I searched through the rules and couldn't find rules regarding to this situation:

Let's say UserA goes into the user shops and buys up every single copy of Item1, which ranges in price from 10k upwards. Then they put them up for sale in their own user shop for 50k, effectively making a fake monopoly and price fixing that item. Is against any rules?

What if UserA doesn't buy every single copy of Item1 and leaves a few to prevent a full monopoly? What if the remaining items in UserB and UserC shops are at 1mil? What if Item1 has a low restock rate, being a special artifact? Or what if it's an event item? Or just a rare main shop item?

I'm asking because someone I won't name seems to be doing this constantly with things that I stock in my user shop. Which I feel is gross because I price things so that people can buy things they want, not for (for lack of a better term) scalpers to jack up prices.

[edit]

Update: Staff says this is not against the rules. Rude, but not against any rules.

afaik it's not against the rules and in some cases this is just a natural consequence of items being underpriced—if, for example, an item has 50 copies at a low price and 5 copies at a high price, and someone buys up all the low-priced copies, there are a couple possibilities:

1. as more people acquire and stock the item, and it fails to sell at the higher price point, the price will eventually drop back down.
2. if the item has limited quantities on-site and isn't going out through restocking, or quest rewards, or any other regularly-available means, it may be the case that the lower price point was a deflated value. (it may also be the case that, again, it will continue to fail to sell at the higher price at which point some people will likely start lowering the price again.)

however it is generally considered annoying and rude when someone does this to an excessive degree, and it's a behavior staff wish to discourage.

Thanks for the answer. I might just make a ticket about this, unless I get any conflicting info from others.

Any mods have more info on this?

if you want an official answer, then yes, a ticket is your best bet. i don't see anything explicitly in the rules about mass-buying, hoarding, or price manipulation, but staff have said you can report repeated extreme cases and they'll look into it.

Buying cheap and reselling it for a higher price is atm the only method to make money besides questing. And not even that convenient. I think I do not hunt for those kind of items, but when I have a high priced shelf warmer and a few shops sell the same item a lot cheaper, I stock up with that. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose with this. Like described. Often when there is an inflation on an item, it is because the game gives out the item more frequently. So the restocker will mostly loose sP. Mostly I shop in the NPC-Shops to grab good items for reselling. In my opinion this is the point in Usershops. Else we could resell stuff for fixed prices back to the NPCs. I mean excessively is of course rude, but where ist the line? I also do not get how to prevent this?

The big thing that is discouraged (but as far as I've seen, Staff hasn't explicitly made it against the rules) is using the autopricer to make everything go lower, buying that up when other people autoprice to the same low price you put it at, and then sell higher.

If it was a rule, how would it even be enforced? It's not like how at the grocery store it can be limit of x per customer. Oh, and there's also the Recycle Beast. How would that work?

looks at collection of Charming Medusa Plushies

Uh oh, Scooby.

The issue isn't the buying part. The issue I have is the "turning around and selling at a serious mark up" part. That's why some places have anti-scalping laws, which prevent resale of items above face value or MSRP. In the case I'm talking about, the user is selling things at over 10x the original prices. And I don't know what staff can see, but there are sale records in user shops. I can see that one specific user keeps buying certain artifacts that are priced 40k and lower and then putting them for sale in their shop for the 6 digit range.

There's no problem with collecting items. I myself have several items I collected a bunch of. Like my entire army of Axolityls in my minion zoo.

This is a bit of a touchy grey subject. Like yes it's very incredibly rude to buy EVERY copy under x price to restock and try to monopolize fund earning by trying to get users to buy your newly acquired high stock. There's literally zero rules on what users can use their sp on (considering it is the main site currency), and frankly they'll loose more users if they suddenly say there's limits to the sp function. And they can't really instill the main shop thing of making people wait a few seconds between buying because ultimately if they want to and can buy every current copy they will. Creating an artificial inflation is also just a pisser move I think.

But the flipside? If you KNOW what their shop(s) is called you (and any others who know what user is doing this) can avoid using your sp at their shop for any purchases. The other drawback to trying monopolize item stock is most of it does show back up and prices drop back to normal range anyways. And if it isn't a readily restocked item then they usually sit on this hts item. So if you know who it is and it seems to be a big issue keep on your ticket and make sure they eat their cake by NOT buying from their shop(s).

I know, but I still wonder how a rule like that would be enforced.

so? they can try to sell items for whatever price they want. if people buy it, they buy it. if they don't, the price will fall again. it's not like real life where people have no choice but to buy things they need at inflated prices.

Staff has answered my ticket and said that no, price fixing is not against the rules.