I find the trading system somewhat frustrating. Feel that it would work a lot more smoothly for both buyers and sellers if a few changes were made.

1.) Searching for items

If you're looking for something specific, then it works great. However, if you're wanting to browse for items based on certain elements then you're out of luck. What I mean is if, for example, you wanted to see all the lots with "Dawn Plushies" or "Lifelike Dolls," if you were working on a collection, or all the lots with certain types of clothing items if you were working on your wardrobe. When typing "Gloves" into the search bar, it would be much nicer if the lots containing items with that key word were presented, rather than a list of all the items on the site with that key word in their name, and a prompt to select one of them. I can see how this wouldn't be practical in a shop search, because the drop-down with all the shops and prices is very nice, and altering it would be too much work and wouldn't look as clean or load as fast, but for trades I think it's a must. If you can browse literally every lot, page after page, then I do not think that it would be at all overwhelming to give you a list of the lots you want to see based on key words, even if they are vague.

2.) Selling items

Searching for items based on key words in the name of the item is a must, in my opinion, but I also think that there could, and should, be more to it. When selling items, especially as a set, it would be nice if there were an option to give the collection any of a number of "Key search words." If I were selling all books, then I would add the appropriate key word. If I were selling minions, I would add the keywords "minions" or "minions." How I'm imagining it is similar to how threads are often made on other websites I've seen. For example, if you were on a medical website asking for advice on balding, you can add key words such as "balding," "aging," "hair loss," etc. and it makes it easier for people having the same problems, or offering help on said problems, to find your post. Examples for possible key search words: (Holidays-) Fireside, Luminaire, Morostide, etc. (Achievements-) Derp Derp, Ingrate, I'm Sowwy!, etc. (NPC Shops-) Libertarian Lounge, Quest Shops, Blue Building, Subeautique, etc.

3.) Will Trade For-

If you're looking for an item or items in exchange for your wares, it should be possible to make that searchable too. For example, if you have a bunch of wizard tokens hoarded away, and you're wondering what kind of cool stuff you could get for them in the trades, you should be able to make a search for all the lots where sellers have stated that they want to trade for wizard tokens.

I believe that making it easier to browse the trades would make them more successful and popular, and key words just might be the key! (See what I did there? Ha-hA)

If we could tag things, the new Beta Wardrobe would have that, but Keith said this would not be possible. Dunno if Trades would be simpler or more complicated than that.

Unlike some other virtual petsites, there aren't a lot of items that you just can't buy in shops here. If you are looking for something that rare, then you can search it one by one, IMO.

if its not that tough to do, perhaps they could add a Description search?

Then, maybe people will start adding "tags" to their description.

I would love to be able to search by a generic name. For instance "Lifelike" dolls. I have a bunch I still need and it's so tedious to look them up one by one I honestly haven't bothered to try trading for the ones I need.

Trading Post on Neopets lets you search a generic term (ie paintbrush) and pulls up all trades with that in the title. Can't be too hard to code. Only issue that might cause I guess could be lag if you were searching a broad term like "Plushie".

I've also always wanted a search the wishlist function for trades, would be perfect for checking to see if someone wants something you have like the wiz token example you gave.

I would love some kind of key word search, or even just be able to search for all items that have "...." in their name. A description search would be really great too!

Yeah, I've pretty much given up on trades unless I'm looking for a specific item. I would love to trade some of my extra lifelike dolls for missing ones, but the few times I've tried venturing into the trade system to do so, I've been totally discouraged. I don't want to search for the dolls on trades, I want to search for people who want the dolls I have.

I guess the answer to that would be to search the advertising board, but that board is even worse to wade through than trades.

I totally support making trades easier / more user-friendly, especially implementing the first suggestion! ;O; Searching for things like lifelike dolls is just too tedious to do individually. :c

Not sure I'd use the keywords feature, but it does seem nifty and useful. Searching the description would be nice.

I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned an obscene amount of times, but I'd like to bring up separating cws from non-cws trades and removing reserved trades from public display. :)