The Unwritten Rules Of The Trade Market

Hi! I'm Cenpyla. I pretty much live in the Trade Market forum, being that I have a shop thread that I've been running for about three months now and I love browsing other people's shop threads. I don't think I need to explain the purpose of this thread any further. Although it's highly unlikely that writing these down will make any difference, I think it's worth writing down. So with the combined efforts of myself, @Verle, and @XavierEXE after posting the thread, I present to you,

The Unwritten Rules of the Trade Market
(Or at Least the Common Sense You Should Use.)
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Part 1: The General Unwritten Rules of the Trade Market.

1. Search up the average price of an item you're selling or buying has been sold for before! Just search it using the forum search bar and find other threads that have sold it before. It's tedious to find people who have sold it before and decide on an average price, but it makes negotiating prices a hell of a lot simpler.
2. Bump your thread if it disappears off the front page, or it will get lost in the endless sea of Trade Market threads forever. The Trade Market moves fast. But don't spam bumps.
3. Always include your time zone when arranging a time to meet up for a trade! Even better, if you already know the time zone of the person you're planning to trade with, convert your time into theirs and figure out what times you'll be online in their time zone. It takes two seconds. Here's the website I use: http://everytimezone.com/
4. Try not to misspell the names of items you're buying or selling, it's just confusing and careless.
5. Make sure you choose colors that work for all forum themes or tell people what theme to use for their shop.
6. Make the meet up place for trades somewhere everyone (or most everyone) has easy access to, like Detlas or Cinfras. It should also be somewhere with a Liquid Merchant, like Detlas or Cinfras. [Suggested by @Papyrus]

Part 2: The Unwritten Rules of Selling in the Trade Market.

1. It doesn't matter if you take a screenshot or write them down, you have to have the stats of the item(s) you're selling somewhere on the thread. You don't even have to crop it all fancy like some people do. They just gotta be there somewhere.
2. In addition to the stats, it's good to have the level minimum and rarity (and not to mention the name) of the item(s) you're selling! Some people don't know what they're looking for until they find something they want, and it's helpful just to put all the info out there for their convenience.
3. If you're auctioning an item, put an end date, starting price, minimum bid increase, and buyout price.
4. Clickbait saves lives. Use it.
5. Even though nobody ever reads it, it's always a good idea to write down basic rules and information for your shop. There are a few people who do read it, believe it or not.
6. Always tag people when they're outbid in an auction.
7. If you have multiple of the same item, number then so both the seller and buyer know which item is being talked about.
8. Include important ID's of items on the thread so people know what has certain max stats.

Part 3: The Unwritten Rules of Buying in the Trade Market.

1. Always read all of the information on shop and auction threads. You don't have to read it before you look at anything, but if you find something you want to buy or if you want to bid on an item, look at the rules and information before you embarrass yourself and/or make the shop owner's life just a little bit more difficult.
2. Unless there are prices for the items written down, offer a price FIRST if you want to buy it. And offer a reasonable price, as well.

If you think of any unwritten rules I should add, please tell me! Thank you for reading!​

 

Good old trade market, home of "bump" and "I'll bid 2LE on the Apoc". Nice guide, hopefully this'll help people in the thread-filled section.

 

Compliments on the thread, Cenpyla - I wish I'd seen a thread like this back when I started out ;3
And you shouldn't have bothered mentioning my name, I just gave you a few ideas, you did all the work~

 

For Part 2:
6. Always tag people when they are outbid in an auction.

Edit: Yaaaaaay

 

You forgot to mention the part where ashdalf can get anything he wants on the trade market for free.

 

But I sell horses...

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Also to add on to what you said about misspelling items,
Make sure you tag the right person on the trade market.
Don't rush and accidentally tag the wrong person.

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One more thing,
Sell in a place near an LE merchant.
That way people will be able to turn in their Liquefied Emeralds for EB.
So basically:
Detlas
Troms
Llevigar
Cinfras
Rodoroc

 

Make sure you choose colours that work for all forum themes or tell people what theme to use for their shop.
*cough*

 

you forgot the 'always accept bids that are higher than the previous, winning bid because you're a jewish asshole' rule

 

so what you're saying is I should title my shop "grian gets demoted and replaced with banana"

 

No, title it 'grian is shit he no dserv rakn i do' and then sell off an alazarin or libra or something lol

 

I've contributed like 1/8th of this thread c:

 

i guess this would be placed in the trade market instead?

 

Well no, because I'm not actually selling anything. x3 I would love to, though.

 

Nice thread! This is definitely, absolutely needed. I thank the contributors from the bottom of my heart <3

 

Bumping, is what I wouldn't count as a rule, mainly because it gets annoying sometimes, people will view the thread in their own time and can sometimes lead to a necro post.

 

How about:
If you have multiple of the same item, number then so both the seller and buyer know which item is being talked about.

And:
Include inportant IDs on the thread with the items, so people know that you're selling that max spell damage soul signal.

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@Cenpyla

 

For selling, you should add, "Don't sell in inconvenient places, and try to keep it in large cities(preferably ones with LE merchants)."

I say this because one time I was buying a guys Ghost Cap(y'know, the one for House of Twain) and the guy was selling in Nemract. I found it inconvenient since I didn't have a scroll for it.

 

Look at this this is how someone follows his own rules
here

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No hate intended but the yellow is not the best for the standart theme
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I ended up just adding you to the introductory paragraph, you've contributed a lot of good rules. Lmao

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I'm aware, but the aesthetic

lmfao

 

but guys like me just get eye cancer while trying to read the yellow text