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Closed Stop arguing, you nimrods. This thread is through.

Should we raise minimum pricing on custom pokemon?


  • Total voters
    44

Nonny

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You can answer it from your experience as a user too. Go on, try it. It's not that hard.

But yeah, I'd like to hear from @doulie as well.
Okay, then.

I think the business aspect ought to exist, since it is required to realistically expect the site to exist. But I would favor the community aspect, in an ideal world. So... balance is my answer.
 

sebesmos

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Okay, then.

I think the business aspect ought to exist, since it is required to realistically expect the site to exist. But I would favor the community aspect, in an ideal world. So... balance is my answer.
I guess I realize now that I never answered *this* question... @Krelbit

I would say balance ultimately, although the community is what will keep the site active and attractive to new visitors. It's what keeps people here. If there's no community, I don't think there will be business.
 

Nonny

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Now I'm torn. I'm changing my vote again to "lol" since it's neither "yes" nor "no". :p

EDIT: It looks like my votes haven't been counting anyway. The poll still thinks I haven't voted at all, and I didn't get the PC for voting, either.
 

SoIidSmok3

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What if, instead of allowing newcomers set up shop wherever they please and charge bare minimum. How about the site start a business license sort of system for the shop owners. Not necessarily have shops pay for this imaginary license, but meet the standards the site has set into place. As well as confirm if these potential shops are worthy of opening a business here
 

sebesmos

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What if, instead of allowing newcomers set up shop wherever they please and charge bare minimum. How about the site start a business license sort of system for the shop owners. Not necessarily have shops pay for this imaginary license, but meet the standards the site has set into place. As well as confirm if these potential shops are worthy of opening a business here
Eh. Too much work. This would require admins to probably enable/disable their ability to post and we don't really have active administration. We went three weeks without badge distribution a while back, can you imagine how many users would get discouraged and annoyed and leave the site if we didn't let them open shops without permission?
 

batmanrises

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I have to say that this is definitely an interesting topic and there definitely doesn't seem to be a very clear-cut answer. I'll throw my two cents in (which still can't get me a pokemon on this site :Cool:). Personally, I see myself here for some time. I like it here and enjoy the transactions I can make (hopefully no one is disappointed that I'm staying :Bag:).
On a more serious note, I understand that this is a source of income, but, for people like me, this is a hobby: one of several. I enjoy coming and learning more about competitive battling, and getting a 6IV ditto for a reasonable price. @Krelbit I understand your point completely. People take the time to gen, adjust, breed, etc. and get next to nothing. That doesn't seem right. On the other hand, those of us that do not gen (myself included), are at a great disadvantage when it comes to creating funds. I listed a post a while ago with 20-30pc level one 5IV competitive Pokemon and no one wants one. I understand that I don't really have a reputation, but I spent several hours trying to get 10 pokemon ready to sell, and will likely never be able to sell them because I can't do custom orders. Custom orders with a quick turn time are by far much more convenient than my pre-made stock and always will be. There is a balance there, as you despise my 20-30 PC shop (despite it's cobwebs from lack of traffic).
I could put in money to get PC, but I really don't want to. I am young and poor. I don't want to spend more money than I have to. In my mind, yes, 70PC is cheap when it translates into cash, but I don't want to open those flood gates. I have earned very few credits here. Only 300 credits have come from other people (100 as a gift for a trade I was not expecting and 200 for Dragonite codes). It would take me forever to get the PC I need to get custom teams for tournaments (and tournaments happen so fast, there is not much time to breed them yourself). Trying to play in tournaments really adds up in cash when there is a new tier each time. I like the diversity, but it can get expensive. For the genners, you get to join all of these tournaments with pokemon you made, no cash output required. Yes, you bought the gunning equipment, but it is still not technically legit or Nintendo approved (as far as I understand it).
Now, none of these things are bad, but to the newcomer that does this as a hobby, I don't feel like joining the site would be worth it if I have to start putting in cash. Honestly, I really didn't even want to make another account on another website I may or may not ever visit again. I feel like newcomers really won't want to join to get that one shiny or finish their dex if they have to put in several dollars up front or have to post a million times to get one thing done. I feel like for most people they came to this site for one thing (I came for trade evolving because I have no friends). You won't get those people as often if it is hard to get one transaction done in the eyes of the visitor. I think the minimums, if raised should be kept as low as possible. The community needs low prices to survive. Plus, most of the people selling at 20pc probably don't get sales, or, if they are genners, realize they can get more and raise their prices. As @Dom already pointed out, there will always be people who low-ball and make it hard for trusted sellers. The only compromise I see is perhaps raising the cost of PC so that it takes less PC to make money. Yes, that requires some effort and time, but, honestly, once you raise the minimums, you are going to have to force everyone doing anything that already has a post to change their prices (which will take a long time, i would think). Sorry for the long post, my literature major is showing. The sad part is, I tried to keep it short. :p
 

