"Bad" wiz pages?

[atomicblonde]

Is there a such thing as being on a "bad" wiz page?

I always price my things lowest on the wiz (and verify this by refreshing a *ton* for each item). Even after all of that, I rarely sell anything. I went away for the weekend, and sold nothing! When I came back, I verified my prices were the lowest. They still were. The only problem I noticed is that out of about 100 refreshes, my page only came up twice! (And I've noticed this for multiple days... my page almost never comes up). Does anyone else notice this with their account?

[May]

I notice when I'm trying to price things in my shop. I try to be one of the lowest on my particular page. But trying to get my own page to come up on the wiz is a bit frustrating. I can sit and refresh for at least 5 minutes (no joke) and get every page but mine. Quite obnoxious

[Xerophyte]

Hmm, well I do think I heard something about your username having to do with how successful you will be as a shop owner. Because usernames starting with certain letters are more commonly seen when refreshing.

[Anoohilator]

Yeah same here - mine begins with "n" - what about you guys?

[Xerophyte]

Mine begins with an "a", and that's not too great. I can hardly ever get it to show up, but I still manage to sell stuff.

[atomicblonde]

I just sent this to support on the wild idea they may actually do something about it.

Is there any way you can make the shop wizard results more fair? It is absolutely impossible for certain groupings of names to be shown. Out of 100 refreshes, the page containing my shop came up only twice while others came up 30 or more. This makes it very difficult to sell things, and I would hate to have to abandon this account and create a new username because of this. I would really appreciate if you looked into it!
Thanks for your time!
~Mindy

My username starts with an s. Maybe if you're also having this problem, dropping a note to TNT might bring it to their attention. Unfortuantely, I don't have any ideas about how to fix it yet.

[Anoohilator]

Mine begins with an "a", and that's not too great. I can hardly ever get it to show up, but I still manage to sell stuff.

Yeah we're on the same page "Wiz-buddies"

[Xerophyte]

Mine begins with an "a", and that's not too great. I can hardly ever get it to show up, but I still manage to sell stuff.

Yeah we're on the same page "Wiz-buddies"

Think there should be a guild like that? "Unfortunate Wiz-buddies United"?

[_B4U_]

There are some shops (such as my own) that rarely show up on the wiz. Then there are the shops that you can refresh and get the exact same shops again.

Apparently it has to do with the first letter of your username or something.

Fortunately, my stuff usually sells fairly fast. The only suggestions I have are:

Make sure your price is definately the lowest on the wiz. I usually price mine pretty darn cheap. Examples: (lowest -> my price) 1000 -> 750, 10,000 -> 8750, 20,000 -> 18,000

If it doesn't sell within a day, I usually drop the price even more. Look at it this way, you may not make as much of a profit, but at the rate you'll be selling stuff, you'll be able to buy stuff more often, allowing a greater profit in the long run.

Also, don't stock your shop in small bits, stock a good bit at once, then advertise it on the Shop Ads board.

And finally, make sure there's actually a good demand for the items you're selling. Someone selling McDonald's food is going to be more successful than someone selling Tiki Tack items. (goofy analogy, but it gets the point across)

[smudgeoffudge]

They should do something about it. Or at least let us search by names beginning with ___.

[aliboy]

Mine begins with an "a", and that's not too great. I can hardly ever get it to show up, but I still manage to sell stuff.

Yeah we're on the same page "Wiz-buddies"

Think there should be a guild like that? "Unfortunate Wiz-buddies United"?

Im 'a' aswell * group hug *

[Jameswc]

ver wonder why, even though this page has your item at 1,000 and you price it at 999, it never sells? Or why you just never seem to find your name, no matter how low you price your item? Well here's why.

The shop wiz doesn't search by shop size, or anything like that. It goes by the first character of your user name, whether it's a letter, number, or the underscore. ( _ )

Here's how they break down:
a i q y 1 9
b j r z 2
c k s 3
d l t 4
e m u 5
f n v 6
g o w _ 7
h p x 0 8

As a general rule, the FNV6 page tends to be the highest, and the CKS3 the lowest, and the others somewhere in between. When pricing an item, don't go by the first page you see! Hit the Refresh button (and hit 'yes' if it asks if you wish to submit the information again) until you find the page that would have your username on it.

And voila! You should be able to price things just right now

Hint Hint, maybe this means that your neopet username should be either F N V or 6 for the best results if you use a shop as a means of making neopoints!

[calvinorion]

Ummm.. you are a little bit behind the times Jameswc. There are now 13 different Shop Wizard groupings:

An
BO
Cp
DQ
ER
FS
GT
HU#
IV
JW
KX_
LY
MZ

Indeed it was widely believed that the old FNV6 group came up the most and the cks3 group came up the least. But what about today?

I did a little research too, refreshed the Shop Wiz 100 times and counted how many times each group came up. Here's the results:

An 15
BO 7
Cp 7
DQ 9
ER 8
FS 2
GT 7
HU# 11
IV 7
JW 5
KX_ 9
LY 7
MZ 6

Two groups really stick out. The AN group came up 15 times while the FS group only appeared 2 times.

Of course 100 refreshes isn't nearly a big enough sample to be that accurate but I plan on continuing my research the next time I am really bored. It's interesting to note though that in atomicblonde's test the FS group only come up twice there as well.

I think another big problem these days is that most people simple don't realize that there are 13 pages that you need to see if you want to find the lowest prices. They just refresh a few times and buy what appears to be the cheapest. And in the process probably spend thousands, even tens of thousands more than they need to. Leaving those of us who work hard to price our items as the cheapest on the wiz with fully stocked stores.

I totally agree with the others in this thread who have said that it often takes over 100 refreshes and up to 5 minutes to find the cheapest price. That has certainly been my experience.

Last edited by calvinorion on Mon May 09, 2005 9:57 pm, edited 3 times in total.

[Anoohilator]

*all the new research*

May I ask what your username begins with - I've got a bit of research of my own to do

[Trick]

Two groups really stick out. The AN group came up 15 times while the FS group only appeared 2 time.

Of course 100 refreshes isn't nearly a big enough sample to be that accurate but I plan on continuing my research the next time I am really bored. It's interesting to note though that in atomicblonde's test the FS group only come up twice there as well.

I think it's fairly random to be honest - and of course due to murphy's law whichever page you are on is the one that comes up least!

A,N and F,S come up far more often for me than anything else usually along with M's and H's. Mine (G,T) takes ages for me to get usually, heh.