Pricing HUDs for New Breeders

[Tad Carlucci]

For some time now there have been some HUDs out there which purport to aid you in setting prices for your cats.

While these may be of some use for new breeders, they can also lead to problems.

Users of these products should always bear in mind the following:

1) There is NO true 'fair price' nor is there any true 'current market price'. While these HUDs may claim to present such values, it is a false claim. These claims are, in fact, the opinion of the creator, with NO basis in fact, and NO representation of actual market conditions.

2) The information used by these HUDs is often vastly out-of-date. Even remembering that the factors used to produce the fictitious prices are nothing more than one person's opinion, and have no relation, whatsoever, with actual market conditions; and notwithstanding any claims of regular updates; these products are often woefully out-of-date and may no longer even represent the opinions of the creator.

3) Approaching other breeders and questioning their pricing based upon what your HUD suggests might be a 'fair' price is, at best, rude, if not downright abusive.

It's your choice whether to use these HUDs and rely upon their suggestions.

But, PLEASE, keep it to yourself and stop accosting people simply because your HUD suggests a different price. If you don't like the price you see, move on.

[Shamu077 Resident]

And didn't they charge to use these HUDS as well. Unreal

[MsMagick Resident]

Tad, I hope this wasn't because I was joking about how far off it can be after you brought it up in another thread.

Shamu077, yes, and I think mine cost in the range of L$700 - L$800.

To be fair, I like many of the creator's other items, and I've enjoyed doing some beta testing of his products. I think pricing is just a VERY difficult issue. To be truely accurate, someone would need a large sampling of actual sales data for live cats, boxes, auctions, etc., with frequent updates and adjustments, especially regarding new traits and special sizes.

FYI - I just log directly into the webpage. As far as I can tell, there isn't any real reason to use the HUD itself. I do use the website to double check my trait count (there is also a free page for that here: http://kittycats.slnetworking.net/ ) and sometimes just to see what it says on something that I haven't priced before.

[Tad Carlucci]

(05-07-2015 07:19 PM)MsMagick Resident Wrote:  Tad, I hope this wasn't because I was joking about how far off it can be after you brought it up in another thread.

Not about you.

Frankly, early this morning Charm was set upon by a user of one of those HUDs and was still upset about it hours later when I posted. I reviewed her chat logs and didn't see anything rising to the level of an AR, but, boy, do I wish there were, since she was so put out by it.

So, best I can do, is post here in the hopes that word will get out that people need to be a bit more aware of the inherent unreliability of those HUDs (or similar web pages), not take them as gospel, and, remember, people set prices for a variety of reasons over a wide range and it's, to say the least, rude to presume your opinions / reasons / information / whatever is any more valid than theirs.

[anna Acanthus]

I'd just like to add that those huds have absolutely no official status, they are "tolerated" as KittYCatS is a free and open market and the team does not intervene in this market except of course in cases of theft and copybotting for example.

Any pricing system is arbitrary and inexact for the reasons Tad gives so i'd say make some honest friends and visit auctions and stores to make your own evaluation. IMO these huds are just another scourge for our market, at best a useless waste of money.

A good example, last year someone was bragging a 9T all top recessives cat , impossible of course as two of the traits had only recently been discovered. A friend who had a pricing hud ran it through for fun and it came out at 5K when obviously it would fetch at least 10 times that in auction and on a bad day.

@Charm - hey girl, you've been in KCs since the beginning and you maybe need to bitch up just a little - for example the next time some fool tries to clobber you with their hud results just tell them to " put it where the monkey puts his nuts " (polite version)

[Bumblebliss Resident]

I'd have muted them from the getgo. I don't tolerate people like that and if you don't like the price, don't let the door hit yer buttocks on the way out after my foot launches you!

[Ivy Norsk]

[This is a total sidebar to the current topic. But I've tried muting people in KittyCatS because of their incessant spamming of their cats. Actually I thought I'd muted alts set up as bots to advertise automatically based on the number of messages I was getting. But I discovered during an auction that I could not see the bids of the person I was bidding against because I had muted that person. It was a weird situation where I was relying on the auctioneer and audience reaction to figure out what was going on. So I un-muted everybody. Muting is not ideal. People, don't spam your audience to death.]

[Emilia Darkwatch]

Sorry to hear there was a bad experience with someone being rude due to comparing a price to an HUD one. Personally, I find the HUDs to be largely inaccurate and also feel the best way to get an idea of price ranges is to visit markets for oneself. The KittycatS Price Check group can also be quite helpful and is well-moderated if any problems ever arise in terms of disagreement over price. It can be very helpful speaking to people and hearing their views which can be quite different and is great. The HUDs seem to present, to some, especially when new, a good or easier way of pricing cats and what to pay for them but really are just the personal view of the creator... so this should always be taken into account. The HUDs don't take into account the fast price drops often seen with newer traits, state of the market and many other factors. Also, if giving prices especially to new people, of what a cat with largely genesis traits is worth, I find those HUDs most misleading because many will believe that the cat is worth more when they will, in actuality, probably get about 75L for it based on the current market. I've seen a number of people get quite discouraged due to believing their kitties were worth more, setting up a store based on that, and not being able to sell them, but part of this does of course come down to them not having looked around markets all that much too and it is not solely the issue of the HUD

As for the excess spamming that Ivy mentioned, I am totally I agreement on that and it drives me crazy and totally puts me off visiting stores rather than wanting to

[Bumblebliss Resident]

So glad that I'm mostly a hoarder and don't have to deal with it.

[Dimpz Morane]

(05-08-2015 12:33 AM)anna acanthus Wrote:  I'd just like to add that those huds have absolutely no official status, they are "tolerated" as KittYCatS is a free and open market and the team does not intervene in this market except of course in cases of theft and copybotting for example.

Any pricing system is arbitrary and inexact for the reasons Tad gives so i'd say make some honest friends and visit auctions and stores to make your own evaluation. IMO these huds are just another scourge for our market, at best a useless waste of money.

A good example, last year someone was bragging a 9T all top recessives cat , impossible of course as two of the traits had only recently been discovered. A friend who had a pricing hud ran it through for fun and it came out at 5K when obviously it would fetch at least 10 times that in auction and on a bad day.

Nods I agree wholeheartedly with what you have written. I remember at the time a pricing hud had come out, I was concerned about how some new members to kittycats, may take the prices given by the hud as literal, and the impact this may have on Secondary Market sales, especially as at the time it had appeared to undervalued (imo) the rarer traits. @ anna Lolz the pricing of that 9t stunner did have me hopping around for a few days!