Dom

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I have to say that this is definitely an interesting topic and there definitely doesn't seem to be a very clear-cut answer. I'll throw my two cents in (which still can't get me a pokemon on this site :Cool:). Personally, I see myself here for some time. I like it here and enjoy the transactions I can make (hopefully no one is disappointed that I'm staying :Bag:).
On a more serious note, I understand that this is a source of income, but, for people like me, this is a hobby: one of several. I enjoy coming and learning more about competitive battling, and getting a 6IV ditto for a reasonable price. @Krelbit I understand your point completely. People take the time to gen, adjust, breed, etc. and get next to nothing. That doesn't seem right. On the other hand, those of us that do not gen (myself included), are at a great disadvantage when it comes to creating funds. I listed a post a while ago with 20-30pc level one 5IV competitive Pokemon and no one wants one. I understand that I don't really have a reputation, but I spent several hours trying to get 10 pokemon ready to sell, and will likely never be able to sell them because I can't do custom orders. Custom orders with a quick turn time are by far much more convenient than my pre-made stock and always will be. There is a balance there, as you despise my 20-30 PC shop (despite it's cobwebs from lack of traffic).
I could put in money to get PC, but I really don't want to. I am young and poor. I don't want to spend more money than I have to. In my mind, yes, 70PC is cheap when it translates into cash, but I don't want to open those flood gates. I have earned very few credits here. Only 300 credits have come from other people (100 as a gift for a trade I was not expecting and 200 for Dragonite codes). It would take me forever to get the PC I need to get custom teams for tournaments (and tournaments happen so fast, there is not much time to breed them yourself). Trying to play in tournaments really adds up in cash when there is a new tier each time. I like the diversity, but it can get expensive. For the genners, you get to join all of these tournaments with pokemon you made, no cash output required. Yes, you bought the gunning equipment, but it is still not technically legit or Nintendo approved (as far as I understand it).
Now, none of these things are bad, but to the newcomer that does this as a hobby, I don't feel like joining the site would be worth it if I have to start putting in cash. Honestly, I really didn't even want to make another account on another website I may or may not ever visit again. I feel like newcomers really won't want to join to get that one shiny or finish their dex if they have to put in several dollars up front or have to post a million times to get one thing done. I feel like for most people they came to this site for one thing (I came for trade evolving because I have no friends). You won't get those people as often if it is hard to get one transaction done in the eyes of the visitor. I think the minimums, if raised should be kept as low as possible. The community needs low prices to survive. Plus, most of the people selling at 20pc probably don't get sales, or, if they are genners, realize they can get more and raise their prices. As @Dom already pointed out, there will always be people who low-ball and make it hard for trusted sellers. The only compromise I see is perhaps raising the cost of PC so that it takes less PC to make money. Yes, that requires some effort and time, but, honestly, once you raise the minimums, you are going to have to force everyone doing anything that already has a post to change their prices (which will take a long time, i would think). Sorry for the long post, my literature major is showing. The sad part is, I tried to keep it short. :p

Just some key points: This is a source of income but at that it is still a hobby, it can be both, none of us are doing this as a full time job, it's a hobby for established sellers as well.

