With the recent announcement of the CW Pawn Shop's purchasing page closing, I would like to see more users - both artists and buyers - provide their feedback and thoughts on CWs as a whole, as well as how the CW Pawn shop impacts their experience. Please be civil and follow the community guidelines when posting.

I'd like to start this off by repeating my thoughts from the news post:

1/15 Edit: I'm adding a link to Reaper's Buyer's guide to CWs, please check it out!

1/19 Edit: Some suggestions as to what people would like to see changed in the CW market:

First, I'd like to just say that private items and the pawn are completely separate issues - part of the agreement of most private items is that they should not ever end up in the pawn. As a released and artist, I have mixed feelings on private items but that discussion is not really relevant to the pawn shop's partial closure.

Also, you will find that public releases make up the bulk of the CW market, with only a few individuals choosing (within their rights) to have private items.

Addressing your main concern : the mad rush will likely not be a concern. Sellers should be aware that with the pawn shop purchasing closed, all those looking for CWs will now need to rely on something else to find items - more on this in the next paragraph. Therefore, most sellable items would not end up in the pawn unless a) the seller is lazy or b) they have an emergency urgent need for instant csc. Most users find stuff in the pawn exclusively because they do not feel like using the forums or r200. You will find that both these areas do sell for cheaper than slot (forums or ping groups also often have free slot events - I recently gave two away to my own public ping group).

[B]Please realize that Keith and staff are working hard at improving the system, both artists and others as well. There is a thread for Creators that is open for all to see that details our concerns as well as some staff notes on what is planned. I urge you and whoever else that may be upset over this change to read some of that thread. [/b]

Please feel free to ping me if you have any further questions, I truly believe that closing the pawn is a step in the right direction to preserve the CW market as well as making sure buyer/seller needs are met.

This will include some of what I said in the news post comments.

What I liked about the Pawn Shop is that it's easy to browse through CWs - doing it through the wardrobe is a pain because it shows every CW on site even if the items aren't available in CW shops or Trades.

I wouldn't mind using Trades to browse for CWs if we had an option to only view CW trades. I never use Trades because there are always pages and pages of stuff that people ought to be selling in their shops. This is even worse at special events where there will be lot after lot of carveable pumpkins or whatever. This leaves me with the prospect of spending hours looking through the advertising forum.

Finally, I've more or less lost interest in CWs anyway because they are ridiculously expensive compared to items in the Delish sets. Why spend 700 CSC on one item when I can get several Delish items for the same cost? There have been rare occasions where I couldn't resist a CW I saw in the Pawn Shop but having to jump through hoops to find something for sale via Trades and the advertising forum has put me off ever buying any more.

Which thread is that? I see there's one Keith's been posting on (stalking his post history), but it's in a private forum somewhere that I can't access.

Reading comments on the news post, it seems like the people most upset aren't the content creators but rather the regular players that rely on the pawn shop for cheap stuff - the same people locked out of that private forum where most of the discussion is happening. Between that, and the news post being pretty short on details, it's left a lot of us in the dark.

I apologize, I'm on mobile since I'm working so I can't link now. I'm sorry if I've pointed you all to a private forum, I had no idea it wasn't public!!

I assure you then that many of your suggestions have been considered and or are in the process of being implemented! More info when I get home tonight if someone else doesn't stop by first.

<3

I guess I'm not really sure how big of an effect this is going to have even though there was a lot of complaining in the news comments. I never really buy CWs, and the only few that I have gotten were mostly from the pawn shop when they were cheap (like 300-400 CSC). Just for me personally, I find it hard to justify spending 700 CSC on items when I can get regular site items from the cash shop for like 250 CSC or less (usually).

So this probably isn't going to change much of who buys CWs and who doesn't. People who already buy from the artists directly by slotting on items in the forums are going to continue to do that, and people who don't really buy CWs are probably also going to continue to not buy them.

Which thread is that? I see there's one Keith's been posting on (stalking his post history), but it's in a private forum somewhere that I can't access.

The board Pika is talking about is indeed private. You can only see the 'CW creator' forum if you submitted a CW on site.

