Price suggestion suggestions

[Brown]

More questions than suggestions, I'm wondering why some things are the way they are when it comes to pricing an item, namely unusuals.

 

Why are buy orders only usable for qualifying sales if they were made prior to suggesting? Why aren't new buy orders considered when rationalizing an old sale and potentially new price?

I'm looking at this suggestion https://backpack.tf/suggestion/604bb8288ab1611bbf31c5c6

A 500 key drop, one sale, uncharacteristically low for the hat. There's a buy order for 50 keys more than said sale, made a month after the suggestion was created, a month before it passed. The buy order is still up.

When a sale is argued to be low, and a new buy order almost guarantees that any future sales will be much higher, wouldn't it, I would think, be inaccurate to suggest it's value at a price it is almost guaranteed to never sell at? If the goal is accuracy, why wouldn't you want to address any shifts in market before admitting a new suggested value, and in the case of one-sale suggestions, why wouldn't one or multiple new buy orders matter just as much as the initial sale

 

I found this suggestion with a related comment on buy orders, doesn't really help me https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5b15768e44325a5c6d075852

 

I guess my problem is that buy orders usually operate regardless of any newly created suggestions. In my mind at least, a buy order's relevance to any price update, and- sometimes therefore- whether that price update occurs or not, is entirely dependent on when the suggestion is opened. Some suggestions open before a buy order can invalidate the concerning sale, and eventually pass. Some open after the fact, and don't. In the best case scenario, there would be a waiting period between sales and suggesting, I couldn't say how long, but long enough to give time for buy orders to form, or new sales to occur without any influence from a controversial suggestion. Looking at the Hallows' Hatte suggestion, there was a 3 day period between the sale and suggestion being created, and so the 350 buyer who came a month later was obviously ignored.

 

I don't know if there's a feature to be implemented here, my first idea would be a flag for newly sold hats, and a suggestion grace period/cooldown of some sorts to follow. Idk.

 

"buy order" count: 11

"suggestion" count: 16

[Norah]

Suggestion prices don't so much show what something is objectively worth, purely what it <has> sold for. What a person extrapolates from that information is their own biz, any trader would see that price and know regardless of B/Os, "that's probably too low", but it's still important they have an easy way to know recent sale prices.

 

The reason Buy Orders made after the suggestion can't apply is because suggestions normally have knock-on effects. When a suggestion is just submitted, B/Os on the item normally shift, be it to not want to pay an excessive quickbuy price before a drop or to try and get a good deal before a raise. B/Os made after suggestions can actually be given as evidence supporting drops/raises, but not as a direct reason.

[Brown]

15 hours ago, Norah said:

Suggestion prices don't so much show what something is objectively worth, purely what it <has> sold for.

 

Backpack prices do serve to provide a suggested value to go by for the average user. The idea behind suggestions is finding which sales, what it has sold for, would best represent its value. Its value you would want to be agreeable and applicable. I like the idea that we should simply have access to past sales and leave it there, but Backpack advertises its pricing system as suggestion with authority, and its use is standard.

 

15 hours ago, Norah said:

any trader would see that price and know regardless of B/Os, "that's probably too low"

 

Which I think would go completely against the goals of such a pricing system, if the sales it reports does not properly represent its value it doesn't really serve its intended purpose.

 

16 hours ago, Norah said:

The reason Buy Orders made after the suggestion can't apply is because suggestions normally have knock-on effects. When a suggestion is just submitted, B/Os on the item normally shift, be it to not want to pay an excessive quickbuy price before a drop or to try and get a good deal before a raise. B/Os made after suggestions can actually be given as evidence supporting drops/raises, but not as a direct reason.

 

Those seem like the most obvious reasons why not. But those don't usually affect the validity of a past sale, a buy order drop from a price drop, buy order raise from raise, it only seems natural as long as buy orders should somewhat reflect the (mark down) value of the item. The Hallows' Hatte suggestion specifically, I see a low sale, and buy order seemingly in response to that sale, indicating it to be low, just as natural in representing value as those other scenarios. I see this suggestion interrupting this process, being made only days after the initial sale, giving no time for reaction. I'm wondering why the price of a hat should be dropped 500 keys, despite buyer's sentiment proving it unrepresentative, despite there only being one sale to discredit, simply from an early reporting of the sale. If the goal is accuracy in representation of buyer sentiment, why would a legitimate buy order not be considered in discrediting a low sale just by difference in time between reports.

 

It might not be worth as much of the thought I put to it, these things do fix themselves eventually when someone comes around to make a new purchase. I'm mainly looking at the immediate effects of an inaccurate suggestion, as I may have bias as a hat seller. I think of a hat selling uncharacteristically low, and a backpack price telling people that that sale is indeed characteristic, I can't see it as but being completely harmful in the short term, that any potential resell value should be lost, and that future sales might be prevented by such a suggestion.