I do not gen and I enter every tournament, I find other means to obtain the pokemon I need, at that there is always the legitimate breeding option and several others such as shiny hunting and trading to obtain the mons you need.

I can speak from experience, competing with genners is hard that's why it's always upto the seller to create a niche or something that can do better, it's marketing as well. Of course you'll have to establish a reputation but we've all been there at one point or another.

You're correct, many people come here for just one thing they need and buy it then they leave, getting people to stay is tricky but you aren't meant to post to buy stuff, it's just a reward for being active not a source of PC income, even those who don't spend money can join the community in trading, battling, etc

Raising the price of PC would be much trickier than it sounds whereas raising minimum prices is relatively simple. PC is a currency those who hold it will be affected if it is inflated or deflated, if the price goes higher and i'm holding 20,000 then I just get money while those who wanted to buy will think to do otherwise or shy away from the site due to a loss of interest, Raising the minimum prices will have fewer consequences in this aspect
 

Nonny

Pokémon Champion
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@batmanrises, I see your point about raising the value of PC. Overall, though, I think it would do more harm than good, even in comparison to just raising the minimum number of PC required per transaction.

Imagine someone new checking out the sellers' forum and noticing "minimum price 20 PC". They'd probably wonder at some point, "How much is 20 PC worth, anyway?" Then they go to buy credits, and they see that, hey, one PC is worth one cent. How convenient. 20 cents minimum per transaction? That's nothin'.

Now, raising the price to, say, 25 PC would get a similar reaction from each individual. "So you're telling me I can get an item/pokemon/edit/whatever for a quarter? That's not too bad."

But let's imagine raising the value of PC.

First of all, like Dom said, everyone's accounts here would suddenly inflate. I'm imagining that the PC-to-cents rate would be a whole number (not something weird like 1 PC is equivalent to 1.333333... pennies.*). Already, the amount of "money" we have has at least doubled. And the cost of everything has also doubled, meaning that while everyone who does not exchange real money for PC or the other way around is not affected, everyone who does is. "20 PC minimum? That's worth... 40 cents. Hang on. Someone's offering to do a custom team for 300 PC. Does that mean I have to hand them $6.00? That's... kind of a lot."

And there's the other problem. Prices would have to adjust either way, but it's one thing for 20-PC items to start costing 25 or 30 PC. It's a whole other thing for every item you could possibly purchase to suddenly cost a minimum of twice as much money.

We could adjust all the prices, e.g., 300 PC teams would cost 150 PC instead, but that would still result in two major changes for the worse: one, that the minimum price for everything just went up to 40 cents; and two, that each real-money PC purchase is either double the price or half the value.

Plus, to me, I really like the 1 PC = 1 cent rule. It's just really satisfying to instantly know the cost/worth of something or how much "money" I've just earned by looking at the number and not having to calculate anything. And I'm a math major. I love calculating stuff.

* Note: The trouble with having decimals in the mix is the accessibility. It's not tough for the average person to double a two-digit number (or a three-digit number ending in 0) in their head. It's quite tough, though, to multiply a two-digit or three-digit number by 1.333333... in one's head, especially if said number is not a multiple of three. It's even tougher to divide an arbitrary number by 1.333333... in their head to figure out the value of the PC they currently have. A calculator is handy, sure, but it's a little excessive for a hobby.

Sorry for the text wall. I really like that you're thinking outside the box and trying to come up with new options. But this particular option would either greatly reduce accessibility for many of our users or necessitate an overhaul of our currency system.
 

batmanrises

Pokémon Trainer
Credits
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@Dom I was not suggesting anyone did it full time. I was suggesting that most people who come onto the site have it as a much smaller hobby when it comes to time commitment and therefore do not have all of the time or energy to put in.

