Merchant Guild - Wanna Stabilize the Market??? OPEN FOR MORE INFO

Hi y'all! The market on WD is UNSTABLE. So a thought struck me, what if we started a Merchants' Guild that could keep prices stable, discourage undercutting, and support the other sellers on the TC?

I kicked this idea around to some of the folks in the Fox Coalition discord, and a few agreed to trying out a Merchants' Guild. Currently, @DarkDragonfly, @enbee, @Remmie, @OrangeNeon, @snail are all working on hashing this idea out. Most of us have interest in the amusement/toy market, but @DarkDragonfly and I are also pounding out a pup pricing formula that also includes special eyes, TIII bases, more strict stat guidelines, and other important stuff that hasn't been addressed in @Irn's really great thread on making the pup market more stable. 

Friends, its an association/group formed to promote the economic interests of its members as well as provide a network of mutual aid. 

Plenty! A couple of examples include guilds for sellers of toys/amusement, food, herbs/medicine, and even a stable CURRENCY CONVERSION RATE. We can also do so much more with guild types! We just have to have interest, and folks who want to be members of those guilds. 

There's plenty more benefits than just enforcement that go into guilds!:

• competition restriction through monopoly -- or at least getting a lot of people that sell a particular item to agree to a price/price range
• price regulation -- less undercutting; the more people who agree to a standard price, the more likely it is to start a domino effect on other people, and then it doesn't matter if some stray people undercut the market, because there would be too few "strays" undercutting to actually affect the market
• community
• customers within the guild? Got a pup auction thread that isn't gaining traction? You can share the link with your fellow guild members and you'll probably get more customers! People tend to buy from other users they already know/have a relationship with
• Exclusive invitations to events/raffles
• Maybe an insignia for membership ;)
• Discounts on services/goods from within the guild
• Artificial supply limits -- this alleviates the supply vs. demand inequalities. If there are fewer options, people are more likely to pay the standard (set) price for the item. But if they have more options, customers are more likely to browse the TC until the get a "better" deal

Anyway, if you have an interest (OR JUST HAVE QUESTIONS), throw a comment down below! We have a (shoddy) discord server up right now, too, if you wanna join. 

Sounds good to me! Having a (stable) general price range for things would lessen a lot of anxiety when posting trades, I’m always worried that prices will suddenly spike and I’ll miss out on a profit,

Hello,

I totally agree on everything, the market is extremely unstable and this would be great.

@Starling awesome! Here is an invite link if you would like to join the discord and learn more about this opportunity!

@AKPirate, those are all very valid concerns! As far as most of them go (especially the artificial supply limits) they general won't happen until we have a much larger membership pool! For right now, we're trying to hash out specifics of what the guild could be used for, fair market prices, and how to general make the discord flow smoothly! I'll still answer your questions as if we had the membership # needed to successfully implement some of these benefits!

Artificial Supply:

This is a great question! And to be completely honest, they're set in place to also keep the members who don't collect as much safe, too! Think of the supply limit as a range rather than a hard number. Lets say one member X can only explore/collect enough to do 2 bundles of 100 (let's say of toys, for ease) (which can also be split into 4 bundles of 50). Let's pretend that's the low end of the spectrum. Let's say another member Y explores enough to collect 4 bundles (of toys, too) of 100! We could set a range limit of 200 - 400! Additionally, rather than limiting specific items (which would be entirely too hard), a much easier regulation would be on item types. And obviously, the supply limits would absolutely change between different item categories (like food, because it expires in 10 days rather than never like toys).

While member Y may view this as a detriment for their business if they collect more than 4 bundles of 100 items, member X would see this as an advantage, because they are guaranteed at least some views on their trades, rather than being drowned out by other folks. As a member Y, however, you have a constant supply of sellable items, so while you may not be able to sell all of them at once, you do have a back stock :) Think of this like a grocery store! They don't put all of their stock on the shelves all at once; which is considered an artificial supply limit, too!

Members vs. Strays:

True, there are almost 40k WD players. However, I'm a toy dealer (LOL), and I noticed this weekend there were only 21 pages of bundles being sold, which means not even half of those players are selling on the TC. And this could probably be stated for most other markets (other than probably pups). I'm not saying 21 pages of members is easy, but it would certainly be easier to recruit than all 40K members on site! Of course, this could also be helped out by boosting this post, inviting other discord members, etc!

I think if we, as a small group, can prove the merchant guild can work, people would be more inclined to join, because they would at least be guaranteed some sort of stability, especially on the TC. 

Price Sets:

Another great question! Again, guilds typically deal in ranges! So while we have a supply limit range, there is also a price limit range to encourage (small) competition, but everyone still profits in a relatively similar way. Folks would be required to stay within any of the limits voted on by all guild members. Ranges are not set by an individual members or specific members, but would rather be voted on by folks who have specific interests in those sales items, prices, or by activity level. 

And as always, if you are also interested in discussing this more in-depth with the other members I shot this idea at, you are more than welcome to use the discord invite link I provided in my comment for Starling :)

@treestargarden,

Thank you for your thoughtful reviews of my questions! I appreciate your comments, and the clarification. That model seems very functional and beneficial! I had not thought of it like a grocery store.. that works well! I usually sell items individually, to appeal to questers or lower income players who need amusement items/food for their packs, but I am interested in starting to sell bundles.

Joining the Discord :). Thank you for the invite!

@AKPirate, omg I'm so glad you decided to join us! For further clarification, I want to emphasize that guilds are very specifically communist reactions to capitalism. Just because you are in a guild DOES NOT mean you cannot also sell to lower-income/newer players! Generally, we tend to use stuff like "EMERGENCY" or "NEWBIE" in front of our sales to separate who we're targeting as a customer. Also, I tend to believe low-income or newer players probably don't have 100+ wolf packs, so they generally don't need large bundles like the richer players lol

@HotTopical omg i'm so sorry I skipped over your comment ;-; yes, please join our discord if your interested in developing this project further!

I'm definitely interested! I'm not too knowledgable about WD (or other) markets but I'd be down to learn and help I think.

@Rappadapa perfect! There's a discord invite link in my second comment address to Starling that u can click on :)