad idea, but as there is already easyier option or more convenient options.

you could try doing a weekly one.

all you can do is give it a try. people would either have to disply there won item or a huge trust lvl would have to be build for people to trust you unless you provided collateral for the item of the reserved price.

 

[somon90]

That could put the suction house of hades to good use.

 

[soothsayer]

That could put the suction house of hades to good use.

not thought of that, that would be an ideal place to put it,

you would need a team and be highly organized, maybe it would good ieda for high end items, or for them who cant really afford teh auction costs.


you could have a website with registered items that are coming up fro each weekly auction event.

he he the more you talk about it or think about its not that bad an idea. Auction event lots or frantic bidding, you would not use chat and would have to wave so tha other would not know who they are bidding against, only when you shout number out you would know.

 

[mastermesh]

This is a fabulous idea.

This is a fantastic idea, and is something that's been thought about being done several times in the past. To date, I think MMA Bigshow is the only guy that's actually tried a live auction and that went horribly. However, I think it's a great idea, and is something that should be done. I've mentioned it before on several threads in the last year or two... Do some searches for MMA to read up how his went so you can learn from his mistakes and not let history repeat itself.

The auction house at Hades would be the ideal location. Go take a look at it if you have not visited there yet. It's a fairly large room with an auction stage. There is a real game auctioneer there, so people could visit the real in game auction while your auction is going on too... There's also a balcony in the back for those that can't fit down below if you get a lot of people coming to this. I would keep it in the trade channel if you do this... Also, you might get some apartment owners involved so that you can display the stuff that is up for bids for a week or more before the auction, giving people time to think about if they want to bid or not before hand. Listing the items here in entropia forum before hand would also be a good idea, and maybe even putting a start bid in and/or making it a silent auction on some items here in the forums... possibly even making only those that bid on the forum be eligible for bidding in game when you do the live auction. That way you don't have 40+ people trying to bid all at once. They'd have to reserve the right to bid in forums... of course, that would limit potential profits, so maybe not such a good idea?

I'd also like to see this tied in to some big time TT traders if possible. That way it gives you filler items to make the auction last more than 5 minutes... and you can interspace the big Markup items after every 5-10 small markup items... that way you get people coming to the auction and staying, and not just logging in and showing up in the last 5 minutes to bid on the big ticket items. The TT traders that I'm thinking that could help you would be Entropia Investment Fund, STTS, and possibly even some folks like myself that are always buying things at TT prices off of auctions or others.

You will need to keep very detailed transaction records, probably in the form of screen prints and an accompanying database, parts of which are public - very doable with google docs where one tab is published as webpage and the others are not published, etc. There is a lot of potential here. I would have done it myself a long while back if I had more real world time to invested in EU, but at the moment, I'm fairly busy on the weekends and work long hours so don't have too much real world time to invest in EU. However, I'd like to see this thing be a success if you do decide to do it.

As mentioned above, I'm always buying stuff at TT prices... so usually have stuff on hand that I could TT to you if you pay me TT at time of drop off and more later after you get the item sold (sort of like STTS and Dead Man's Plunder does)... and if the item does not sell, just look me up after the auction and I can buy it back at the TT price you paid me originally... or figure out if it's ok for you to TT it... or maybe you would want to hang on to it for another round in the auction later.... lots of potential here.

This idea WOULD be better than STTS and MORE PROFITABLE too potentially since STTS sells quite a few things through the in game auction, which eats away at the profits in the form of auction fees... and ties up peds for days...

In person to person trading auction like this there would be no auction fees to eat your profits. Just be sure to pay back the original item owners their share of the profits so that you don't get a bad reputation.

Also, you could potentially "hire" a few employees to announce the auction at various TPs such as PA and Twin when the actual auction is going on. These "employees" could also act as item brokers for you, where they could try selling certain items that were left over that did not sell on the streets near the TPs during the week, etc. Then they could bring profit shares back to you and you take your cut and feed back the profits to the original item owners, similar to what STTS agents do, but better since your employees could be both sellers and buyers instead of just buyers like STTS agents currently are.

