Purchase Orders

[Rithiel]

Traders can gain access to fill purchase orders. These purchase orders can be placed in either the warehouse in the Western Coalition or in the HQ, south of the main entrance. Traders can check and [/claim] purchase orders.

Other players can make purchase orders.

Items that are provided for purchase orders cannot have crafting marks on them. You cannot turn in multiple items at different times, so small items should be placed in a larger container. Orders too large can be turned in as the contents of the wagon (the wagon will be emptied).

Traders who do not provide the items requested will find themselves in trouble with the Coalition, which prides itself on high quality goods that customers ask for.

[Rithiel]

There seems to be some confusion regarding this.

If you turn in a purchase order that requires the materials be in a wagon, they don't take the wagon (it would be a bit silly to store an entire wagon for every single large order).

Orders will not be removed except by the person that placed them. If nobody wants to pick up the order, nobody wants to pick up the order. But maybe somebody in the future will. They have to pay a 50% deposit for just this reason, and can only place one order at a time.

People can place orders for whatever they want. They don't have to be player made items, nor do the necessarily have to be easily available.

Traders will not get guild points for using this system. For one, it's far too abusable to turn riln into guild points. For another, you're not benefiting the Coalition in any way (except for the 10% which is really just covering their costs). They're doing you a service by providing a place where buyers and sellers can match up.

[Drayla]

Personally, I think the crafting marks should be allowed, because it just doesn't make sense to say "No, that has a crafting mark, unacceptable. But other than that, I don't know why people have such a big problem with this. In fact, I get frustrated that people still make deals with well-known traders over ESP rather than place an order and let them get to it. Yes, the price thing can be an issue, but with use it won't be. And honestly, I think this would fix the problem of over-priced player-made products. In the real world, prices are based around what the people who buy them are willing to pay. Companies evaluate the perfect balance between profit per unit, and number of sales. Sure, they could make something crazy expensive and have hindreds of people buy it, but they could make more if they charge less and thus thousands of people buy it instead of hundreds. Right now, sure, traders make a pretty profit when they sell something, which is good, but if the player sets the price for a long enough time and traders learn to accept an order even when their profit is only 50 riln, I think it will eventually balance itself out to where traders aren't sitting on a mountain of unused riln while the rest of us scrape and scrounge so we can get that nice, shiny shield that is a little better than one from the NPC market. I personally love this, and thank the GMs who worked to get it implemented.

[Rithiel]

There are no crafting marks because nowhere, for either buyer or seller, is there any sort of identification. You choose to to through an intermediary, then you go through an intermediary, and they have no reason to help you go around them next time.

[Drayla]

Ah, true. Thank you for clarifying. Again, I support this, and will be using it myself. I hope the stubborn traders will learn to swallow their pride and use it as well, no matter how rediculous some of the requests are.

[Elystole]

There seems to be some confusion regarding this.
People can place orders for whatever they want. They don't have to be player made items, nor do the necessarily have to be easily available.

I'm wondering how this works as there's a few things I'd like to order that aren't player-made items. I understand that I just place the order, but does it require a PC trader to fulfill it? If it does, do they just need to RP actually trading in order to fulfill the order and make some nice riln for it? I'd hate to place an order and have it languish not for lack of funds offered but because it's impossible to fulfill.

[Jirato]

There are no crafting marks because nowhere, for either buyer or seller, is there any sort of identification. You choose to to through an intermediary, then you go through an intermediary, and they have no reason to help you go around them next time.

Funny this should come up while there's a big CHAT debate going on. Guess what I saw the other day?

Character places purchase oder.
Player chats, "Ok, I just submitted a purchase order!"

Please, don't do this. They're supposed to be anonymous for a reason, and if you wish to ruin that anonymity IC, that's one thing, but doing so OOC is a pretty poor taste.

I've seen some people ruin the anonymity through QUESTION, which I still don't like, but can forgive on the grounds that the player genuinely doesn't know how purchase orders work.

