Why do trading alliances not work?

[Norbe]

As someone who has considered himself a specialist trader in the past, I would pose the following question:

1 - How do you make a profit from your trading?

It is important, because that is the whole point of trading on a larger scale. So you need to find the "niche" that allows you to make a profit. And for every trader, there is usually only one niche that gives them the profit they are looking for.

The only way a trading alliance can work, is if your alliance can gather and maintain a large market share across all branches of trading. Ideally you would want the majority of the player to player trades going through the alliance or it's associates. That allows you to 1) control rates within the market and 2) withhold trades to hostile alliances. In turn, that gives your alliance a huge amount of negotiating power. You would have the ability to punish those who go against you, and give incentives to those who are friendly. You could even make a deal with a powerful war alliance for protection in exchange for good rates and regular trades.

If your market share is less than 20%, it's pointless, as there is no need for anyone to negotiate with you. They can just go elsewhere for their goods. And without you being able to defend yourself through other means, they will just farm/mass you when they choose to. It's also quite pointless if you only deal in one type of trade, UU sales for example, as an alliance can just adjust how they operate to compensate. If you can only control one area, then it must be the naq for $ market.

Of course as the majority of large scale traders already belong to major alliances, ensuring you can gather that kind of a market share across the game would be very hard. You must either entice them to your alliance somehow, or increase the supply and demand of your own goods until it outweighs theirs enough to damage their business. That means supplying far more than players like Da Vinci, who can famously raid and sell 5 billion UU a week, and FM who deals with quads of naq on a daily basis. And you wll need to be able to compete with their already ludicrously low rates in order to gain your market share, whilst simultaneously making enough profit to deem it worthwhile. On top of that, you add scammers, generally poor/slow traders, and having to continue business when many established players will be sitting on your accounts to prevent you from taking their carefully established market share.

All of those are reasons combined are why we have never seen a trading alliance rise up as a power. Is it impossible to do so? No. All that must be done by the alliance is to have someone online 24/7 able to fulfill any request for a trade, no matter what resources are being traded nor how small or large, in under 5 minutes. An example - If I want to buy 10 quad naq from your alliance, and you can provide at a good rate within minutes, it'll work. But then my friend wants 6 quad too. And his friend wants 20 quad. And we all need it today. Then someone wants a simple quick and easy trade of 10m UU for naq. And three other people want to buy 300m UU for naq. How do you provide all of that, where does the "stock" come from, how do you replenish it quickly, and how do you make a profit? Manage all of that, consistently for a few months, and your trading alliance could grow to be the most powerful force ever seen in this game.

~Norbe~

[Hermes]

Then I guess if this is to work I would need to find a leader to follow or partners.

[Neimenljivi]

You'd need to convince pretty much everyone that sells resources (all types, not just naq which is essential for this to work!) for money (at least like 70% of us). That's the key - if you manage to do that you will control the market because $$ trades are the most important. Once you have control of that - the rest is mostly influenced by $$ trades and once $$ trades are controlled you will be able to influence and take control of other branches fairly quickly.

That being said - I do think those of us that sell resources for $$ would be very interested in doing what you propose because resources are under-priced and lets face it, all of us that sell for $$ do it for profit.
That's where you should start and the only way for this to work is to start here with getting at least 70% of us on your side.

All in all I also think the ingame alliance sort of thingy wouldn't work well (traders have different routes to acquire resources and thus want to be in different houses etc etc), but an unofficial, behind-the-scene sort of alliance (perhaps the players in it only be recognized ingame by their alliance title or something like that) with common forums (essential!) where members of the coalition would discuss prices, price changes, etc.

Price increase of resources for $ would also have a beneficial ingame effect as all this money madness would be far less significant as one wouldn't be able to buy so much resources for so little money.

~N

[Merchant[LG+]]

As a one of the OLD Guys when it comes to trading and actually had my name changed etc to reflect what I am in this game... I am a Merchant first and for most lol.

You have to think like a merchant I mean go back to the good old days when 20k UU went for 1million naq etc lmao Oh those were the days.

For a trading alliance to work(or a partnership) for that matter you need people who are

Not greedy(a profit is a profit after all) - This allows you to make quick sells or even buys while making some cash on the side.... many people I have done business with over the years can tell you... Be it UU/Turns/Planets,Raiding deals, Massing deals whatever that my prices were always usally right at that perfect spot to make everyone a profit both me and my customers .

Now I just came back to the game so Im getting a feel for prices but Ill be back to trading after awhile both buying and selling like always.

But just remember find like minded people you trust,who arent greedy, and also WHO ARE WILLING TO MASS .... because as a trading alliance or partnership you can guess people will target you knowing or thinking you have resources to spare so make sure you all know how to kick some azz to defend whats yours.

Thats all there is too it

[Hermes]

Well if any of you master traders are up for this pm me on the game. I have been trading for a long time ever made a trading alliance,and I have learned one thing there must be players that think alike