By Wynthyst, Guild Wars Guru Auctions Moderator, with suggested amendments from Wllama

There are some simple steps you can follow to make your auctioning experience better.

The basics of selling on GWG Auctions are fairly easy:

1. Register your auction name.
2. Post items for sale.
3. Bid on items you wish to purchase.
4. Monitor your auctions/bids daily.
5. Make quick and polite contact with buyer/seller when an auction closes.
6. Post appropriate feedback.

This said, there are some more specific steps you can take to make it a better experience for all.

When registering your auction account, make sure you are using a valid email address that you can check at least daily, and a valid in game name (IGN), that will allow buyers and sellers to easily contact you in game. If you have multiple accounts, list a single name from each account. Failing to do either will result in your auction account being suspended.

When posting items for sale follow these simple guidelines:

• Categorize your item properly. It will make it much easier for potential buyers to find. The categories have been set up to allow you to specify item class, attribute, skin, and requirement.
• Keep the titles short and to the point.
• Use the Item Description area to completely describe the item, including stats, and any other notes that pertain to the item, as well as any special contact information such as times you may be available to complete the trade. DO NOT rely on pictures for your item description. If a potential buyer goes to view your item and the description says nothing but "See Picture" often times this will lead to a lost sale, especially given the current problems with images on the server that lead to many of them becoming broken. Also be careful of fancy coloring and formatting in your descriptions as they can often be as much of a hindrance as a help.
• Set your prices accordingly. Look to see what other comparable items are not only being starting priced at, but what prices are actually being bid for them. Prices advertised in game often vary widely from what players are actually willing to pay, so just because you see someone selling an item in game for X, don't assume that is the value of the item. Nine times out of ten, that item will not be sold for that price.
• Set your starting price as a guideline of the minimum you are willing to take for the item. While the Reserve Price feature is an option, it is often seen as being misleading to buyers who will then find another comparable item to bid on. With the number of items available on GWG Auctions, this is usually not difficult.
• Use the Buy Out option. Giving your buyers the opportunity to purchase now rather than waiting for an auction to close will sell more often than not. However, set your Buy Out price within reason. 20-50% above either the starting price or the reserve price based on the value of the item is a reasonable mark.
• Set the length of your auction within reason. Most players are looking to buy something they need NOW, not 2 weeks from now. Three to five days is a reasonable length of time to expect a buyer to wait for an auction to close. Any longer than that, and they will most likely find something else. Remember that values in game fluctuate over time. Posting something at today's values, and leaving it there for 6 months is a strategy almost guaranteed to fail as the value will most likely drop drastically in that amount of time. Also, auctions with a length of more than 60 days that do not offer a Buy Out option are likely to be deleted.
• Use the Featuring options appropriately. Setting all items to be featured/highlighted/bolded actually detracts from those truly special items that deserve the special attention, and thus nullify this option completely.
• Use images that focus on the item. Fancy armor and lots of background often make it difficult to actually see the item. Due to ongoing issues with the auction software, hosting your images offsite appears to be the best option if you wish your images to appear.
• If using the Auto Relist feature, make sure you monitor your auctions carefully as duplication/deletion of auctions during this process has been reported. Imagine the buyer's surprise if they contact you to trade for an item they believe they have won, only to find out you sold it to someone else because the software had duplicated your auction. Also any item that has been relisted more than 5 times over a period of 30 days without selling is probably in need of a pricing adjustment.

When bidding on items be prepared to purchase them. Make sure you verify when the auction will be closing and plan accordingly. There is nothing more frustrating for a seller than to have a buyer tell them they had the money when they placed the bid, but have since spent it. It will lead to negative feedback that could prevent you from buying or selling at a future date.

Monitor your auctions/bids at least daily. The best way to know if you've sold or won an item is go look. Also relying solely on email notification is problematic as there have been repeated issues with the email system. Monitoring your posted auctions will also allow you to know whether items are being duplicated/deleted during the relist process. While this is an issue that the auction staff are looking into, the best defense comes from you. Having auctions duplicate can cause many headaches if more than one item is bid on, when only one item actually exists.

When your auctions close whether you are selling or buying, use your member areas Sold Items or Won Items to find the user's IGN and add them to your friends list. This will allow you know when the user is online and potentially available to complete the trade. Make polite contact. I can't stress how important this can be to making this a pleasant experience for everyone. Remember that whether you are a buyer or a seller, the other person may have many items posted, or many bids so be specific when indicating the item you are talking about. Also, remember that people are in the game to PLAY. When your initial greeting is responded to, ask them if it's a good time to trade. If they are in the middle of a mission, or other game activity, be polite, and give them the chance to finish, simply ask them to contact you when they are done. Also, if your initial contact is NOT responded to, wait for a period of time, (I recommend a minimum of 15 minutes), then repeat your greeting. People will often either step away from their computer, or be in the process of mapping from one area to another and will miss messages. If in game contact fails to get a response, send the user a PM through the auction system, and/or email, asking for a time frame that is convenient for them to complete the transaction. Always remember that Guild Wars is a global community and your trading partner may live on the opposite side of the planet, making time zones problematic.

If you share your Guild Wars account, notify your account partner of your bids, and make arrangements for them to pick up the item for you if they are contacted in game. If a buyer/seller is making polite contact after an auction has been won and gets told 'it wasn't me, it was my brother, you'll have to talk to him," chances are you will receive a negative feedback and lose the item/sale. Another option to this is send the seller an auction pm or email, explaining the situation and telling them specifically which IGNs are yours.

If you have multiple Guild Wars accounts the first choice is to list one name from each account in your auction account profile. If you choose not to do this, then I recommend you do not use any account other than the one registered in GWG Auctions to contact buyers/sellers or conduct trades. Many sellers/buyers are careful about only trading with the legitimate account holder to prevent cases of fraud, scams, or abuse.

Once a trade has been completed, be prompt about leaving appropriate feedback. If you are the seller, make sure you mark the item Paid - Posted/sent in the options field. Your feedback will influence other buyer/sellers in how they interact with this person, so be fair and responsible.

If you have followed all these steps and your transaction is NOT completed satisfactorily, use the feedback area to make appropriate comments. Always remember that this is in fact a game related auction, and there are many reasons why a person may fail to make contact so keep your negative feedback polite and to the point. Raging personal attacks only make you look bad.

On the subject of auction abandonment, there is no set GWG Auctions policy covering this issue. However, if a good faith effort has been made to contact the buyer/seller using multiple contact types (in game, auction pm, email) and you have received no response after a reasonable period, it would be appropriate to consider this an abandoned auction and either relist the item, or search for a comparable one to purchase, leaving negative feedback when you do. Some sellers list their terms as part of the item description

If you feel a user has violated GWG Auction policy, use the Abuse report system. Abuse reports are monitored daily. In keeping with GWG Privacy policy you will not be notified of any action taken in response to your report.

Here are some personal guidelines I use when choosing which items to post on the auction:

• Gold or Green, max damage items, unless the item is known to be rare.
• Attribute requirement of 9 or 10, unless the item is known to be rare.
• Perfect or one off perfect modifiers, or clean.

It has been my experience that non-max damage items have little or no market value, nor do high requirement items. Of course there are exceptions to this.

My personal pricing philosophy is that if I can sell 10 items for 10x over what the merchant will give me, I will have the same gold to play with today than if I hold out for 100x over and have to wait a week, or a month.

I have had a lot of success using GWG Auctions following these guidelines.

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