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The Auction House and The Shop (The Economy)The Shop is the real heart of the economy. The Shop is probably where you will be spending most of your time when buying and selling items. While the two names are used synonymously, there is a slight difference between the shop and the Auction House.
The ShopThe Shop is the building in which the Junk Merchant, the Civilian Ship Dealer, and the Auctioneer have their various shops. The Auctioneer's shop is known as the Auction House. Almost every port has an Auction House, but you may not be allowed to use every one. To use a port's Auction House, your reputation with the Trade Union of nation that controls the port must be at least Indifferent. You may always use the Auction House of a port that is owned by your nation. To view your reputation status with another nation, on the Toolbar click the Character & Ship button  The Caribbean is broken down into nine economic regions: The World Map will show you which region any given port resides. Hover over any port to see a tooltip with information about that port, including which region the port resides.  When you are in a Shop you can see all of the markets within your current region—except those owned by other nations with whom your reputation is less than Indifferent. In addition to seeing regional markets, Freetraders and Buccaneers have the can gain the skill to see and make purchases from all the markets in the Caribbean—provided their reputation with the port owner is at least Indifferent. To open the Auction House window, speak to the auctioneer. The Shop window has five tabs labeled Listings, Sell, Order, Pickups, and My Listings. Although, before learning about the individual tabs, you should understand the distinction between the two types of listings:
Listings Tab Much like it sounds, the Listings tab allows you to search for Auctions and Buy orders in the in the Auction House. To begin, you should start with a rough idea of what you want to buy (if you're searching the auctions) or what you want to sell (if searching buy orders). (Although, you can do broad searches through the markets to see what's available.) The various search filters allow you to easily narrow your search by region, port, or item category. You can also search for a specific item (if you know the name) by entering it into the Item box. Another useful filter is the Status filter, which allows you to search for Active Only items (items currently for sale), or you can Show All items that have been put up on the Shop. The search results pane lists the items returned from your search. Hover over any item in the results list to see a tooltip with detailed information about that item. The Listings tab also provides important sales history on any item in the results list. Select an item to view its history and 30 day average history for the port, region, and Caribbean. This information is useful when looking for trends in the purchase price of an item, or in determining what price is considered reasonable when making an offer. BiddingWhen purchasing an item from the port you are located in, you have a few options:
Once you have decided to try to purchase an item, check to make sure you have enough doubloons in the upper left corner of the Shop window. If you have enough doubloons, go ahead and make an offer by following these steps:
 If your purchase is successful, the Make An Offer window will disappear (and you will hear the sound of a coin purse being shaken). If the purchase is not successful, you will see a message with information about why the sale was declined. Sales may be declined for several reasons:
If your offer is declined, you may modify and resubmit it, or cancel the offer all together. You should understand what the Recent Price column on the Listings tab represents. The Recent Price is the last price paid for the item, which is not necessarily the asking or list price for the item. It's useful to look at the History of items, to get a general idea of how much the seller is probably asking. The recent price of Barrels might be 1 doubloon (db), but a seller could easily be selling Barrels at 100 db each. If someone paid 50 db for one Barrel six weeks ago, the price current price for Barrels is probably closer to 50 db than to 1 db. Also, it is possible the price of barrels dropped 49 db in the past weeks; it is also possible that the buyer bid too high and paid way more than the asking price. There are several possibilities to explain this discrepancy in prices. Always bid low and then raise your price if your offer is declined. The sales history for the item usually indicates what you should offer for your bid. Remember, you can also look at the price of the item in other markets within your region when determining what you want to bid. Accepting Partial OrdersYou probably noticed the Accept Partial Orders option on the Make An Offer window. This option can be very useful when making an offer for an item. This option allows your offer to be partially filled based on its price. For example, let's say you want to buy 100 nails on Cat Island. There are 300 nails available there with a Recent Price of 125 doubloons. Obviously, you have no way of knowing the asking price for those 300 nails. In an attempt to get the best deal, you might make an initial offer for 100 nails at 100 doubloons each. If there are not 100 nails at 100 doubloons each or less, your offer will be declined (even if 50 of those 300 nails are listed at 100 doubloons). If you click the Accept Partial Orders option, your order will be partially filled with any of the nails that are listed at or below your offer. So with the Accept Partial Orders option, you would have bought 50 nails at 100 doubloons each. Using this feature can save you plenty of doubloons if you use it on a regular basis. Fulfilling Buy OrdersFulfilling Buy Orders is fairly intuitive if you already understand how to bid on an auction; therefore, the best way to learn is to jump right in.To find a Buy Order to fulfill follow these steps:
Now that you have found an order to fulfill, let's make sure that you can actually fulfill the order. To fulfill an order you must have the requested goods in the same port that the order was made (e.g., in a Warehouse or docked ship at that port), but you do not need to have the entire quantity that the order requests. For instance if the order requests 230 Granite, and you only have 100 Granite, you can still fulfill the order.
Pickups TabIf you are buying from a Shop other than the one you are in, items you purchase are stored for pickup at the Shop you are purchasing from. The Pickups tab will also contain your fulfilled buy orders if your buy order from one port is fulfilled while you are in another port. To pickup these items, you must sail to the port of the Shop and talk to the auctioneer. Your purchased items will be available on the Pickups tab The Shop will store items that you need to pickup for one week at no charge. After one week, your items will accrue storage charges that you will need to pay in order to pickup your item. If you leave an item in storage for too long (several weeks), the item will eventually be donated to the poor (removed from your Pickups tab permanently). If you decide you actually do not want to pick up an item, you may discard the item on the Pickups tab by clicking the Throw Items Away button. You can discard items from the Shop at any port, not just the port the item is located at. To see what items you have ready for pickup, go to any Shop and look on the Pickups tab. Sell TabThe Sell tab is where you can sell the items you manufacture, loot, or steal from other players. You can sell items that are in your Ship's Hold, Personal Inventory, or from your Warehouse (although, you must be in the same port as your Warehouse). As with the other tabs, to place an item up for sale, you must be in a Shop and have the Auction House window open. To sell an item using the Sell tab follow these steps:
OrderThe Order tab allows you to create buy orders. Before creating a buy order you should know what item you want to order, and have a general idea of the quantity of the item you want to order. To place an order, follow these steps:
My ListingsThe My Listings window provides you with a lot of information you can use to manage your listings, including their expiration date. Items in the My Listings window are sorted into sections by Auction or Buy Order. All listings expire after one week. If your items have not sold within the one week period, they will be moved to the Pickups window. You will need to pick the items up at the port where you listed them. If you have not picked up your items after one week, storage charges will begin to accrue. If you leave an item in storage too long, it will eventually be donated to the poor (removed from your Pickups tab permanently). You can prevent your listings from expiring by extending them for an additional week. To do this, on the My Listings tab select on the item whose expiration date you wish to extend and click the Extend Expiration button. Keep in mind that you will be charged an additional listing fee. Related Pages |
