Let's Talk About Unconverted Pet Prices

[Bat]

It has been nearly eight years since we first published a pricing guideline for unconverted pets, and we're thinking that it's time for a refresher. Rather than discuss this behind closed doors, we'd like to hear from our community's sellers and traders. In these report-happy times where unconverted pets are frozen regularly in an ever-decreasing pool of options: what are they really worth nowadays?

Let's have a critical discussion about the costs of each pet's color and species combination. Please note that we will not be reworking our discount guidelines. We're interested in adjusting the prices of the most valuable pets: very-well named unconverted pets.

Facts, figures and sales history would be appreciated!

[My name is Yoshikage Kira]

Am excited to see a discussion on prices, will have to gather my thoughts on it before I contribute.

Just a suggestion though, should this maybe be linked on the Neopets trades or Neo general section so it doesn't get over looked here in spam? It'd be great to hear from a variety of people both sellers and buyers

[Zorara]

Unconverted Gelerts:

Grey - overpriced at $90 - realisticly would price at $60

Maraquan - undervalued at $60 - vwn UC trading value is on par with tier 7. Would value at $80-90

Plushie - $250 is fair.

Darigan - would value the same as Maraquan. $80-90

[Bat]

should this maybe be linked on the Neopets trades or Neo general section so it doesn't get over looked here in spam?

Users aren't allowed to reply directly to trade threads, and since we're expecting this to be a long-running debate of sorts, we'd rather that it not count toward increasing total posts.

It'd be great to hear from a variety of people both sellers and buyers

With all due respect to our buyers, we'd prefer seller and trader feedback on this. A person buying something is more than likely going to push for a lower price if they're able. We're looking to strike a balance between what's fair and what's reasonable - not what's cheap enough for someone looking for a bargain.

[I_royalty_I]

I won't pretend to keep up with the tiers rankings because they seem to change all the time and often times don't reflect on the actual supply that's out there. I have massive old lists of VWN UC pets - both that I sold, and that were found while creating my list of pets to be sold. Original list includes pets that were on actives and weeded out of the selling pool. There are some pets that are just stupidly rare... lots of people would want one, but they are simply out of reach. These include primarily the very rare uc plushies. Some of the UC royals would fall into this category, but based on my experiences, UC royals are always sought after and the prices are usually fair.

For some of the UC plushies, that are $300+ I don't think those prices are realistic. Yes, they may be valued up there as they are rare, but nobody is shelling out $300+ for a pet that is incredibly hard to pass off as legitly gained. Typically, the top price of $200-250 was the most people were willing to spend on a pet - in my experiences. There are some pets that simply don't sell often enough because of the price tag, yet there are a lot of them; i.e. I know of 15 VWN UC plushie Unis but have sold only 1 that I can recall. Other pets like UC RG Kyriis/UC Darigan Wockys I don't budge on price at all and sometimes quote over the suggested price depending on the name.

Many people look at pets with the same mentality that they looks at NPs - they want a discount for "bulk". If a pet is valued at say $250, they will want a price point closer to $200 to buy so they feel like they are getting a deal and everybody wins. This of course depends on the name, per the rules.

If there are people who have more information and experience with the tiers guides (how pets actually trade onsite) and they would like to evaluate the prices to see how accurate we line up, that would be cool. I think they should align closely simply because of the values across the board from an objective point of view. I'm sure other sellers can provide input based off that feedback to give their opinions on how those values line up with the actual amount of UCs out there and their rarity.

As for sales figures, mid tier UC Darigans and UC Faeries are the top sellers for sure. You don't often get people looking for the bottom of the barrel pets and the more obscure one offs like UC Tyrannians/Maraquans/Coconut/Usuki/etc. The UC Plushie/Royal range is usually somebody looking for a pet that they simply can't find onsite and/or don't have anything that they could safely trade to get that pet.

All in all, I think how it's set up now is pretty fair. There aren't many pets priced at the $350+ range like we had in the past. Some prices may need to be adjusted, but that would require a deeper dive and input from others.

[Kylae]

As Royalty said, $250 is about the cap for anything that's not extinct. I've never sold anything over that price. As for the lower tier ones, it's not even neccessarily the value that keeps people from buying them, just the pet. You could change an $80 pet down to a $40 pet, but it's still just not wanted. And if someone did buy it because it's cheaper, it's to trade and that's dangerous after buying a pet.

That being said, other then stating that $250 is a pretty hard cap for a price other then like, your super obscure Darigan Wocky, some of the prices might have been a little low on the popular pets as I'm completely sold out of them now, so I can't even justify changing their price as I don't have any to sell. They may have even been priced fine and high enough, they were just popular. I personally don't like selling any pet less then like $15, so I think the bottom is fine too. I don't hate any of the pet prices, other then the ones being over $250, so I'd personally not enjoy a total overhaul of the prices, but just minor tweaks if neccessary due to the possible extinction of populars.

I refuse to spell check.

