lol you're not going to get many honest answers here

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Inauri

FWIW: I tip 10% regardless, rounding up. With decent appraisal, you should know about what the amount should end up at. If it looks off, I just note the trader and move along. If it happens regularly with a trader, I pink list them and just will not use them. In my experience, I can not think of a time when I felt ripped off by a trader on a pouch sell. They like the experience from the pouches and I doubt many would want a reputation of shaving the price.

Madigan

I tip traders pretty well I think, but lately I've only been using one trader because I tend to have a lot of pouches and don't trust many to not run off with the haversack full.

Pucktin is my trader, and he's capped on pouches. I don't hold grudges if you don't tip. It doesn't matter either way. I'm actually grateful that I can sell them... Teaches trading and means I don't have to follow caravans all day.

Pucktin not being my only character ... I make coins from my other toons. But I can see and I've heard of other traders getting upset if you don't tip a certain amount.

I always give the person I'm selling for every copper of what the gem buyer gives me for the pouch. I used to believe that I didn't care whether I got tips. However, when I sold a large volume of pouches for someone, using my best abilities to get them good value, and was rewarded with a succinct "thanks, hope it was worth it for you" rather than any coin, I felt slapped. Apparently I do care, and just hadn't realized it since people generally do tip.

I am not a high circle trader - two good sized pouches is the most I can usually learn from at one time. Any sales beyond that are not benefitting me with experience. If I can afford it (and when the person is willing to trust me for the arrangement) I might ask if I can just buy the pouches rather than sell them immediately - that enables me to save them for a time when I could learn from the sale.

Even at my current circle, though, I am seeing about 30% bonus on pouches that I sell, above their normal appraised value. It seems to me that a tip of 10% of the value received would not be out of line. I understand that some people believe that every trader is skimming. I am saddened by that, because it simply isn't true.

I often offer to relay the value offered me for the pouch before I sell it. Some people act as though this is an outlandish suggestion, but if I were the owner of that pouch, I'd make sure I knew what value I could get for it, and then compare what I'm offered. If it's a good amount above what I could have gotten, then tipping a small percentage of the total won't hurt me, and shows that I understand and appreciate the work the trader has done to attain that level of respect in our guild.

Getting to know a trader or two, and developing a business relationship, is good for all of us.

Brynnhilde

when I used to hunt and collect gem pouches, I would typically ask the appraiser to app my pouch first, then give to the trader for selling. after all pouches were sold I would give the trader ~40-50% of that extra money earned. The way I always figured it was they were providing a service to me, and getting me money I wouldn't have otherwise got without 'em and even if I gave them half of that extra money i'm still coming out ahead than if I hadn't asked a trader to sell the pouches.

Blackguard Danoryiel

"Sogan udazama umbunor fau arrazoi inishatu seiremisai. (Only the fallen have nothing to despair)"

When Traders sell my gem pouches, I assume that they give me all of the money that they received unless they say otherwise.

I usually tip 20% of the difference between the appraisal value and the amount that the Trader sells it for. I don't know if this is above or below average, but it seems reasonable to me. I'd be interested in knowing what Traders consider to be an adequate tip/fee for pouches.

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!

>Does that mean you sell your weapons for the costs of the ingots and hilts used in creating them? Crafting teaches you and costs you mere coppers to make the weapons? Why not give them away since workorders would surely pay enough to cover the costs of weapons for other people?

I make something, it costs me money and time to do so. You buy that thing and reimburse me for that time. I'm not sure how you can compare that to someone who simply acts as an intermediary, an act that costs them nothing to do and garners them experience.

Do you tip people who teach you classes?

(an aside, I could make double or more the amount of money I make forging if I hunting at comparable level to my mech lore)

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Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Combat Balance List:
http://tinyurl.com/DRBalance

>So if a trader stops running contracts or stops helping customers in their shop to come to the gem shop and help you with your pouches (which you can't sell without them unless you're in a remote location), their time is worth nothing while your forging time is?

If they come to you to do it, then you tip them for coming to help you, not for the 2 seconds it takes to sell the pouches.

>And it costs you hardly anything to make a weapon (unless it's special metals), you can't rely on that as a valid arguement can you?

It's a time cost, more than a money cost.

>I guess I just see the value in the time spent training their skills to a level that can help me out (especially in the case of a trader, they even earn me EXTRA coin, as much as 50% over and above what I could get if I took it to an outpost and sold it myself).

I guess we just view it differently. I don't use traders to maximize profit, I use Traders because the GMs have determined that if you want to collect gems and manage your item count, then you have to use traders.

I use outposts whenever possible.

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Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Combat Balance List:
http://tinyurl.com/DRBalance

>Are you saying you'd be fine if I kept all money past 10% of the appraisal of the pouch/bundle? Because 10% is the highest a non-Trader will ever see offered.