I understand why they want to close the Pawnshop but I'm sad at the same time because I really liked it. Too me it's isn't about the prices. I do not have any problems with that. I easily pay 2k CSC or more just for one CW. I used the pawnshop to find older CW's I need for my pets TC's which would pop-up in there that I wouldn't otherwise get else where (Most of them are from inactive users).

I'm going to miss the fun of browsing through the options and occasionally finding something awesome I didn't know existed, or a surprise CW that was on my wishlist. I find the CW sales forum threads really tedious and difficult to browse through, so I don't, and the closing of the pawn shop means I will be spending less CSC on CW's.

I'm encouraged by the talk in the news thread suggesting there might be an alternative to the forum threads in the future, but I do wish that had been developed and was ready to be implemented concurrently with the pawn shop closure.

I will restate what I did last night: I'm not overly fond of this. I do try to buy from the sellers as much as possible to support them. However I enjoyed browsing the pawn shop to check what all was in there and see if I wanted to add any to my list. I do follow user shops to keep track of items.

My question last night never seemed to get answered: How often is the pawn shop going to be open?

If there is one change that needs to come from this, it's this: If you are going to take away the pawn shop and a CW turns out to have a higher demand than expected, why not allow creators the choice to also open more batches whenever they please? This would help keep a flow of that CW around and the creator the choice of doing that or not.

Another change that could be made his this: when a CW gets pawned, why not return the copy to the CW creator so they can do whatever they please with it. Also change the value of what is given back from the pawn shop, give them the exact slot price they paid. This way the CW returns to the creator to sell. Only downside to this I can see is it would probably generate free CSC? I'm not entirely sure how CWs work as I have never created one but have thought of it a few times.

Do you know why commissioners/sellers are making everything one batch only?

Because the market is dying.

CREATE A DIRECTORY OF ALL CUSTOM WEARABLES PLS FOR THE LOVE OF CHICKENS. And let us help! We released something? Let us mark its status to help you out. Because yeah, I kinda want to see cws but I also want to know if getting it is possible vs impossible.

That's all I'm gonna say.

This is a great idea itself! I'd love that. I could browse through it and expand my already giant CW wish list. XD

I'm not at all involved in the CW community, but I enjoyed the pawn shop. I'm never going to pay 700 or 800 csc for a wig, but I'd consider paying 300-400 for one that was no longer wanted by another player. I really fail to see why this in any way hurts the CW sellers - consumers like myself are NEVER going to pay those full prices, so it's not like deleting the pawn shop is going to have us rushing to the CW forums and offering on slots. That was literally my only outlet to enjoy CW's, because I have no desire to try to navigate the forums (which IMO, are a huge pain in the ass), and I just don't want to be part of that market in any way. So to me, this development is very disappointing.

I want to start this off by asking users who are having a hard time finding new CWs / rooting through the forums to perhaps let us know what is and isn't working for them! I can't speak for everyone, but I would LOVE to make my shop and forum shop more accessible to more users, and more user friendly. Feedback to do that would be very much appreciated!

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I am very much for this new system, and voiced my agreement early on this idea. I do not think this will magically fix the market, but I do believe it is a step in the right direction. I believe that between staff and users working together, something can be done here. (That something does not mean I think the CW market will be what it was when it began of course, but I do believe it has plenty of room for improvement! The market when CWs first began had some serious problems as well and I don't want to go back to that either!)

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For those of you who do not submit or draw custom wearables, I want to briefly take a moment to explain to you from my perspective what the market is like right now and why the pawn shop is a problem.

When I go to release my item, there are a couple of possible outcomes.

1. There is high interest, I have enough slots for everyone. Everyone is happy, the item generally retains it's value. (This happens maybe once out of every 30 items I release. It's not easy to get things perfect!)
2. There is high interest, but I do not have enough slots for everyone. People are mad at me for misgauging interest, and the item's value is higher than slot price and never makes it into places like the pawn shop.
3. The interest is low, I have too many slots and most of the items end up in the pawn shop. People cannot make back what they paid, or even close to what they paid. I don't make any profit on the item to help me support other artists or commissioners, or submit my own items.
4. The interest is low, I barely manage to sell one batch. A copy might end up in the pawn shop later on down the line, but there are generally no extra copies and I have people come to me years later asking for copies I don't have any extras of. People are mad at me for keeping the batch count low, and the price of these items is close to non existent because of the lack of interest.
5. There is not enough interest on the item so I have to either scrap it or direct to shop it. This means I immediately put lose a lot of money, and the item most likely never sells more than a few copies, so the whole thing was a loss. Later on people may pawn these items, and the value of them is usually a lot lower than slot price.