I understand your point on the tournament. I know it can be done; I am just pointing out the difference between genner vs non. I could do every tournament, but I would spend most of my time on Pokemon games breeding for tournaments. Once I get more experienced, I will naturely have more pre-made pokemon, making it much easier. For example, I really thought about joining PBL for fun (I don't think I could win). However, I would not be able to breed my drafted mons in time.

I am glad to hear that you are able to compete with breeding. However, there are only so many niches, and there has to be a lot of time spent searching for said niches. I think that would make a lot of newcomers fade away after joining because they had no way (or seemingly no way) to make income on the site (besides spam posts and inputing cash). Not much that can be done about that, just pointing out that difficulty for the "average joe" of the site. I am not trying to say it's unfair, just saying that like the sellers Krelbit pointed out, there are other groups that have to find a way in the "economy" to work it out. Each group has it's own sets of advantages and disadvantages.
I didn't explain my theory on PC cost raising well. The people who had it would have to have their existing "bank" raised to match if they purchased. I am not sure how the site or system works, so if it doesn't work that way, no harm done. Just throwing something out there since I didn't know how hard it would be to do (1,000s of sellers vs 1000s of users to change). It sounds hard either way to me.

Posting isn't primarily a source of income, but it is one. I have been here for a few months and have gotten just over 100 credits that way. I try not to post needlessly, but it does add up. I don't think people should post anything anywhere just to get credits. As for my seller reputation, I know I have to build it, but I think it is safe to say that I can't start charging experienced seller prices and get sales. My 20-30 pc shop doesn't get any hits, and my 100 pc shop would definitely not get any hits. Sellers have to get a reputation, and people will really only risk going with inexperienced sellers if their costs are lower enough in the eyes of the buyer to justify the risk. In other words, no matter what, the new sellers will have to be lower in price so that they can even charge decent amounts in the future: reputation plays a key role in the economy.
 

Dom

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"My 20-30 pc shop doesn't get any hits, and my 100 pc shop would definitely not get any hits. Sellers have to get a reputation, and people will really only risk going with inexperienced sellers if their costs are lower enough in the eyes of the buyer to justify the risk. In other words, no matter what, the new sellers will have to be lower in price so that they can even charge decent amounts in the future: reputation plays a key role in the economy."

I read the whole comment but I'm too lazy to respond to it all, just this section in particular sums it up

I'm not speaking about you specifically just a majority of 20 PC sellers from what i've seen, People think that they will get all the sales flowing in and get a bunch of money if they sell for dirt but that's not the case at all, plenty of users don't understand that they need to put in the time and effort to portray themselves and their shops well, establish a reputation, get a customer base, etc. People don't know the time it takes, they want instant gratification but that isn't very easy to obtain

The ratios would stay the same, 20 PC minimum shops > 100 PC minimum shops (For Example) Then the shops selling at 200 PC would raise in accordance so although your shops are charging more the other shops would likely be charging more as well, it's a rate that would be going on there, even at that if you still don't get any sales then the very few you do get for 100PC would actually make you something worth while, 12 sales at 100 a piece is equivilent to 60 sales at 20 a piece

(I'm using 100 as a minimum PC, obviously just a random number)

The newer sellers can have a lower price sure it just doesn't have to be that low (20 PC)
 

batmanrises

Pokémon Trainer
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@batmanrises, I see your point about raising the value of PC. Overall, though, I think it would do more harm than good, even in comparison to just raising the minimum number of PC required per transaction.

Imagine someone new checking out the sellers' forum and noticing "minimum price 20 PC". They'd probably wonder at some point, "How much is 20 PC worth, anyway?" Then they go to buy credits, and they see that, hey, one PC is worth one cent. How convenient. 20 cents minimum per transaction? That's nothin'.

