Anyone having difficulty selling collectibles?

I’m glad I joined in time to be part of the space camp event ‘cause the stuff from that event makes up my permanent main lineup

One item I want to finish it off goes for too much tho, can’t trade for the compromise item I would take instead since nobody is willing to even trade that, can’t sell off my extras and I tried right after the event was new, it’s a mess

I’m saying this when I have a strawberry doll but that is NEVER leaving my inventory since it’s sentimental for me and my first anniversary with my ex (still besties)

As always, I avoid being part of the collectable hub or anything since I can imagine it having the most cliquey side of the community and that’s all I’ll say

Skill issue but wish I had more efficient art output

This is untradeable but just to vent I wish I could have a Tetris collectable because it’s my favorite video game lol
 
Ohh, interesting question. I think my take on this situation is that it's plausible that everyone has their lineups figured out, for the most part.

I think of it like this: There are so many new collectibles (at least 400, for sure?) and new events happening all the time, who would purchase older, middle of the road collectibles anymore? Why would they? Idk if that's an articulate answer, but having Ala Carte "[selling] random collectibles" threads is a lot less exciting than it was when there were less than 50 collectibles. It's definitely possible that a newer member who doesn't have certain cute collectibles or a long-time collector comes across a rare find to buy for the sake of collecting, but at that point they would most likely have a "[Looking For]" thread stating what they wanted. If you don't see a buying thread on the market, odds are nobody is really looking for it. There's really not that many people actively collecting at any given moment.

Just over time I think we've moved away from it being a Seller's market to a buyer's market. You're more likely to see transactions happening on a "[Looking For]" thread, and I would guess it's because most people already have all the collectibles they can afford.

I think if you ARE putting up a selling thread, you'll have more luck if you severely underprice your collectibles for sale. If it's still not selling, then it's still too expensive. I think that's just how this thing works and thats how the prices get regulated to the current market. Of course, not many ppl are willing to do that, naturally, so the collectibles just dont get sold

PS Thats why i think price ranges shouldnt be on the tier list
 
Trying to get TBT back in the economy from the richest members is probably a nonstarter. Regardless of the actions of individual users and how they accrued their TBT supply, I don't know that incentives to entice or goad members to spend is going to resolve much. Maybe they want to have enough to be able to afford art from people in the Museum Shop, maybe they want to have a decent supply saved up in case of "must-have" collectibles, maybe they want to buy stuff for friends. People have their reasons to save up TBT and it's a lot lower stakes and a lot less nefarious than the excessive corporate greed driving real world wealth divide. In any case, I feel like it would still end up in the hands of a few anyway, so I don't know that it would be effective. We also don't want to drive anyone off if we want TBT to stick around for another 20 years, so we don't want to form an unwelcome atmosphere for anyone.

I don't know how the TBT is generated on the backend or how the economy is maintained, but since we've had Bell Booms as part of a number of recent forum events, what if the amount we earn per post is increased permanently from its current state? Raise how much we earn per post and then future Bell Booms can be even boomier.

Another issue, as I think seliph has mentioned at another point when this issue has been brought up in the past, is that people are pretty set on the prices and aren't willing to lower them. Lower prices are more achievable, and thus more enticing, and ought to help bring the collective prices down some. Some people have lowered prices on some lower end things, and a few things have decreased, but for the most part, the prices that people expect for a lot of things have seemed to stay the same. Maybe everyone won't do it all at once, but if someone does it, someone else might see it's effective and lower their prices as well, and so on. It might not be as much as you want, maybe you can't get as much back as what you initially spent on it, but hey, it's money in your wallet at the end of the day.

All that aside, I joked a while back, I think during Camp Bell Tree last year, that there ought to be a forum event where we join Redd in a heist of Nook Inc.'s bank vault. What if, though? 🤔
 
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As always, I avoid being part of the collectable hub or anything since I can imagine it having the most cliquey side of the community and that’s all I’ll say
the collectible hub likes you and your art!!
I think if you ARE putting up a selling thread, you'll have more luck if you severely underprice your collectibles for sale. If it's still not selling, then it's still too expensive. I think that's just how this thing works and thats how the prices get regulated to the current market. Of course, not many ppl are willing to do that, naturally, so the collectibles just dont get sold

PS Thats why i think price ranges shouldnt be on the tier list
you're right but how are we to afford t1s and t2s when we all undercut ourselves, it's a vicious cycle
 
Something interesting to consider is maybe lots of people here have the collectibles they want already. Maybe that's why not many people are buying? Considering that this community typically are familiar faces.

Either that or prices are too high from what people can afford so collectibles just sit unsold. Maybe the prices on what collectibles currently go for in the tier list are not what they'd go for now and sellers refuse to go lower to avoid losing money on what they originally paid for them.