Custom Wearables really have turned into a passion/hobby for most people at this point. It is very rare that an item makes profit for me (and the same is true for others), and IF IT DOES where does that csc go for me? Right back into another item. Last month alone, I submitted 5 items direct to shop and I lost around 7000 csc doing this.

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I am extremely looking forward to working on this community this year with the intent to raise awareness and help improve the current market. There are a lot of ideas being spit-balled around between artists and commissioners and I'm hoping to help be a part of getting some of those things out there. Some of the ideas I've personally suggested or supported are;

• Design trades between artists (To get more diversity in each person's shop, and to help spread awareness of other artists abilities!)
• More user made tutorials (To help new artists get started! If you have suggestions for specific tutorials, feel free to shoot me a profile comment and I'll take note! The more specific the request the better!)
• Possibly a mentor thread (again to help new artists, as well as to help older ones learn new skills too!)

And again, if you have any thoughts or comments on what might make it easier in the Custom Wearables board so you guys can find items much easier, please let us know! If it's something we as users are capable of, I'm sure we'll try our best to do it!

[edit]

In case my post wasn't super clear, or is too long TL;DR The pawn shop forces devaluation of items which in turn makes people fear slotting on items that are not yet on site, therefore making it more difficult to get items on site which in turn wastes a lot of time and money between the artists and commissioners in the community!

At first, I was disappointed. I have found older CW's I wanted in there, and it was like christmas every time I did. But, I can understand the reasons behind wanting to move away from this model now that I have read through some posts in the news.

Bottom line, what we need is a way to find all available CW's. The new custom wearable thread does a good job of keeping track of newly approved items, but 9 times out of 10, if you didn't manage to catch the release board, it's too late to purchase whatever items that are listed. We can't all be online all the time for CW releases. And yeah, I get that we don't need to own everything, but there are some of us that genuinely like certain items and want to own them and there needs to be a better way to advertise/make them available other than "hope you're online at the right time and also happen to be a member of a ping group that will get alerted to an item that's available".

The CW forum is too hard to navigate, if I'm being honest. Especially with the amount of ping groups that exist. I get that CW creators want to give their friends a chance at snagging an item first, but if I see an item that I like, I respect the friends only ping and do not ask to be slotted. Generally speaking, by the time the public ping comes around, we're lucky if there's more than 4 slots available. This feeds into that exclusivity mindset where people only want items that are single batch, whether it's just to have an exclusive item, or to hold and sell later on. This, IMO, doesn't help the market either. It creates the illusion that everything else isn't worth owning.

The R200 shops for average users needs to be a thing though. Period. This is an excellent idea and should have been the solution from the onset.

CW shops are hard to navigate too, mostly because there's no way to search out items like there was before, (Filtered by layer, for example) unless you happen to find it while searching the general search and clicking the redirect to shop link. I can only refresh and find the same shops over and over so many times.

There also needs to be a better way to run CW boards. Hundreds and hundreds of posts, sometimes blindly claiming slots and hoping for the best. While it's worked, it's inefficient. It also doesn't allow for any type of advertisement other than hoping someone is interested in the item name and clicks on the link. I almost feel like there needs to be advertisement shops, not just forum boards where people can "window shop" in process CW's and lay claim that way.

I'm hesitant to do anything CW related (I buy sometimes, and I won a CW design that I was holding onto for after people recovered from Xmas a little lol) until I see the new ideas staff are thinking of implementing. It would have been really nice if staff had offered up some of the new models being discussed, as well as some time frames in the news post. It feels like a bad decision to close this down without having it's replacement ready to go. I also think that the discussion should be open to all users, not just the ones that are creating the CW's. This decision does affect everyone, after all.

I admit, I know nothing about CW submissions, (Also part of why I'm hesitant to release. It's honestly confusing AF for a first timer). What is the difference putting it direct to shop VS slotting? Why does one way generate a loss? This is something else that should be changed. IMO, ALL items should go into a shop.

