Proposal to change or rethink MarketplaceTF as a reliable price suggestion source

[CSpicer337]

Over the past many months of this year, multiple price suggestions have been made. This is usually because there is an upscale on value of items, cosmetics, unusuals, and more to update older suggestions. However, there’s a certain thing that I’m finding more often used as a approach to the market to more or less overlook at how unfair the price suggestion system can be, and for few reasons. Most importantly, it’s because of “status”

 

Let’s be reminded of December 15th, 2020. MarketplaceTF’s seller program was shut down, forcing all but an exclusive group of people to not sell items anymore. This is to be overlooked upon as a status issue, since there’s given authority of exclusive people to be able to sell products in a currency that is more often used to their benefits to price as they will instead of what everyone has the option to do which is buy and sell based on community sold listings and trades. Some items do not have this luxury of being in such markets due to its limited numbers, but they still exist. As of lately, buy orders have returned to MarketplaceTF, but to what extent will it even be bothered with when sellers keep continuing to sell at prices that they’ve been accustomed to or even raising since this Winter 2020 shutdown?

 

This can result in a few things now that might be worth for debate when it comes to fair play. In correspondence to a certain item I’ve been in the market with for roughly 8-9 months, I will give out an example of these issues here, as well as this so called “status” that falls into the situation. 
 

Let’s say there’s a limited use item that you’ve been trading for, but there’s been multiple declines of it appearing on BackpackTF to where you stay as a buyer but nobody sells them much. Then you come across people who happens to run into this speciality item and offers trades, which they also specialize in being a MarketplaceTF seller since they are part of that program after the public shutdown. Things go from one place to another, and then the interest of the item starts rising again with scarce supplies of the item being sold. However, this time instead of trading with you the seller person who’s been trading with you decides to overlook upon other traders and you and rather sell on MarketplaceTF, telling you that it will sell and you aren’t good enough to buy at such reasonable prices it has gone for before. Given time, because it was the only one on MarketplaceTF or any market, this seller gets to sell their item at a price that’s roughly multiple keys higher than what you’ve been finding other people negotiating the same items for in regular trades. Take this into account that now only those can be the only evidence for price suggestions that is valid for BackpackTF values that gets accepted almost instantly because BackpackTF is associated with MarketplaceTF. This now can bring other people who have same status of being able to sell on MarketplaceTF to call to action and up sell for an even more expensive interest, this overlooking and forcing public sellers that do not have this ability to step down in some ways in regards to fair buying. If not approaching a change to prices with legit trades that can lower the items down towards reasonable values that it has gone for without currency involved, then the market prices would continue to have aggressive higher status people and sell for an amount that starts to become unreal and uninteresting to many. But it can still work in these sellers favors because of this status and that they get currency value in it. 

 

This being said, as a trader and a person who looks at the public community markets, things I specialize in trading can and have gone for way more expensive prices on MarketplaceTF than what the actual markets on Steam, BackpackTF, or other credible sources have been selling for, and all because of this status that lets a select group of people price and sell items at their leisure when this option is no longer for the public. Do you think it is better to keep having MarketplaceTF open for price suggestions when such traders have the status to rig the use of trades and sell for more higher prices that the general public is blocked away from also doing on the same site, or is it liable to restrict MarketplaceTF as a fair source for purchasing items unless everyone is able to sell items on their again for fair pricing? (Which in most cases will never happen again)

[awsommv]

Because rules dont matter

[AShyRag]

41 minutes ago, CSpicer337 said:

Over the past many months of this year, multiple price suggestions have been made. This is usually because there is an upscale on value of items, cosmetics, unusuals, and more to update older suggestions. However, there’s a certain thing that I’m finding more often used as a approach to the market to more or less overlook at how unfair the price suggestion system can be, and for few reasons. Most importantly, it’s because of “status”

 

Let’s be reminded of December 15th, 2020. MarketplaceTF’s seller program was shut down, forcing all but an exclusive group of people to not sell items anymore. This is to be overlooked upon as a status issue, since there’s given authority of exclusive people to be able to sell products in a currency that is more often used to their benefits to price as they will instead of what everyone has the option to do which is buy and sell based on community sold listings and trades. Some items do not have this luxury of being in such markets due to its limited numbers, but they still exist. As of lately, buy orders have returned to MarketplaceTF, but to what extent will it even be bothered with when sellers keep continuing to sell at prices that they’ve been accustomed to or even raising since this Winter 2020 shutdown?