Pretty much. I just want my stuff sold. If I could sell them myself, I would.

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Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Combat Balance List:
http://tinyurl.com/DRBalance

>Well, traders work hard to gain the skill to be able to generate a large bonus to pouch prices.

FTR, my standing bonus is currently 49% at 96 Circle, 60 Charisma, 568 Trading, 459 Appraisal, and I just rolled over to 49% in the last day or two since I checked it.

Naniaki

>>Actually an opinion cannot be changed or corrected. Nice try back of line.-VERATHOR
>>But it can be wrong.-Starlear

I have had Traders thank my character for tipping generously, even though I always give 10%. I generally sell a handful of tied and full pouches so the tips can be 50+ plat and I never cap the amount. I did have a Trader alt so I have seen both ends of the tipping scale, some folks give a flat amount, others give a huge tip, including a character who just wanted rid of the burden of pouches and only kept what some people would have tipped in the first place.

>In fact, I know you charge to balance a weapon for someone as well Caraamon. And this costs you nothing but time as well. You might argue that you worked hard to gain the skill to do the balancing work. Well, traders work hard to gain the skill to be able to generate a large bonus to pouch prices.

I suppose I can see your point. I guess I'm just having a hard separating my annoyance and having to use them from their service.

I still have a hard time feeling bad for them when I'm constantly seeing people say gemselling is one of the better methods for training Trading, and it takes all of 60 seconds to run to the gemshop and sell a pouch.

>The only difference I see at this point is an underlying contempt for traders from your standpoint.

I don't particulary have contempt for Traders, beyond the fact I can't stand playing one. I just don't particularly value them in this instance, and wouldn't use them if I wasn't forced to.

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Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Combat Balance List:
http://tinyurl.com/DRBalance

Almost all of the time, I BUY pouches from hunters. I don't sell them for others, I sell them for me. This lets me max out the exp from ever one. I make an offer based on the appraisal value, and I'm willing to haggle. I refuse all tips in these transactions. I will not offer more than it is worth to me.

On the rare occasions when I sell for somebody else, I give them all the coin, and give not a darn bit about a tip.

>>I make something, it costs me money and time to do so. You buy that thing and reimburse me for that time. I'm not sure how you can compare that to someone who simply acts as an intermediary, an act that costs them nothing to do and garners them experience.

Actually, speculates have hard cooldowns that can't be reduced by skill or stat. Speculate finesse seems to have a 1 hr cd of IN GAME time. That means that if the trader does their best to get you the most out of your pouches then they've used their cooldown for the next hour and are unable to use finesse for their own sales or contract trading. So essentially you're costing a trader about an hour of their time plus the amount of money lost from the contracts that they could have done in that time. Seems like a much higher cost in the end.

>>I'm not asking them to use their speculate for me.

I bet you don't tell them this up front

The finesse timer is much closer to 15-20 minutes, if even that long, than it is to an hour.

>>>>It's a "tip" I'm giving them experience for the 60 seconds of their time to sell my pouches. Yes, Empaths are also rewarded with experience whenever they heal, I'm providing them a service by giving them easy experience.

>>I would be all for being able to sell my own tied gem pouches. It's annoying to have to find someone to do it for you. However; I can see why it's done, it gives Trader's some form of relevance.

There are two sentiments here:

A) I would just sell my own pouches if I could, I don't bother with the extra coin. (I concur with this easily; you should be able to sell your own pouches if you so desire, I don't see much sense in forcing you to go to a Trader. It seems an archaic remnant of a system that hasn't been touched in ten years. There should be incentive to seek Traders, not mechanical arm-twisting, like how death scars used to be an Empath "niche.")

B) Traders get experience, so they don't deserve a tip. This, in my opinion, is an egocentric pretzel of self-serving logic. Just because a waitress is getting payed a paltry salary doesn't mean that their "tip" is the honor of serving you food, your holiness. They are stopping whatever they are doing to render you a service and (in the case of pouches) generating you additional profit.

Your positive is you get your pouch sold; their positive is they generate experience. That's a wash. However, you also get EXTRA MONEY, a lot of it, which is a service above and beyond just pouch-selling. This throws the equation out of balance, and this is why they deserve compensation.

I can sympathize with the dilemma of the situation, where A and B are mixed, and you are forced into additional money when you would just do it all yourself. Until I got my own Trader, it bothered me a lot too. But I still tipped 10%, always have, and Empaths get a plat minimum unless I just have scratches.

Can't you already sell your own tied gem pouches around horse clan, rossman's landing and throne city gem shops? As for the gem shop taking a cut to sell own pouches I've never had an issue finding a trader to sell a pouch or bundle, is there really that much of a need for it?

There is basically no incentive that makes it worth having to deal with a Trader.