Here's why this sort of thing would be a good idea:

Markup - Auction Fee						
0 PED - 0.5 PED			Markup		Taxes on shops	tax markup / auction markup
5 PED - 0.74 PED		+5	 	0.12 		0.162162162
10 PED - 0.99 PED		+10	 	0.25 		0.252525253
20 PED - 1.49 PED		+20	 	0.50 		0.33557047
30 PED - 1.97 PED		+30		 0.74 		0.375634518
50 PED - 2.93 PED		+50	 	1.22 		0.416382253
70 PED - 3.88 PED		+70	 	1.69 		0.43556701
100 PED - 5.26 PED		+100		 2.38 		0.452471483
150 PED - 7.47 PED		+150		 3.49 		0.467202142
200 PED - 9.58 PED		+200		 4.54 		0.473903967
300 PED - 13.53 PED		+300		 6.52 		0.481892092
400 PED - 17.15 PED		+400		 8.33 		0.485714286
500 PED - 20.47 PED		+500		 9.99 		0.488031265
700 PED - 26.39 PED		+700		 12.95 		0.49071618
1,000 PED - 33.77 PED		+1000		 16.64 		0.49274504
1,500 PED - 43.26 PED		+1500		 21.38 		0.494220989
2,000 PED - 50.37 PED		+2000		 24.94 		0.495135994
3,000 PED - 60.31 PED		+3000		 29.91 		0.495937655
5,000 PED - 71.67 PED		+5000		 35.59 		0.496581554
7,000 PED - 77.97 PED		+7000		 38.74 		0.496857766
10,000 PED - 83.48 PED		+10000		 41.49 		0.497005271
20,000 PED - 90.99 PED		+20000	 	45.25 		0.497307396
100,000 PED - 98.05 PED		+100000	 	48.78 		0.497501275
9,999,999 PED - 99.98 PED 	+9999999	 49.74 		0.4974995

Take a look at all of those fees involved in selling in shops/in game auction. If you can do it in person to person trading, there's more profit potential. Even if your live auction fee was just 50-60% of what the auction charges, you'd still be getting ahead, and selling at just about the cheapest way possible in game. Additionally, it'd be safer than the real in game auction since it guarantees you a fee regardless of whether or not there are bidders... with your live auction, if you paid TT price at the time of drop off and had the original item owners pay you back at TT price after the auction if item was not sold, you would be guaranteeing no loss if no one buys... additionally, if you made it so that there had to be a buy on each item before the next one is offered, you could move the low markup stuff as well as higher markup stuff and not just end up holding lots of low end stuff that does not sell since all the buyers would be there for the high end stuff... they'd buy the low markup stuff just to get them off of the auction so that you can move on to the high end stuff they are really there for... since there would be no taxes or in game auction fees, you could afford to sell the items cheaper than the market value most of the time, I suspect, and still be making money and getting profits back to your original owners of the items in the auctions.

 

[Justin Thyme]

We used to do this regularly in Ulmia Online. It can work as long as the Auctioneer can be trusted by the sellers. In uo there was not r/l $ tied to items so the risk of losing wasnt as bad. I can lend a hand as I have worked and held these in UO in the past. Msg me

 

[Justin Thyme]

This is an idea that could work on a weekly or b-weekly basis. The one thing that would be needed is that it be ran/sponsored/endorsed by a person or Society will an established/trusted reputation in game.
I will keep following this thread as due to the past something like this has been alot of fun in the above mentioned game.

 

[Dr.D.C.]

Like entropiabay.com i can host a space for a daily list about, so people can participate at the live auction if there are interesting items. IN RL it works in this way: you say that you will auction a Picasso tomorrow and who is interested to buy it will join the live auction.

Just let me know, i m open mind.