Pink Poogle Toy Forum

I've been wondering about this for a while now and I'm curious about other's opinions on this matter.

about the world of HTS, unbuyables, and supply-and-demand: if an item is HTS, it means the item is hard to sell. An example would be fishing junk like "Rotten left Boot", but people usually mean painted petpets and so on. The supply is low, so the price is high, right? Well, there's something wrong with this picture: the demand is low as well, hence their HTS status. If there is low demand for painted petpets, shouldn't that mean that their price should deflate? Yes, people are often not willing to sell an item at a loss, but then again, if no on wants them, they don't have much of a choice because it's either selling at at loss, or not sell at all. However, this doesn't seem to happen. Painted petpets are still being sold at a (small) profit, which indicates that there is a demand for them. Now, if there is a demand, why are they HTS?

painted petpets are just an example though. The question really is: how can something that is low in supply, but ALSO low in demand and thus HTS, be worth milions of np?

Because it's hard to sell, not impossible. You wait long enough, someone will want your faerie meepit or whatever, and they'll pay you at least the cost of the petpet+pb, because it would cost the same/maybe more for them to buy them separately (or maybe they'd pay extra because the petpet is already made... if you want to stick a painted petpet in your gallery and don't have an "empty" pet you can equip the petpet to in order to paint the thing, you need a prepainted one). It just comes down to patience, I guess.

It's because the item itself may be rare.

Look at the TCG items. People will still spend about 100-300k for a rare one for their collection/gallery, but the items are still HTS because there isn't enough demand for them. Even then, they're still rare.. so when someone who does want the item comes along, they'll be willing to pay for it.

It also has to do with players motivation to sell.
If there's one of a particular item in all of neopia, they set the price. If they aren't in a hurry to sell below a certain price, they won't. This isn't a purely competitive market... one-of-a-kinds or even simply rare items can't be (legally) duplicated. It'll be HTS because of the high price set on it. If the seller really wants to sell, they will take a rational stance and lower theprice until they find a seller (hence quicksale boards and discounted prices on HTS items). Occasionally a collector comes along willing to pay the high price though.

Neo isn't a perfect economy, that's the short explanation. xD

I think you need to look at it in comparison to ETS items. Easy To Sell items are those items MOST people want. Paint brushes, good battledome weapons, and rare but useful potions .... sell much quicker.

ETS is not indicitive of a price however.
Many paint brushes are ETS but are worth less than 300k.

You also should think about the use of an item. Some things are only sought after by collectors but have little or no use. They do nothing for you other than look good and give you bragging rights. They can be rare and very expensive, but do not appeal to most people. TCGs, Toys, and Gift items fit that discription well.

Petpets of the painted variety are slightly different because some people expect to sell that Faerie Meepit for more than the sum of it's parts. *pokes Cran's Faerie Meepit*

I think neopets should have a hard to sell shop. That is, a shop that will buy items back from people. I don't know if it is possible to do that, but if they can figure out a way for the shop to know the going price of an item they might could make it work. They might even make the shop haggle with you a bit about the price. I'd love this because it would mean a quick sale on some very hard to sell items I have.

Junk items will never be HTS - simply because you can always win them. The underwater fishing game gives them out - so there is an over supply of them, therefore they are worthless. They sell for 1np and unbelievably people do buy them.

HTS are those items that which are in low supply or a new item that has no 'history'.

When new items come out, no-one knows if it is worth the high price so no-one buys them. Once a new item has been valued by users the price will drop or stay accordingly - a toy, book, weapon, food etc can be used and prices are set.

Painted petpets are in the HTS bracket and not supply and demand because they are more of a specialty item. Usually only those with gallerys or a theme going will buy very expensive petpets.

If a painted petpet became an avatar item, then you would get supply and demand prices - because the demand for the item has increased to more than just one small group.

HTS can also be really expensive items, simply because people don't have that much money to buy them.
Junk items are never HTS. They can actually sit in your shop for a while and get bought, because people DO buy them (some people collect those items).
I think ^ has a good explaination about this.

Junk items aren't HTS...they're overpriced at 1 Neopoint. If you put an item up for more than its worth, it's not going to sell quickly. I believe someone made the point that you can sell junk items in the Trading Post for less than 1 NP per item, which would make them easier to sell than putting them in your shop.
Stuff that is low-supply and low-demand is also easy to hoard, so you can temporarily inflate the price of an item and get something of far more value in a trade. I had that happen to me once, when I was new to the Trading Post. I spent months trying to sell it at a 50% loss, and was relieved when the Pant Devil stole it.

Maybe you could make an analogy of HTS items on Neopets to things such as fine art in real world economies. Sure, there aren't a whole lot of people running around buying Van Goghs, but that doesn't mean that the owner is going to cut the price until it's easily affordable. The item in question is very rare, so the owner can name his price and wait until someone is willing to pay it. Might take a while (making said Van Gogh possibly HTS) but there's no real reason to drastically cut the price.