Now, raising the price to, say, 25 PC would get a similar reaction from each individual. "So you're telling me I can get an item/pokemon/edit/whatever for a quarter? That's not too bad."

But let's imagine raising the value of PC.

First of all, like Dom said, everyone's accounts here would suddenly inflate. I'm imagining that the PC-to-cents rate would be a whole number (not something weird like 1 PC is equivalent to 1.333333... pennies.*). Already, the amount of "money" we have has at least doubled. And the cost of everything has also doubled, meaning that while everyone who does not exchange real money for PC or the other way around is not affected, everyone who does is. "20 PC minimum? That's worth... 40 cents. Hang on. Someone's offering to do a custom team for 300 PC. Does that mean I have to hand them $6.00? That's... kind of a lot."

And there's the other problem. Prices would have to adjust either way, but it's one thing for 20-PC items to start costing 25 or 30 PC. It's a whole other thing for every item you could possibly purchase to suddenly cost a minimum of twice as much money.

We could adjust all the prices, e.g., 300 PC teams would cost 150 PC instead, but that would result in two major changes for the worse: one, that the minimum price for everything just went up to 40 cents; and two, that each real-money PC purchase is either double the price or half the value.

Plus, to me, I really like the 1 PC = 1 cent rule. It's just really satisfying to instantly know the cost/worth of something or how much "money" I've just earned by looking at the number and not having to calculate anything. And I'm a math major. I love calculating stuff.

* Note: The trouble with having decimals in the mix is the accessibility. It's not tough for the average person to double a two-digit number (or a three-digit number ending in 0) in their head. It's quite tough, though, to multiply a two-digit or three-digit number by 1.333333... in one's head, especially if said number is not a multiple of three. It's even tougher to divide an arbitrary number by 1.333333... in their head to figure out the value of the PC they currently have. A calculator is handy, sure, but it's a little excessive for a hobby.

Sorry for the text wall. I really like that you're thinking outside the box and trying to come up with new options. But this particular option would either greatly reduce accessibility for many of our users or necessitate an overhaul of our currency system.

I still don't see how that changes anything. If you raise the minimum cost of transactions, you would still make things cost more. If, for example, they double the value of PC, the minimum would be 20 pc or 40 cents. However, if they instead raised the minimum by the same amount as the PC value in the previous scenario, the minimum transaction would be 40 pc or 40 cents. This example could easily be with 1.5 cents per PC. They tie hand-in-hand. Since they correlate, you change the value of one, you have changed the other. Sellers want more for their sales is the point being made (as far as I can tell). If they want more, then, yes, the person may say, "$6, that's a lot," but that is what the sellers want. They want to be paid for the time spent on the product.
In the end, I was really just wondering if it is easier to raise the minimum transaction (and all of the active posts that entails), or change the currency equivalent (and all the "cash-in" transactions that are in people's "banks"). I am not claiming to know which is better, just making a suggestion. If one way works better and they decide to change it, it won't matter to me which way it happens. I just think that forcing people to change their posts and then following up until they do change it would take a lot of time (especially if some people don't check regularly).
 

Dom

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I still don't see how that changes anything. If you raise the minimum cost of transactions, you would still make things cost more. If, for example, they double the value of PC, the minimum would be 20 pc or 40 cents. However, if they instead raised the minimum by the same amount as the PC value in the previous scenario, the minimum transaction would be 40 pc or 40 cents. This example could easily be with 1.5 cents per PC. They tie hand-in-hand. Since they correlate, you change the value of one, you have changed the other. Sellers want more for their sales is the point being made (as far as I can tell). If they want more, then, yes, the person may say, "$6, that's a lot," but that is what the sellers want. They want to be paid for the time spent on the product.
In the end, I was really just wondering if it is easier to raise the minimum transaction (and all of the active posts that entails), or change the currency equivalent (and all the "cash-in" transactions that are in people's "banks"). I am not claiming to know which is better, just making a suggestion. If one way works better and they decide to change it, it won't matter to me which way it happens. I just think that forcing people to change their posts and then following up until they do change it would take a lot of time (especially if some people don't check regularly).

