Curious as I hadn't bought any CWs in a while and suddenly, now, I notice most are 700 CSC. I remember they used to cost 600 CSC. When/why did this change? Just curious.

I think it's a combo of trying to cover a bit of commission costs and covering the fee for the first batch (as one might not know if there will be enough interest for a second batch and 600 x 8 leaves the seller an additional +200 to pay for the first batch to go through). It seems harder to fill two batches these days. ;s That's just my speculation though.

Ahh, thanks for providing some numbers for me. I've never made a CW, so I don't know what the cost of that whole process is.

No problem! :) There's a nice price breakdown here (from second post onward)!

What said about filling batches vs covering submission costs! Also, given the ever increasing demand, commission prices have raised considerably since the market started. When prices for items like backgrounds and wigs raised, most commissioners started asking 700 as a way to help them cover the free copies (for themselves + the artist) and possibly a cover a bit of commission costs. Eventually, as batches became harder to fill on most things, 700 became more common :x

(I'd say most people on the market nowadays are commissioners too; only a handful of artists are still on the market with their own items, and even then it doesn't seem to be so many items, for the most part...)

Ahh, okay, thank you for the detailed breakdown!

@ lindsie I noticed the same thing and was just talking to about it. That's why I have made the personal decision to price my own CWs at 600 or less, hoping others will follow suit. I don't mind coming out of pocket 200 csc to cover the TWO SLOTS (mine, artist) for the first batch. I have never sat down and equated the price of commissions compared to submission prices blah blah to validate charging 700 per slot. I'm not about making profits, I just want the items on site! 200 csc for 2 items is still a good deal imo and any batches after that is still straight profit (given you don't need more copies). You will rarely see me slot for a 700 csc item.

The way I see it is we are all overcharging each other. If we knocked back everything 100 csc (or at least wigs, the most common and popular items), it gives people more opportunities to slot for other items. (at least, that's how I see it)

With the new CW shops, I really hope it helps bring down prices some. We will see how things pan out and where the trends take us!

apparently I have more to say about this haha.

More about the CW shops, I still love the idea of the shops. Fill the first batch, pay the 200 csc to cover your copy and the artist copy (for a wig or 5k submission cost item) then stick it in a personal CW shop. Minimum pricing the the shop is 600, which is still 100 csc profit for each sold once in the shop. And you don't have to worry about filling more batches.

But a good point Violin brought up in our conversation is there are less active artists than there were. And many artists have raised their prices (for what, I'm not sure, I imagine if you asked individuals they'd tell you).

I think the commission price raise is because there will always be demand to have cws commissioned and as long as there are people willing to pay the raised price, the price can raise, so why not?

I'm selling a wig for 700 now, but that's because it was a joint commission, so even with 700, I still have to pay csc to submit the first batch.

I really think it's about the amount slotted. Popular artists / sellers might not have much of a problem filling up first batches, but for those that aren't popular, filling up the first batch is nerve-wracking stuff. xD Now with the shops, it's great you can place unfilled batches, but it seems like that doesn't do much of anything if there was little additional interest in the first place, because people are going to see a high number in stock and think maaaybe I can hold off on this right now.

Though I shouldn't speculate much, because I don't buy csc with irl monies, so I'm very csc broke most of the time and don't actually slot or buy a lot of cws in the first place lol. To me, it just seems like okay, it's 600 to 700, so for people that slot on things on a regular basis, it's not a big deal? Maybe if more people posted how they feel about this, you know the people who actually slot more than once in a blue moon so not me lol, we could see how this really impacts the market and people's abilities in buying things for 700. ;O;

I think a lot of the price has to do with the quality and popularity of the artist who designed the cw. If it's someone more people know about the item raises in value just because it's a name we've heard of & it's a style we trust.

I'm part of the crew for joint commissioning an item & we just couldn't have the price be 600. It was a lot of money out of our pockets for the commissioning fee & on top of that we are still paying to cover the three slots (artists + 2 joint commissioning slots) at the slot price of 700 csc. Having people pay 600 would be extremely more difficult for this item to get on site because we would have to cover even more of the cost each batch. Which means we would have only been able to do a few recolors & have no leniency for people who can't pay. It's very stressful.

Yeah, it all came out when commissioners started trying to recover their commission costs (in csc of course), especially since prices for backgrounds and wigs increased. Well, prices for everything increased xD We have lots of demand and few artists with slots open. Originally there has been a bit of drama regarding csc commissions and people making more than they paid, but now that most cw art slots are only up for cash it's a bit of a moot discussion.

But yeah they're trying to not have their wallets bled dry and use that csc as "working capital" for new items (to speed up the process when it comes to denials and all that) so I can understand that ^^; Edit: Also to cover for people who cant pay immediately! Yes, I forgot that...

I guess there might be a bit of "well, if people are paying 700 on bgs now, I guess I can charge the same for mine too". I'm not going to blame them there either, because it could boil down to the thought that "why should I charge less, is my item worth less than theirs" instead of a "malicious" greedy thought! But I have strange, even contradictory ideas when it comes to items and CWs in general, haha.

My main concern when it comes to items in general (regular or CWs) is availability, I would rather have something at 700 and unlimited than have it at 500 single batch x: So many CWs are absolutely unique pieces, it sucks big time when you're making an HA and realize the item you need is irreplaceable and you've lost your chance forever. :/ (But this has nothing to do with the 700 "trend", it's just a random thought)

I'm also the one who helped an artist friend run a shop in which she sold her items for 500 csc (at the time, that was the base cost for any CW) and left up to the buyer if they would "tip" her for her work with anything. You can guess most of the time they didn't send anything at all, so I suppose you could say the buyers' "greed" eventually evened out the artist/seller's "greed" in my mind :c

Nowadays I just tell her to price accordingly to the effort it took her to make the item, whether it's 600 or 800 or even more. On the odd chance I still see someone else selling an item at cost... idk it makes me feel really bad, their efforts on creating the item deserve to be rewarded. (I'm very glad the new shop assigns them a 75 csc profit even if they're charging 500!!)

But if you asked me, I would still say that, ideally, I would prefer we lived in a CW world where everything could be unlimited and sold at 600 csc. A world where people wouldn't instantly ask for half off the price when the item was on the "cash shop", where they wouldn't ask 10 times more when the item is sold out. I wish CWs were either items that are special for you and your friends or a way to bridge the many gaps the official wardrobe has, instead of a means to profit.

The more time we have invested on something, the more feels we have about it, haha.

Edit: Yeah, as long as people are still comfortable paying 700, I think things are unlikely to change, as unfortunate as it is. If people who charge 600 ever manage to fill batches more easily than people who charge 700 (and it'd have to be a noticeable difference in "ease" ), then maybe the pressure would bring it all back to 600. I'm clearly pessimistic though... 100 is not a big deal for many people.