Those are my two guesses.
 
I do agree with many of the points made here. For me personally at this point, I have pretty much all the high priority collectibles I want, and can make heaps of cool lineups. There still are a decent couple of mid-tier collectibles I’d like but I just don’t have the tbt right now. I don’t know if that feeling is shared with newer members, but I do think that the frequent tbt events mean it’s pretty easy for newer members to accrue a decent amount of cool collectibles for themselves.

Most higher tier collectibles are just not going to be sold, because people can’t afford what people are asking for, or people don’t want to sell (which is absolutely fair, there’s no reason to sell if you love the collectible). I spent over three years hunting for a star wand just because it was my dream to have the wands and retro games collectibles I missed out on during the fair, but I ended up only being able to stop because I got insanely lucky and won the Christmas raffle. I’d still be looking now otherwise. I do appreciate that a bunch of older collectibles have been brought back recently, even if people aren’t willing to budge prices down as supply has increased, it’s helped many achieve long-lived collectible dreams.
 
Something interesting to consider is maybe lots of people here have the collectibles they want already. Maybe that's why not many people are buying? Considering that this community typically are familiar faces.

Either that or prices are too high from what people can afford so collectibles just sit unsold. Maybe the prices on what collectibles currently go for in the tier list are not what they'd go for now and sellers refuse to go lower to avoid losing money on what they originally paid for them.

Those are my two guesses.
That is another point to take into consideration. Too many collectibles, too few users, and not much use for some new collectibles (like a whole school of clownfish plushies or a storm of shooting star plushies). Normally, those who are interested into collectibles are the same users who have been more active than others. It’s more like we’re a very large family than an actual city. And collectibles are like real items. You can have as many items as you want in real life, but you can only use so many of them.
 
I think most has been said! Agree with a lot of comments, specifically Jacob's who verbalized well how I felt about this whole thing. Personally if I'm looking for something, I would look at the first two pages of the TBT market and if I can't find what I'm looking for, I just make a post lol.

It's difficult selling collectibles because of how difficult it is to acquire TBT nowadays, paired with high prices for older or more sought-out collectibles. Plus, I see many people who have a bit more TBT keeping it to themselves because they likely have everything they want (not that it's a bad thing to hoard TBT, do what you will as long as you earned it fair and square). I personally am not looking for anything major right now since I've pretty much achieved my dream collectibles already, and unless collectible prices drop significantly, there isn't anything I'm looking to buy from selling threads.

Imo, I think collectible prices should drop. Would be nice to see the market circulating more. I appreciate how staff has been kinda helping in a way that they're rerunning old collectibles for easier access to everyone. The more in circulation, the more prices will drop. Appreciated what they did during the Easter event, many higher-end eggs got distributed into the economy. :] Hope the same goes for many others (*cough* the OG wands *cough*).
 
Tbh I'm just not buying stuff because I assume a lot of collectibles will be coming back in events this year. If I don't get stuff I want from them I'll just save the TBT I make this year and buy them next year...
 
With my relatively surface-level knowledge of economics from my course (and my love of being a mediocre think tank), I wanted to chime in on this with some things. If anyone disagrees please feel free to politely criticise me!

This all seems like a classic issue of too little money chasing too many goods, its like the reverse of the inflation happening IRL. Everyones spending their bells on Red Envelopes, or cookies, or golden watering cans and- you get the picture. What this means is thousands of TBT funnelling away from the collectible market that is already struggling to stay afloat with its modern 'issues' (depending on how you view it) of collectibles being much more abundant these days and those at the top of the ladder not wanting to give away what they've got anymore. So even those middle tier purchases are off limits to most because they're forking out hundreds, potentially more, to be able to maximise their gains from other events - then it comes to the general market and it just seems too unimportant compared to getting those new items!

I think also a particular provocation right now is with the end of NL, people were spending hundreds of TBT each trying to complete the goals they had for their towns - this surely has to have had a temporary effect on the economy given how hard it can be to build up TBT but its definitely not the primary issue.

Additionally, I hold the idea that it could be that those active users who have the most TBT and collectibles are cautious about using that wealth because it is decreasing in real terms. The collectible market is wider now, so many things have decreased in value which in past years would've cost a TBT users life savings lol. I know Im not selling some of my collectibles because I would make a decent loss these days and those are only middle tier, just Imagine those blue candy havers.