[Zoiya]

It's a bit amusing to me that people regard purchase orders as a purchase of a crafted item. Purchase orders do not necessarily need to be something that is crafted.

[Kent]

I've seen some people ruin the anonymity through QUESTION, which I still don't like, but can forgive on the grounds that the player genuinely doesn't know how purchase orders work.

I have once tried to use purchase order, and was one of these players who genuinely didn't know how purchase orders work. I sought a helpfile using Question and no one could provide me with one. I went ahead and guessed my way through the placing of a purchase order.

Subsequently, my use of the Purchase Order system turned out to be a negative experience both for me and for other players.

At least one good craftsman told me he doesn't like to sell items without his crafting mark, and thus doesn't go to the Purchase Order office to pick up orders. Also the price I asked for was a bit low and if there was some way for traders to make counter offers on the price, that could be remedied, but there is not. As for me, I like to tip good and prompt service and the system doesn't enable me to give a tip. Let me mention too that the item requested was merely of above- quality and from easy to find materials (iron and bronze).

I am trying to conceive of a situation where I would ever use it again, and cannot. Can someone provide me with a scenario where using the Purchase Order system would be worthwhile for both the buyer and the seller?

[Jirato]

http://wiki.contrarium.net/index.php/Purchase_Orders

And also available in-game via help purchase orders thanks to my Magical Wiki Importer Tool.

[Kent]

The purchase order system, I think, would be exponentially more useful if a player could place two orders, not merely one. They could order one rare, hard to find item that may or may not ever be fulfilled, and one other item, like an exquisite steel dagger that has a probable chance of being filled with little delay.

Also , for a rare item I would like to order, I might envision a fee of 40,000 which I would be willing to pay on delivery. But it seems a lot to ask to have to lay down half - 20,000 - for an order that probably won't be filled in months, or possibly ever. I think 20% would be enough of a good faith deposit.

It would also be nice if a bidding system were in place where assorted traders could bid on the order, anonymously. Instead of the buyer setting the price up front. Or, as an alternative, if traders could submit a counter-offer to the player's price.


Also, if the traders had easy access to available orders in an office (a Trading Post) in each town, or were mailed a daily digest of orders, or had a special crystal which, when they tuned that color, would give a list of items requested. For example, they could tune into this special crystal and esp 'purchase orders?' and an NPC would respond on that changed channel a list of items available, one at a time. (An automated NPC I was thinking of).

Perhaps the first one...a Trading Post in each town , would be the most viable to implement, because it would be a duplicate coding to the warehouse in Haiban? I'm guessing here, as I am no coder. The NPCs in each trading post would be connected to the main warehouse in Haiban through their pendants, IC wise .

[Skah]

I think this is an amazing idea that could lead to some interesting RP and maybe help traders be traders rather than just crafters!

The bit of feedback I'd like to suggest is to remove the ability point requirement, either by merging being able to take orders with another ability, or just allowing all coalition traders to take orders. Here's three reasons why.

1) Like it or not, very few traders are going to get this ability early on. The skill point / quality bonuses will outweigh this feature, since there are very few orders being placed.

2) As long as only a few traders have the ability, few orders will be placed by other players, so you get a catch-22 sort of situation.

3) I don't see what kind of special training or abilities accepting a posted purchase order would require IC. It's not like allowing traders to accept orders without an ability point would be unbalanced, since it benifits all the classes, and they're paying a workshop fee + 10% of the commission.

Regardless, this is a cool new feature.

[Rithiel]

The reason that there is an ability requirement now is that the Coalition would not allow just anybody to fill orders. They would only let established members do it, due to needing a certain level of quality.

[Jirato]

I was going to announce this in the changelog but I forgot and it's already been posted, so...

The Purchase Orders guild ability has been removed, all Artisans can access the purchase orders system now.

Yes, the Coalition expects a certain standard of quality, but the customer gets to specify a quality requirement when placing their order, and if they are given inferior products, they can always dispute it with the Coalition.

(Mainly, this is to open up some more opportunities for Artisans that may be coming down the road, nothing ready to announce yet though.)