Now while I'm not new to the concept of paying someone to get items from abroad and bring them back.. I was just wondering what the going rate was for that service?
I know that's a vague question, but it's a fluid marketplace.
Do traders set a certain % of the daily market value as payment, is it a set fee regardless, or are there better ways of paying for runners?
I mean you can pay them as little as 0$ and as much as your NW is - it’s up to you to find the difference
Personally I wouldn’t mind getting someone 100 or so plushies / flowers a week for a rate higher than the cost of them (so the initial purchase plus the money I would make from it) so that my time is more valuable than self buying / selling
hopefully that makes sense!
basically if all of the plushies from the run costed me 58,000 and then the going rate was 500,000 - I’d want to earn more than the cost basis and sale price
which also means you can buy from market cheaper lol
the only way this makes sense for the buyer is if they’re in effect scamming the nub by paying like 100k for 58k purchase price and the nub doesn’t realize the 58k of items is actually worth 500k on market > in theory
Valid points there, appreciated!
Usually this is done within faction as a way for members to help out and contribute in different ways than participating in wars and chains - people will run for xans or temps and donate them to fac for minimal or no profit (I used to do it rounded up to the next mil per trip for ease back in the day :P).
This can be done under the pretense of "we won't kick you and we won't force you to participate in fac activities" but that's rare and can cause some grumbling in chat, most of the time this is simply something someone does either as part of leadership, vying for a leadership role, or simply out of kindness and a want to show their gratitude for being in the fac. Afaik it's not super common, as it stifles the growth of the runner, and leads/peeps orchestrating the funds often feel guilty abusing their peeps like this, but it does happen from time to time :)
Going rate in what sense? What the people looking for runners usually want is for them to sell their travel items at a discount so they can make a profit. So there is no rate, you are in effect gifting money to whoever you work for.
I pay anyone selling me plushies and flowers, a little over the current item market value, at the time of the trade/send.
If an item is showing as $10,279 for instance, I will pay $10,400 per item for that item.
I still profit, no matter what.... and get high volume traders who will then also earn themselves bonuses when I sell sets at museum day. Though I got bored of this, and only really offer it to newbies struggling to make money, to help them make as much profit as possible, instead of being short-changed by buyers.