Ultimately, even if my suggestion is unpopular, I believe that the TBT earning system needs a reworking that is more liberal. The old system worked fine when there were not too many collectibles and money was more abundant generally due to more activity and less expensive events but the fact of the matter is there are too many collectibles, each with their own significant TBT value, to go around all of these people who are primarily getting their TBT the same way users did 5-10 years ago. I have 5.5K -ish, and if I had that 7 years ago I would be decently well off but these days I could by 2 or 3 good collectibles and then that would be my wealth gone, my wealth that took a really long time to build up - now times that by however many regular users are going broke. I would suggest increasing the amount of TBT from lines of text posted, decreasing the cost of participating in events and perhaps building certain events around the concept of trading collectibles for TBT bells as a way to encourage growth and encourage wery users.
When there's a tier list that splits collectables over 1K TBT into five categories while most people don't even have more than 1K, that's when you know you need a more generous system. Otherwise things will get cheaper and cheaper and the market will collapse or things will get more and more expensive and.... haha..... the market will collapse.
 
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I'm definitely not in the camp of already having all the collectibles I want ahahaha, but I am unfortunately in the camp of being tbt broke. ;u; Excluding the dream collectibles I've achieved and obviously don't want to sell, my only notable wealth at the moment is in the form of the house set I won in the Farewell to New Leaf event (and a handful of other cheaper collectibles I'm willing to let go of), but I haven't had any luck finding anybody who
(a) wants to trade/sell collectibles I want and
(b) is in the market for a new house set,
let alone (c), someone in the market for a new house set and has a lot of tbt to spare for it.

Given how broke a lot of users are right now, I've been feeling like trading is the only effective way for less common/more pricey collectibles to move around the marketplace. But then comes the issue of whether or not Person A has anything you want in exchange for your Item B, aaand then we've just circled back to the reason currency was invented
 
This all seems like a classic issue of too little money chasing too many goods, its like the reverse of the inflation happening IRL. Everyones spending their bells on Red Envelopes, or cookies, or golden watering cans and- you get the picture. What this means is thousands of TBT funnelling away from the collectible market that is already struggling to stay afloat with its modern 'issues' (depending on how you view it) of collectibles being much more abundant these days and those at the top of the ladder not wanting to give away what they've got anymore. So even those middle tier purchases are off limits to most because they're forking out hundreds, potentially more, to be able to maximise their gains from other events - then it comes to the general market and it just seems too unimportant compared to getting those new items!
It seems rather ironic that back in 2014, there was too much TBT in circulation. Yes, the higher activity justifies this many Bells, but we also didn’t have these kinds of incentives. At least four different members made it to 100,000 TBT at one point, and the richest member on the forums besides these four had little over 30,000 TBT.

Additionally, I hold the idea that it could be that those active users who have the most TBT and collectibles are cautious about using that wealth because it is decreasing in real terms. The collectible market is wider now, so many things have decreased in value which in past years would've cost a TBT users life savings lol. I know Im not selling some of my collectibles because I would make a decent loss these days and those are only middle tier, just Imagine those blue candy havers.
That reminds me of back in my richer days, I used to buy collectibles for other members or buy collectibles just so others can make more TBT (even if I didn’t want the collectible). I don’t think I could do that anymore, even if I get back to 10k TBT or 20k TBT.

Ultimately, even if my suggestion is unpopular, I believe that the TBT earning system needs a reworking that is more liberal. The old system worked fine when there were not too many collectibles and money was more abundant generally due to more activity and less expensive events but the fact of the matter is there are too many collectibles, each with their own significant TBT value, to go around all of these people who are primarily getting their TBT the same way users did 5-10 years ago. I have 5.5K -ish, and if I had that 7 years ago I would be decently well off but these days I could by 2 or 3 good collectibles and then that would be my wealth gone, my wealth that took a really long time to build up - now times that by however many regular users are going broke. I would suggest increasing the amount of TBT from lines of text posted, decreasing the cost of participating in events and perhaps building certain events around the concept of trading collectibles for TBT bells as a way to encourage growth and encourage wery users.
When there's a tier list that splits collectables over 1K TBT into five categories while most people don't even have more than 1K, that's when you know you need a more generous system. Otherwise things will get cheaper and cheaper and the market will collapse or things will get more and more expensive and.... haha..... the market will collapse.
The early modern-era TBT economy was much different, and it goes further than more Bells and less collectibles. As what @Justin said years ago, part of the reason why members were a lot richer when New Leaf came out was because we had Welcome Bells, which paid members for account creation. At the start, they were paid nearly 1,000 TBT, but it progressively went downwards. But people have abused this system by creating alternative accounts and giving away their Bells to their main accounts, which is why the system was revoked. The Welcome Bells was why we had so many TBT in the first place. Another commonly brought-up feature was the interest system, which has been abused, and only benefitted the much richer members. In fact, there were a whole bunch of other ways to make TBT Bells back then, only for these features to be revoked because of people abusing the systems beyond moderator control. Without these systems, new TBT can only be generated by posting.

