See this? This is Zaku. Zaku wants people to rent him so he can go cause maddening destruction to everyone in the bronze league who faces him. But no one is renting Zaku so Zaku is sad. Let's take a look and figure out why no one is renting Zaku and learn a lesson about market psychology that will help make Zaku happy again while putting more money in your pocket.
This photo is the rental market filtered by lowest price no matter the level.
There I am in the middle with a price of 379 which is actually lower than the 450 I rent this for everyday. But on this day, it's stuck. The price won't move above $350.
If you look closely, you can see why it's been stuck.
The two cheapest cards are lvl 2 cards.
Thinking about this rationally, we would think well if someone is willing to rent a lvl 1 at 450, why would they hesitate to rent a lvl 2 for 350?
The thing about market psychology is that when most people are actually making a purchasing decision, they are often not in a rational state. We buy based on feelings and something about this feels very wrong.
If something feels wrong, we will then use bad logic to explain the bad feeling and usually make a poor decision.
The reason this is stuck is because most people will approach this with the following thoughts.
350 for a lvl 2 is a great deal! I wish I needed a LVL 2 because I'd grab that right up. I don't need a level 2 though and I don't want to pay for more than I need.
OK let's go look at lvl 1's. Wait, why are the level 1's more than the lvl 2s? This is a rip off. I have an uneasy feeling about this whole thing and I'm leaving without buying anything. I'll check back later.
And suddenly, because a couple listings are priced wrong, the whole market comes to a standstill until you get that one guy who doesn't care or you actually get someone who needs a lvl 2 Zaku, which is far fewer people.
There are prices like this all over the place that damage markets. If you look through the Alpha and Beta rental markets its particularly bad because people who don't play the game anymore but have a vault of cards came in on day one to list all their cards at any old price and then closed the game again happy with anything they make. If you put up a lvl 5 card for 2 dec, the whole market is beholden to that.
Look at these two pictures and ask what kind of a story they tell? On this data alone can you figure out what a fair price is or does it just make you feel weird to look at it. The numbers are everywhere. The BCX is everywhere, the prices are everywhere. Most people are walking away from this without renting anything even if they wanted the card.
I didn't want to take a million screen shots but the maxed out lvl 10 cards are actually cheaper than cards all the way down the chain.
Market structure tells a story. We all need to work together to make it an enticing story instead of one that leaves the buyer feeling uneasy and walking away empty-handed.
PS: I just spent 20 minutes writing this post and looking for examples and screen shotting and editing screen shots and I went back to check what is usually a VERY active Zaku market and we are still stuck. One of them finally went but now we have yet another one even cheaper to replace it.
