Bazaar Questions

Hi everyone! I have two questions I can’t seem to find the answers to:

1. 1$ items in bazaars, especially the locked ones - what are those? I can understand selling items super cheap to get rid of them, but why lock them? Is it if the buyer offers you something specific? What? And how do you even lock items in the bazaar?
2. Traders/Buyers: most often, the prices at which people say they buy stuff is lower than what you would get in the item market, even with the market fee (e.g. small candies can easily sell for 600$, which is 570$ after a 5% fee, but buyers buy them for closer to 450$) - why does anyone sell to buyers? I’m confused 😅

Thanks in advance!

1. The $1 items being locked is a torn thing. They used to do a Black Friday Event in which people sell and buy $1 items, but because people were scripting to buy items quickly, thus removing the ability for everyone to purchase, they started locking $1 purchases randomly to a players ID # (it's something like the last digit of your ID, so you have a 10% chance to be able to buy). This isn't decided by the sellers.
2. The thing most traders do is ensure mug free interactions. This ensures you get exactly what you paid for, rather than tempting the item market and potentially getting mugged for it. It's often a hassle free interaction once you find a trader you like. 

Q1:

1$ items are locked to everyone except a few people automatically, they implemented it a couple years back when a Torn-hosted black friday event was ruined by script kiddies buying everything up within a second or two, so now each item is locked to the last 2 digits of your ID (every 1$ item stack has a 1% chance to be unlocked for each player)

Q2:

Traders make money by being patient, having more eyes on their selling channels, and better knowledge to protect themselves - there's a couple reasons to use a trader over the higher profits for yourself:

1. items that don't sell fast (like candles in your example), you may need liquid right away to buy more important items for your own progression (BBs, xans, points, gear ...) - if an item is going to take 6 months to sell and you're only getting an extra couple hundred bucks out of it by doing so, its not worth it for most players
2. big ticket items like SEs, high end gear, or even FHCs and DPs make you a buy mug target, if you're not careful or forget about them after you list them you may get buy mugged and basically lose more than you would have selling to a trader
3. More common items (like flushies, as an example) are sold much closer to bazaar rate, meaning you'll lose more in item market taxes than you would selling to a trader who can make their bazaar much more visible via bulk selling (esp with the new directory) - so unless you go out and promote your bazaar somehow for people to buy your 29 panda plushies, its going to be difficult to sell tax-free nowadays