Taking slots for an item means there are 10 people sharing the burden of paying for the item to get onto the site. Directing it to shop means one person burdens the entire payment for the item.

So for example, if I have a wig and I take slots on it, I typically pay nothing because each person pays for their slot then and there. (5000 csc between the other 9 people means they each pay around 600 csc and I get a small profit back!)

If I have to direct that to shop instead, I get my single copy, but I have to pay 1600 csc all on my own. This means, when the item is in my shop and I price it at the lowest it can be priced, I need to sell at least 16 copies before I can make my money back. Most items that I've directed to shop have only sold a MAX of 5 copies, so I am typically out around 1000 csc.

OH. I see. Does your profit from the store vary depending on the item?

So, while I like the idea of everything being in a shop (for ease of access and viewing availabilities) I can get why nobody wants to really do it that way. Slotting basically guarantees slots are filled and the item at least pays for itself.

I definitely think smaller batches are what's needed as well. Releasing in batches of 5 isn't the worst idea (to help with stores).

I will kind of echo what some others have said, I don't really buy CWs but I have browsed the forums before just to see what people were selling because I was curious and I just found it difficult.

There are a lot of different groups and it seems very difficult to find items that may be of interest, especially for someone new to CWs who isn't familiar with any of the artists or people who release items. For this, I think maybe some kind of directory like others have suggested would be helpful, if it would allow everyone to see who the artist or original distributor is of a certain item. That way if someone finds and item they like, they can see who created it and follow their group or shop to see when they release new items in a style they might also like.

I know there is the CW identification thread, but having an official directory just makes more sense.

When you put an item in your shop, you can price it however you want above a minimum! So in the case of the wig, the minimum I can price it is 600 csc. 500 of that goes to the site, and 100 to me! If I price it at 700 csc, 500 still goes to the site, but then 200 to me! Pricing your items higher though of course runs the risk of no one purchasing them because you're asking for more! C:

I haven't read the whole thread, I'm just here to lay out my opinion so forgive me if this has all more or less been said but it's been not even 24 hours and I'm already sick of the arguing lol

So, the pawn shop is good. The interface is pretty easy to use and it's a good way for non-CW regulars to see what's out there. Which is a good thing. You might not always have CSC to spare but maybe you want to splurge this month or something idk. And it's good to be able to have somewhere to sell your items and get at least something back for them if they won't sell in the R200 forum.

But that's also kind of the problem. I personally, only ever ask for what I paid when selling an item (give or take. If I can't remember, I default to slot price, if I can't find that, I guess low). I'm generally willing to accept a lower offer if someone gives one, and I give discounts if you buy more than one thing from me. Because selling items is a hassle. I have to make a thread, talk to someone, take the item out of my shop for them, wait for responses back and forth through all of this. I know mentioned in the news comments that it'd be nice to be able to make a shop and price things for CSC. That would be fantastic. It would be so much easier for everyone. Anyway, back to my point. I still sometimes struggle to resell things. I've sold things to pawn and seen them gone from the pawn shop a couple of days later. I've seen "WOW why would someone pawn this!?" posts on the forums and it's just like...I've had that up for sale for a month where were you then?

I don't know why people with consistently in-demand releases slot small batch amounts. But for less popular releasers (meaning a smaller ping group) with less popular designs, it's hard to fill a single batch. I've seen it, and I can't blame anyone for putting things up for one batch just to ensure they actually can get it onsite. I don't think I've ever been able to break even on a CW I've released (maybe on one or two of them, if you only count what I paid to the site. If you include the commission cost, forget it.

This has been really disorganized (lol sorry) but I also want to say that I've very rarely ever seen anyone I thought was overcharging for a CW during slotting. On the forums, sometimes things go for ridiculous prices but those things are few and far between these days. When I first got into CWs there were a lot of auctions and items would fetch high prices. Nowadays, not so much. And really, the main reason private items even GET auctioned is so the creator can try to make up the cost. I'm not saying this because "wah wah artists are overcharging!!!" because they're totally not. Artists deserve to be paid a proper wage for their product, even if they're drawing CWs.