Market Pricing Increments - Kitely Credits vs. USD

[Jennifer Simoni]

I've noticed that the smallest increments an item can be sold for on the Market (if choosing the USD option) is $1 USD, which translates to 300KC automatically. This seems a bit steep for some items, IMO. Is there a particular reason the USD amount cannot be set lower? For instance, if I want to sell something for 100KC, I can only sell it with KC. This is fine with me, and just an observations, but I'm curious as to why it works this way. With the KC rounded to an appropriate [close enough] whole, and set as fixed increment options, this could allow for a bit more flexibility for those who do also want to sell for USD and not inadvertently rip someone off. EX: $0.05 = 10KC, $0.10 = 35KC, $0.25 = 75KC, $0.50 = 150KC, $0.75 = 225KC.

I do see pros and cons to this approach.

Pro: May encourage someone who's not already signed up with Kitely to join.
Con: May deter someone from purchasing. $1 is "real" money, and people are more likely to spend money that isn't "real" (eg: pocket change or KC).

I realize in most cases, this probably isn't necessary, but there are sometimes where it could come in handy. Again, just curious and trying to learn more about the logic behind all of the different options provided.

[Dot Matrix]

When the Kitely Market was being developed, there was quite a bit of discussion about pricing in the Community Meetings (called Mentor Meetings in those days). It's quite hard to find the summary threads, but one of the key meetings that touched on pricing in USD vs KC was on 3 July 2013: Kitely Mentors Group Meeting, 3 July 2013: summary.

The following is from that summary:

Pricing things in KC or USD
If you want to be paid in USD, price the items in USD; see: https://kitely.atlassian.net/wiki/displ ... ely+Market

You can select an item’s price to be in USD or in KC.

When you set a price in USD you can select a checkbox to allow it to be paid in KC as well, in which case the rate is 300 KC per USD. You don't need to list things twice to sell in both USD and KC unless you want to sell them in a different price. You can have two variations in the same product.

If you set a price in USD and accept KC then you'll get paid with whatever the buyer has -- KC if she has them or USD if she doesn't.

The minimum prices for items in the Marketplace are 10 KC or 1 USD. It was suggested that low-cost KC items might be bundled to make a package worth 1 USD in order to meet the minimum USD price.

It's not an exact response to your request, but it suggests a possible alternative.

[Freda Frostbite]

I agree that 300 KC is too high for some items. I have handled that by making them available for less in my inworld shop. I say so on The Market page, that all of our creations can be had cheaper by coming to the shop on Poesy. It allows me to sell the items at the price that makes sense anddrive traffic to Poesy, which is the only reason we sell anything (other than books by Poesy authors) anyway.

[Freda Frostbite]

Pricing was designed to:

A) Minimize the effects of PayPal charges ($0.30 + percentage). If low priced items (in USD) are allowed then a big part of the money the buyer spends goes to PayPal instead of the merchant. We set a minimum level that ensures that merchants will be the ones who earn most of the profits from their sales.

B) Prevent a race to zero in item prices. Marketplaces that allow freebies and/or set no minimum prices suffer from price pressure that prevents merchants from being able to charge fair prices for their goods. People who aren't looking to earn USD for their marketplace sales can already set prices in KC (as low as 10 KC which is equal to about $0.03).

[Jennifer Simoni]

Perfectly logical. Thanks for the explanation.

People who aren't looking to earn USD for their marketplace sales can already set prices in KC (as low as 10 KC which is equal to about $0.03).

Exactly what I did. 10KC