Since late 2015, they did have more events that encouraged users to spend more TBT to participate (like that Red Envelope thing you mentioned), which pulled more TBT out of circulation. There was also a time where a couple users got fined for exploiting the username change glitch where they could reconfigure the same username change add-on for free username changes, which not only took out more Bells, but it sent a couple users into the negatives. So it’s like after the great rise in TBT Bell generation, there came the great fall of TBT into circulation. It’s not just the decreasing site activity resulting from a lack of new AC game.

Another thing that was hot during 2013-2015 was Club Nintendo codes, which users spent TBT to collect Club Nintendo codes, which gave them more currency for special items from Club Nintendo. After it shut down in 2015, selling codes was no longer a thing on TBT. So you could only make Bells from collectibles, art, AC items and villagers, and Pokémon (and posting too). And in the case of art, even art shops are charging for less these days. My 500 TBT to 1,000 TBT payments to get the art I want is more generous in comparison to what art shops are asking for these days, if they are asking for TBT.
 
I mean I guess if it's such a huge issue with some of the top bell hoarders who got there by unsavory means, maybe doing something like how some giftcards start to lose value/accrue late fees could entice others/them to use bells more often. I don't know, I've never been big on collectibles.

The forum is also having a lull and it happened faster than NL mostly because of how Nintendo handled NH. I am sure that has something to do with it. Most users interested in collectibles are from the older times. Newer people who join will be at a disadvantage. If they are interested in this scene.

I know a lot of newcomers who joined events, particularly the space event, and then left because they didn't realize how intense it was going to be. Each event that has came after the other seems to have upped the ante and while they are fun, I can see that being unwelcoming to someone who is new.

I think that's worth considering to. If the forum makes someone feel like an outsider due to these kind of issues it's only a matter of time until the forum declines too much that it won't be able to come back.
 
I think TBT should morph its collectible market into something ala Neopets/Animal Jam/etc. Not trolling. It’s becoming that, IMO. Those games have their richest users for sure, but there’s at least a starting point for new users. Could be the same for collectibles.
 
I wouldn’t mind seeing the amount of tbt you earn for posting get a buff. Also just my personal opinion but I feel like too many areas of the forum don’t award bells for posting in (doesn’t help that these tend to be the areas/threads I post in most frequently, hahaha)
 
i second a lot of what’s been said already. i do think it would help things if we got more tbt per posts, even in bell boom periods it’s hard to make enough bells without completely spamming the forum.

there needs to be more tbt circulating and also (controversial bc i’ve also used them) maybe people should stop using shops? it aggregates wealth and collectibles which is not making any of this better lol
 
I think something could be done about the shop, since the tbt / event currency that goes into it just gets sent to the void. It would be cool if all items could be sold back and their stock would increase by that many, if that makes sense. That way there would still be plenty of common / low tier collectibles available for people to buy and we wouldn't have as much trouble getting rid of them. I'm not entirely sure how the collectible sellback values would be determined, though, especially since their current values are subjective...
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there ought to be a forum event where we join Redd in a heist of Nook Inc.'s bank vault.
I would 100% be in on that! Jingle will be next. >:D
 
I agree with a lot of points here. As someone who runs a collectible shop, I have been noticing this trend for a couple of years or so and what kept my shop going for a bit was the Store Credit system I offered. Due to no guarantees covering such a system, I didn’t feel right keeping it in case something happened (didn’t want anyone getting screwed over even if there was clear disclosure). I then based it on solely TBT and trade-ins with credit for just that transaction. I try to retain flexibility because of the TBT shortage that has been going on by offering TBT in change and continuing to take in most collectibles with no restriction on quantity so I can continue helping others how I can. I can say though that the TBT shortage has gotten a whole lot worse where even keeping a till for change is difficult (what you see is all I got lol). I think the only solutions to the problem at hand is to reform how TBT is earned (including bringing back old methods with very heavy restrictions like welcome bells) or simply recognize that pure TBT is more valuable now so prices need to adjust accordingly across the board (these days, 10K is an absolute fortune, it is hard to get even to 5K now). I would support either approach because I like being able to help others with my shop and continuing to be flexible however I can. Collectible trading should be a fun part of our community and be part of what distinguishes our community apart from other communities out there. It also part of the reason why our community currency has value in multiple avenues.
 
Okay, reading this thread I can see some great points being made about this whole problem. I’m worried, though… Since every solution to a problem comes with consequences, I feel like if something changes, people are going to be greedy and abuse the bell system all over again... We're in this current state for a reason.
 
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