Trading Would anyone find this villager pricing guide useful?

[rosiebelle]

(yes this is related to the Re-tail board)

As you well know there exists a process where villagers can be exchanged for a number of bells with some villagers ranking up more of a price than others (eg. Marina the octopus going for 40 Million bells and Papi the horse going for 500k). What I always find fustrating is that there is no page or board that is updated to current prices for people to have a basic guide to prices; so what I am proposing to do is put together a google docs that can be editted by the people of this board to the avergae sale price of a villager.

How this would work is I'd sort villagers out into popularity bands (eg. villagers like Mashal, Rosie, Ankha etc. would go into Popularity Rank A so would warn people that on average they'd expect higher prices for them than say villagers from Popularity Rank D - Becky, Greta, Hippeux etc.) and then let users add prices next to the name of the villager. However the big issue of exploitating the nature of google docs - in this case, restrictions would be in place so users could not just edit a price before an auction and refer to this doc to bump the price up to extortionate rates - which I have already forseen arising would be tackled by restricting users to only change the price if they could provide evidence of the final sale price of a villager by linking the board in the following column. Hence private PM sales would not be included.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqEjvODpnHBXdGV3dVJ4WFJRVG1UZDRmMTNGTjBYS2c&usp=sharing

This is just a brief draft of an idea and I've made a preview of what it would look like and would expand if I find that people would find this useful.

* please note that I am aware that villager pricing is ultimately subjective to the individual selling and I have seen evidence of Julian's going for two pieces of basic furniture and Olafs going for millions. I am interested in producing a guide that is meant to be used as a guideline rather than something that sets in stone what a villager is worth.

 

[kathyceeiscool]

yes! that'd be brilliant I see lots of villagers I like but I'm not sure how much to offer on them.

 

[Pandoria]

I requested to see it ^_^ I'd like to see it Personally, i just give villagers away, but it will be useful to those who sell their villagers!

 

[Elaine]

Hmm.. I feel like I could help with this except my prices are all like gamefaqs oriented. The amount people are willing to spend on a popular on this site is usually 1/5th of the price they sell over there. It would be hard to gauge. By putting the TBT price, you'd be potentially projecting a much lower price than average worth, but by doing the other sites, you might be implying a much higher and mostly unrealistic price for this website.

The way I get my prices is by searching the character name and seeing in the past how much they sold for, most recently, the constant rate, etc. Auctions are important too but will most likely be unrealistically pushed due to their nature.

Edit: Also, in order to be helpful it would probably assist that nature if the document was public.

 

[Aquadirt]

Prices shouldn't be set extraordinarily high. If they make it to that point, its one thing. But to have a "guide" that says, "This one's been sold for 80 mil, expect to pay/get that much", that's just not right.

 

[Elaine]

Prices shouldn't be set extraordinarily high. If they make it to that point, its one thing. But to have a "guide" that says, "This one's been sold for 80 mil, expect to pay/get that much", that's just not right.

"please note that I am aware that villager pricing is ultimately subjective to the individual selling and I have seen evidence of Julian's going for two pieces of basic furniture and Olafs going for millions. I am interested in producing a guide that is meant to be used as a guideline rather than something that sets in stone what a villager is worth." - OP.

 

[Aquadirt]

"please note that I am aware that villager pricing is ultimately subjective to the individual selling and I have seen evidence of Julian's going for two pieces of basic furniture and Olafs going for millions. I am interested in producing a guide that is meant to be used as a guideline rather than something that sets in stone what a villager is worth." - OP.

Quoting that doesn't change a thing. It's should be called a history if its going to be made, this has been sold for that. It's just not a good idea to try sticking something like this out there, because people will definitely try to take the absolute highest anyone has ever bought it for and make it their reality. Also, this doesn't belong in Re-Tail. It's an idea, not a sale/trade/auction.

 

[Draco]

i think a better idea is to place Ranking on townies thus by proxie you get value w/o stating it. And people get a good idea how wanted there townie is and make a number to support there pop based on that.

 

[DerpLordSnuffy]

YES PLEASE! Ive been wanting to know how much ruby would set me back because she is by far my favorite

 

[rosiebelle]

i think a better idea is to place Ranking on townies thus by proxie you get value w/o stating it. And people get a good idea how wanted there townie is and make a number to support there pop based on that.

This is an interesting concept; I'll look into it.

~

Thanks very much for all the feedback everyone - also Aqua I completely understand your concerns (eg. merely because Ankha was sold on reddit for 150m does not make her worth 150m for future buyers ~ I'm asking people to input a price, perhaps I'll set a 50m limit, that they've seen this villager go for recently that seems reasonable)

- - - Post Merge - - -

Hmm.. I feel like I could help with this except my prices are all like gamefaqs oriented. The amount people are willing to spend on a popular on this site is usually 1/5th of the price they sell over there. It would be hard to gauge. By putting the TBT price, you'd be potentially projecting a much lower price than average worth, but by doing the other sites, you might be implying a much higher and mostly unrealistic price for this website.

The way I get my prices is by searching the character name and seeing in the past how much they sold for, most recently, the constant rate, etc. Auctions are important too but will most likely be unrealistically pushed due to their nature.

Edit: Also, in order to be helpful it would probably assist that nature if the document was public.

Yes this document will become public once I have completed it; the current doc is merely a preview of unfinished work so people can get an idea of what it will look like and how it should be used

 

[MorsMortie]

I think a pricing guide could be a disastrous idea.