 

This can result in a few things now that might be worth for debate when it comes to fair play. In correspondence to a certain item I’ve been in the market with for roughly 8-9 months, I will give out an example of these issues here, as well as this so called “status” that falls into the situation. 
 

Let’s say there’s a limited use item that you’ve been trading for, but there’s been multiple declines of it appearing on BackpackTF to where you stay as a buyer but nobody sells them much. Then you come across people who happens to run into this speciality item and offers trades, which they also specialize in being a MarketplaceTF seller since they are part of that program after the public shutdown. Things go from one place to another, and then the interest of the item starts rising again with scarce supplies of the item being sold. However, this time instead of trading with you the seller person who’s been trading with you decides to overlook upon other traders and you and rather sell on MarketplaceTF, telling you that it will sell and you aren’t good enough to buy at such reasonable prices it has gone for before. Given time, because it was the only one on MarketplaceTF or any market, this seller gets to sell their item at a price that’s roughly multiple keys higher than what you’ve been finding other people negotiating the same items for in regular trades. Take this into account that now only those can be the only evidence for price suggestions that is valid for BackpackTF values that gets accepted almost instantly because BackpackTF is associated with MarketplaceTF. This now can bring other people who have same status of being able to sell on MarketplaceTF to call to action and up sell for an even more expensive interest, this overlooking and forcing public sellers that do not have this ability to step down in some ways in regards to fair buying. If not approaching a change to prices with legit trades that can lower the items down towards reasonable values that it has gone for without currency involved, then the market prices would continue to have aggressive higher status people and sell for an amount that starts to become unreal and uninteresting to many. But it can still work in these sellers favors because of this status and that they get currency value in it. 

 

This being said, as a trader and a person who looks at the public community markets, things I specialize in trading can and have gone for way more expensive prices on MarketplaceTF than what the actual markets on Steam, BackpackTF, or other credible sources have been selling for, and all because of this status that lets a select group of people price and sell items at their leisure when this option is no longer for the public. Do you think it is better to keep having MarketplaceTF open for price suggestions when such traders have the status to rig the use of trades and sell for more higher prices that the general public is blocked away from also doing on the same site, or is it liable to restrict MarketplaceTF as a fair source for purchasing items unless everyone is able to sell items on their again for fair pricing? (Which in most cases will never happen again)

The rich elite monopolise the market....

[MisterBoot]

For rare 1 of 1 skins or other rare unusals, pricing through marketplace will work fine imo. The same is the done the same for items sold on mannco and can also be done for items sold on the steam market. So this shouldn't be a problem.

 

However the concern of price manipulation and buying out market ..uhm .. batsabers, cats .. uhm... do raise another concern to the fairness of the market. And using these "sales" is not almost the most reliable form of pricing. 

 

Do you want rules to prevent market manipulation? Maybe, but that would need an unbias mod team, which might be hard since they are all whitelisted and mostly fully using their privilege. Besides that, there are market that cannot be controlled like scm. 

[Vidual Cadet]

In my opinion everyone(but scammers) should be able to sell liquid, unusual and spelled items on marketplace. But I see why they locked down, due to it being hard to filter scammers.

[Norah]

Huh, I had no idea Buy Orders came back to MP. But I guess they're sorta worthless when everybody on the platform would rather die than take a loss.

 

It's a thought though, I guess. Even before the seller program shutdown, a lot of MP sales weren't indicative of the wider market. Less experienced buyers + sellers on top of it being the easiest platform to impulse spend on. Personally speaking, I don't think MP sales alone really stand on their own for pricing anymore. But to be fair, it's evident that MP sales being the only piece of evidence haven't always been appreciated by price mods anyway, what with the criteria for them being made stricter in the last couple years, (item histories necessary), and them being sat on before being accepted longer than any other type of suggestion, seemingly. The problem can't really be fixed though without MP sales completely being made invalid. Which, if I'm being honest, I don't really think would be a negative thing with the website in its current state.