Marketing Ethics?

[Mr. Vee]

Wondering if any of you have any self-imposed marketing standards that probably cost you more than you need to spend, but make you feel better in whatever way an arbitrary principle relating to the buying and selling of virtual goods with virtual currency might. For instance, I've always held to the principle of never bidding in such a way that I know the seller is taking a loss. So no 1 inf bids, no bids below going vendor price, no bids below cost to craft, etc. I figure the person took the time to list the thing they might as well make a profit even if they were just putting it up to seed/help and don't need the money. To that rule, which I used on live, I've recently added the principle of always paying 100k for converters. I figure if I'm going to be making hundreds of millions using them the least I can do is my part to maintain the inf/merit standard.

 

I feel like just from the sheer volume of cheap things put up with no profit sought that there are tons of folks out there following their own principles, and my hope in starting the thread is that there are some that are guano-insane we can hear about. Mine are pretty mild. I want to hear the crazy.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I can't say I do. I spend more than I need to out of laziness and a desire for speed but I don't list items for less than I'm willing to receive and I expect others to do the same.

[AboveTheChemist]

I don't bid super low (like 5 inf) as a rule, but because of the display bug I'll put in a 5 inf bid just so I can see an accurate price history and then delete that bid when I am done. That being said, sometimes those 5 inf bids fill in the short time I have them up and that doesn't bother me in the least. As Adeon said, people are responsible for their own listing prices. Other than that my only principle is to earn as much as I can while spending as little as I can, and I'm mostly successful at that.

[Shinobu]

 

For the most part I don't assign any morality to what I do on the market; people are responsible for what they spend and what they list something to sell for.  That said, I usually bid 5,000 influence for uncommon and common salvage, but mostly because I don't want to waste time waiting for orders to fill.  I also usually bid 10,000 per uncommon recipe, but again I'm not checking to see if that's a better than vendor price, I just know that it's more than many people bid for the least useful uncommon recipes and therefore my orders will fill relatively quickly.

 

I think during Live I had a few things that felt morally questionable to me -- extreme flipping, cornering the market on certain types of salvage or IOs, etc.  But only slightly questionable, because the people they inconvenienced the most were those who absolutely had to buy things Right Now and couldn't wait 24 hours (or longer) for a bid to fill.  I've never felt that the market owed you a fair price for something you want to buy immediately -- Buy It Now prices are usually at a premium and that makes sense to me.  And those sorts of extreme flipping and market cornering tricks are much harder to pull off these days.

 

I do tend to feel morally superior when I think about what I do in terms of supplying the market so that people can buy what they need.  But I don't do what I do because of any moral imperative, but because it makes money.  It just feels good to also convince myself that I'm doing the right thing while I'm making my money.  ;)

 

 

[Mr. Vee]

I did say ethics, certainly no moral imperatives operative for me. i don't check the vendor prices i just know what they tend to be from vendoring so many recipes. and really with my silly principles i'm probably worse than most because i vendor so many recipes rather than throw them up for others. but time's almost always my major concern.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I'm not going to claim I'm any sort of altruist, but I think for the most part the market mechanism keeps my behavior in line with norms.  I tend to keep to three basic rules:

 

1. Have fun

2. Make inf

3. Don't cause any harm

 

I craft shovels and picks for the spines/fire farmers.  I make inf, they get their tools, we all have fun.

 

I make markets, and am often the highest outstanding bidder and the lowest outstanding offer.  I provide liquidity, people can buy it now or sell it now, I make inf, we all have fun.

 

What I do not do is manipulate markets or "paint the tape" in order to influence others.  First, it's kind of a dick move, and second, it's not easy to make inf that way.

 

What I do NOT do is pay a fair price for everything I bid for.  I get happiest when I realize that I can throw a bunch of lowball bids out there because someone is wrongfully assuming that the highest outstanding bid is a good one.  I actually view that as providing a valuable lesson:  NEVER OFFER AT A PRICE LESS THAN YOU ARE WILLING TO SELL AT.    You can have 1,000 alts per server, and each alt has 100+ market slots.  Market slots are cheap (unlike Live) so use them to offer your goods at an acceptable level.  How quickly they sell is up to you and the vagaries of the market.  If you offer at 1 inf, be prepared to sell at 1 inf.

 

Oh yeah, I also always post Crushing Impacts and Thunderstrikes for sale, even if I would make more inf by rerolling them.  I figure they are useful to someone.

[DSorrow]

I can't say I do. I spend more than I need to out of laziness and a desire for speed but I don't list items for less than I'm willing to receive and I expect others to do the same.

 

This. Any sub 1 million items I usually list for 1 inf because it doesn't matter to me at all whether I get 100k, 500k or 1mil and sometimes I buy items for a premium because I want it now. I figure that cancels out any "evil" I'd be doing by putting in lowball bids or high listings for items with little supply.