Pardon me if this isn't in the right forum, but I was wondering if there's any trade unions on the servers? If now, would there be any interest in establishing a trade union? Since it's difficulty for myself (as an independent shop owner) to proper gauge market prices of competitors / friends, I started thinking of the possibility of possible trade groups might be out there to help others to establish competitive prices OR at least give a quick & easy place to see what others are buying & selling stuff... I'm currently working on getting the framework set up (beyond the shop guide) to establish a trade union, should there be a gap in the system... Just wanted to check first here.
There is only one, unofficial trade union that I am aware of, and it is not accepting new members. I like the idea of a trade union, though I think there are some trend/price-setters out there that already have a powerful influence in the market.
While players still have the power to set their own prices, since each server runs differently, the trade union will help stabilize prices OR give a guideline to everybody what everybody within he union is asking for on a particular item. I will note that server 7's marketplace is in a bit of turmoil since Belugh's moved to server 9 & left his shop (14141) in disservice (suffering supply issues). Recently, the Bizarre Bazaar (14010) has recently closed down due to some internal partnership issues (see http://bit.ly/14010EMC on the details there)... so it would be helpful to have some form of stability in the marketplace.
There are still shops on 7. If you watch chat they are there but not necessarily active when you are on though. I'd advertise mine, but #1 - I don't want to appear to be taking advantage of what happened, and #2 - Like Mogri, I don't currently care to be constantly slaving away restocking only to have people complaining about prices and playing the other games that people play with shops. So it sits, fully stocked but unattended while I vacation far away in the Wild sipping tropical drinks. Even without being in town all the time I'm still selling stuff so someone knows it's there.
I typically check the shop guide when I'm looking for an item, but there's only a few that I keep on the top of my head. Things are still WIP, I've got the framework of the pricing guide uploaded to my G-Drive (just to make it easier for others to update). I don't have everything working yet, but there's enough there to get a couple of shop owners in... At the moment, I'm willing to take a couple (like 4) people who are willing to be charter members of the Empire Trade Union (working name)... Send me a PM here with your desired e-mail address so I can send an invite to the spreadsheet.