I don't really understand the first chunk, you wouldn't be changing how much PC is worth, just how much you're allowed to sell for

I'm not sure if I understand that point, I don't think it's applicable, PC is still worth the same we're just disallowing users from selling for a certain amount
 

Nonny

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I still don't see how that changes anything. If you raise the minimum cost of transactions, you would still make things cost more. If, for example, they double the value of PC, the minimum would be 20 pc or 40 cents. However, if they instead raised the minimum by the same amount as the PC value in the previous scenario, the minimum transaction would be 40 pc or 40 cents. This example could easily be with 1.5 cents per PC. They tie hand-in-hand. Since they correlate, you change the value of one, you have changed the other. Sellers want more for their sales is the point being made (as far as I can tell). If they want more, then, yes, the person may say, "$6, that's a lot," but that is what the sellers want. They want to be paid for the time spent on the product.
In the end, I was really just wondering if it is easier to raise the minimum transaction (and all of the active posts that entails), or change the currency equivalent (and all the "cash-in" transactions that are in people's "banks"). I am not claiming to know which is better, just making a suggestion. If one way works better and they decide to change it, it won't matter to me which way it happens. I just think that forcing people to change their posts and then following up until they do change it would take a lot of time (especially if some people don't check regularly).
Right, but we don't have to raise the minimum PC transaction to 40 PC. We could raise it to 25 or 30, something that we couldn't really do by changing the value of the PC to a whole number like 2 or 3. 1.5 or 1.2 or 1.33333... would be more reasonable, but how many people can you think of who like to have multiplication and division by decimals suddenly become a necessary part of their hobby? O O

I honestly think that, for now, the easier of the two options would be to raise the minimum price of items, since I suspect that sellers will have to edit their posts either way. I don't really think either one would solve the big issue, which seems to me to be that sellers want to feel like they actually earned enough to compensate for their effort while buyers want to feel like they're paying a reasonable amount for what they're getting (which, let's be honest here, is usually entirely virtual), and finding the balance between those two things is at best difficult and at worst impossible.

If it were up to me, I'd probably keep what we have now the same. This is coming from someone who doesn't gen, who would only make money by breeding (and let's be fair here, there's no way I could compete with genners by breeding, even with my took-400-hours-to-build-this-up parent stock). I don't mind spending 5 bucks once in a really long while.

That is an entirely personal preference, though.
 

batmanrises

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@Nonny and @Dom
I am sorry for the confusion. I was just asking about a different conversion rate. It would be like the US completely changing their currency and saying the exchange rate is 1.5 dollars per 1 old dollar. It has the same effect as you mentioned, Dom, so I will let that point die.
I will get back to my core point, which was "average joe" users and newcomers. Dom, you're point about the prices going up proportionally feeds into mine. I know that the prices will probably go up proportionally and that make the cheaper shops still cheap.

First, that means that experienced sellers will still have to deal with the cheaper shops being under their cost. It may not matter to them as much if the prices are raised across the board, I am just pointing out that the problem will remain.

Second, the cheaper shops will likely get fewer sales because of an increase in minimum transaction. One of the reasons for that is that the people who find the site will be less likely to join and buy. Even though a lot of people come in and spam till they have 20, they buy something and then maybe stay. If the minimum on pokemon goes up there will either be more spam or fewer sales from the people who come and don't want to spend money. This is a small part of the picture, but if plays a factor. While the "gain" per transaction goes up, the number of sales may decline significantly if there is not a steady flow of people wanting the minimum priced pokemon. Don't most of the members who have been here a while buy primarily from the shops that have people they know associated with them? I am not sure how much impact this could have, because, of course, no one know for sure unless it happens. I just don't see raising the minimums doing much besides trading off potential new members for more "profit."
 
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