[motherfucker]

IMO the prices of the UC Plushies and Royals are likely close to where they need to be; they maybe only require a few tweaks lower.
It might be beneficial to have some pets un-priced because we know they would go high anyways: Darigan Wockies, Royal Kaus and Kyriis.

It's the lower/middle of the pack prices that I think are a little high.

The easiest way to do this would likely be to set up a survey to take specific price suggestions for each pet, unless you want to start tallying up separate posts on this thread... I'd use a Google Doc survey which must include your username so it's less anonymous for unfair suggestions. You can freely choose which ones you want to update and adjust and maybe put the "experience" you have with UCs at the bottom (whether it be that you're someone who buys a lot of pets, someone who sells a lot of pets, or someone who sees a lot of pet movement).

For example, I'd have a decent understanding of some USD prices based on how pets move on the PC. That's how I help price check specific pets for people. That's how I'd feel comfortable making a price list for some pets. I have also tried moving and selling pets on the selling thread with not much luck (but I'm not persistent enough to really go after the sale).

Nobody is going to want to read this, but:

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ADDED NOTE:
Currency exchange plays a really big part in my opinion on some prices. Some days, some people are paying 30-40% more than the highest list price for a pet.

I know that there's not much that can be done there, but I do think that needs to be considered for people who do not deal in USD often.

[Kylae]

Nobody is going to want to read this, but:

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People have been saying this since 2015. Every single year, it's the same thing. I've had more sales in the last year then I have in the prior years since 2015. I think it's all subjective and situational. It's what you sell and how you sell.

[Fabulous]

Eight years, oh my. Definitely time for a reassessment! Thanks for opening this up for discussion. Alignment with the most popular existing tier guide has its pros and cons and as someone who has posed herself the question a few times, here are my scattered thoughts on the matter.

A bit of background about tiers

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Now for my word vom:

Pros of aligning our UC prices with UC tiers

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Cons of aligning our UC prices with UC tiers

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Overall, there are two things that could be tweaked with this review: line up prices so that people can't get cute with tiers versus cK prices, and reevaluate the pricing of some of the less popular pets (ideally based on recentish sales data from sellers) as they may be a touch on the high side.

[Foxglove]

There were a few color/species combos that I have thoughts about :o I'm always selling but I don't consider myself a big seller of Neopets by any means, I mostly buy and trade pets, but I figured I'd offer some thoughts...

Price seems high:
Faerie Kougra
They don't seem to be exceedingly rare and the price point is high relatively to their trading value on the PC. I've owned a few of these before and I don't think I've managed to sell even one of them, I've always had to trade them away instead (often on-site, always for something worth less than $50 USD) x_x I'm not really a big seller though, so maybe they sell better at $50 USD for others :o

Price seems low:
Faerie Shoyru
Is there still a big surplus of these? Their price is low relative to the other faeries despite being Tier 5

These are exceedingly popular and seem to be hard to find in VWN form:
Majority of the RGs (Kyrii, Cybunny, Aisha, Lupe)
Faerie Yurble

And these are just pets that I like but seem to be in short supply (?):
Ice Bruce
Usuki Girl Usul
Grey Cybunny



Also just some general thoughts,
I agree $200-$250 should be a cap for pets that aren't extinct/ridiculously popular - for example, $350 for a RG Kyrii seems fine
I find the general mentality for buying UCs is people like a good discount xD There are lots of well-loved species/colors combos that (in my experience) sell just fine at the CK price; but then there are others that are tough to find a buyer for, especially if there's no discount involved.

---------- Post added at 03:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:16 PM ----------

[*]People will stop getting cute with the cK pricing system, i.e. "I want a specific tier 8 pet, but it's expensive on cK, so I'll buy a less expensive pet of the same tier and just trade it onsite." Concrete example: I want a UC RG Cybunny (T8) who costs $250 USD. Instead of buying that directly from a seller, I'll buy a UC Faerie Grarrl (T8) priced at $150 USD on cK and trade for the RG Cybunny onsite. There are tons of examples - buy a UC Faerie Shoyru (T5, $35 USD) and trade onsite for a UC Faerie Pteri (T5, $65). This game is dangerous to both the buyer and the seller (onsite exposure).

^
Really good point, and definitely something I noticed, too! I agree this needs to be rectified but at the same time there'll still be some difficulties reconciling /~Efflie with the CK prices, because (in my opinion) /~Efflie itself is a flawed list. Pets within (for example) Tier 6 just don't trade the same and don't have comparable popularity D: eg. a VWN UC Faerie Yurble (or Wocky, even) will sell and trade better than a VWN UC Faerie Xweetok

And then within Tier 7, for example UC Grey Tonu - I see lots of them around on the PC, they don't seem to be overly popular (people aren't going nuts specifically seeking them out) while UC Plushie Cybunnies, Shoyrus, and Zafaras are ridiculously popular - and the fact that they're priced 2x the value of a Grey Tonu here on cK makes sense (though I guess the Grey Tonu could stand to get a price increase just to equalize the Tier a bit more? Although I'm pessimistic about how they'd sell if priced at $150 USD each)