Value is entirely subjective, and it should remain that way. Making a public document that's easy for people to grasp and disseminate will only lead to inflation of popular villagers and a drought of unpopular ones.

The issue, as I see it;

1) Villager prices are spiking because money is easy to accrue, but not everyone will pursue the easiest money-gathering venues. Thus, a three-class economy emerges; top-tier dupers > power traders > non-traders/non-TTers/low-end turnip marketeers.
2) Villagers are primarily gained through alt/spare towns that reset and cycle through to popular villagers, giving a weak, but steady supply of super-rare ones and more common ones alike.
3) 16-villager cycle rule keeps supply in check from main towns.
4) Popular interest keeps supply in check because not everyone who gets an expensive villager will sell them.
5) Everyone is after a handful of villagers with about 20-30 that are also of interest to some and have occasional price spikes, as well.

To release a pricing guide does nothing good for anyone in this situation, however. Prices will go up because everyone will expect the highest of prices; everyone will want to beat that 150mil auction for Ankha, or that 38mil auction for Tangy, or expect the "average" of 30mil for Tangy to go higher as fewer are resetting their alt towns and fewer are cycling them out of their main towns (as we can expect to see in the coming months, I'm sure).

So what does the pricing guide do, exactly? As far as I can see, it only promotes inflation. It will not help cap inflation whatsoever, and that should really be the ultimate goal anyone hoping to impact the market should seek. Nobody is going to try and sell a villager and say "I'm setting the buyout for Tangy at 25mil, which is under the average price, because I wanna be nice. " Why? They're smart. They've found a pricing guide because they want their money's worth, not to be fair. There are nice people out there, sure. But most people are either looking for a good price, or are giving villagers away. A cut down the middle, of pricing fairly under the market average because of some pricing guide? That's unrealistic to expect.

So if there is a pricing guide, there will be only one group of people benefiting; sellers. And that's not good.

Now, that's not to say sellers shouldn't get good prices!

But if someone is happy to take 2mil for Tangy while others take 38mil for her, then why should the 2-mil Tangy person be made to feel ripped off by seeing a pricing guide that tells them they vastly underpriced?

After all, they were happy to accept that 2mil!

And they don't necessarily NEED 38mil, do they? Perhaps to compete in this inflating economy, but the best thing for this economy would be lower prices, which would lead to fairer access to all things for those who are in the lowest class of my proposed 3 classes.

But if a pricing guide is readily available, suddenly 2mil Tangy becomes 30mil minimum starting bid Tangy, and nobody with a less-than-duping/power-trading income will be able to compete. Meanwhile, this person who would've otherwise been fine to take 2mil is now sitting on 38mil and they don't know what to do with it.

So what do they do? Spend it too freely, paying too much to get items extra fast, or to outbid someone else in a villager auction. Inflation keeps happening, and even more rapidly because there is no check on lazy sellers - the lazy sellers, who help to slow down inflation by being ill-informed, are now instantly as savvy as the researching, active sellers - thanks to the price guide.

And so, villager prices keep soaring, and dreamies become more impossible for the little gal.

"But what about buyers? Shouldn't they know the value of what they're paying for?!"

But they do! A pricing guide is useless to buyers by default, because the buyer determines how much they're willing to spend on something. I, as a buyer, always have the authority to set my own price - a guide will never help me do anything but plan my savings, but that's not really that useful, now, is it? I should be saving up anyway!

So if, to me, Cole is worth 6mil, then I'll bid that much if I must, even if everyone else is only paying 2mil on average. Because what does an average price matter in an auction? It might curb bidding to 100k increments or something, sure, but at the end of the day, I'm not going to drop out of an auction because it crept over the average price - I'm going to keep pressing on, but because of the price guide that says he's worth 2mil, I'm going to feel a little ripped off.

So from my point of view, a pricing guide seems like a good idea, but I think it'll cause more problems than it solves.

 

[Soot Sprite]

I tried opening it and it said i had to have permission

 

[bat]

I honestly don't think its a good idea because no matter how subjective the guides may be people tend to look at price guides as law. Saw it happen on another site, people would go "WELL THE GUIDE SAYS THIS IS WORTH XXXX AMOUNT SO DOUBLE YOUR OFFER". Also if the "value" of a villager changes from person to person I can't see a guide being very helpful.

 

[Celestia]

Unnecessary.
I think if you want to auction your villagers, start an auction at 500k and let the magic happen. If you give it four days (from when they decide to move out until they are in boxes) and bump repeatedly, people will see what you have and start a bidding war until they reach their limit. Obviously this depends on popularity.
Someone auctioned off Marshal starting at 1mil. They ended up reaching 75mil before the end date.

Also there is always the option of a silent auction, where everyone can give you a their best price without trying to outbid others.

As for a straight sale, I think that's up to the seller. Set a price that seems fair. I bet the sale will turn into an auction if the villager is popular. >.<'

Anyways, I think this idea is unnecessary. Do what you want.

 

[Gingersnap]

I'd like to see how much Whitney goes for ^^

 

[Ponycorpse]

MorsMortie, that response was pure, unadulterated perfection. I agree wholeheartedly that attributing specific numerical worth to certain characters is only going to make prices skyrocket and leave a very bitter and overly competitive taste in everyone's mouths. Great in theory, not so great in practice.