So you’ve been doing your daily crafting writs, and farming resources, and otherwise playing ESO. As you played, you picked up some furnishing plans, or maybe bought some from guild traders. And, you have your crafting skill lines at or near the top, with key passives selected. Now, you are thinking about getting ready to set up shop and sell some furnishings.
To do that, you will need to join a trading guild.
Guilds in ESO are each often focused on a limited number of activities of the game. Trading is one, along with other activities like PvP, Roleplaying, Trials, and Crafting. A guild that focuses on trading will work to hire a guild trader each week. Your guild’s trader will offer your furnishings (and anything else you want to sell) to the population of your ESO server.
The most reliable way to join a trading guild is to use the in-game Guild Finder. Guilds that are open to new members can list themselves there. Other leads for trading guilds:
- in-game advertisements that appear in zone chat
- random invites from other players (rare)
- streamers who run their own guilds
There are a lot of guilds out there, though. What should you look for?
Perhaps the most important thing to check is whether a guild requires dues or a minimum sales volume per week. Guilds require gold, earned from taking a cut of each sale, to bid on guild traders. The more gold a guild can take in, the more likely it is that they can score a guild trader in a popular location.
Some trading guilds have no dues or required sales volumes at all. Unless their leadership has other means of funding, the guild won’t usually get very good traders, which limits how much you’ll be able to sell.
I suggest finding a trading guild that requires modest sales or dues. You can always sell other items besides furnishings to earn enough to stay in good standing. But, if you’re worried about keeping up, go ahead and start out with a no-dues guild.
Other guild features to look for:
- A friendly, casual culture. Community in a guild is most important, after all! Also, if you don’t get a lot of sales for a while, or need to take time off from the game, casual-friendly guilds will work with you.
- A Discord server. Besides fostering a great guild culture, you can get tips and ideas from your guildmates.
- Medium to high membership. A guild with low membership won’t have enough sales to bid on popular trading locations. However, when you are first starting out, you might want to join a smaller guild so there’s less pressure.
- An open guild bank. A guild can open up its common guild bank for free trading among its members. This is a great way to get materials, furnishing plans, Intricate weapons and armor for deconstruction, and other useful items. Just make sure to contribute back when you can.
- In a group of guilds. A group of guilds may have one guild with high membership requirements for serious members who want the best guild traders, and then others with lower requirements for everyone else. You can start out in one of the lower tier guilds and move up (or down) while staying within the greater community. Plus, earnings from the top guild may be used to help the rest.
Follow the posted instructions for joining the guild. The most common rule is to not submit a blank application.
Once you’ve joined your first trading guild, start posting some goods for sale. Until you are ready to start selling furnishings, my top recommendation is to sell excesses of any raw materials that you have farmed, like rubedite ore, ancestor silk, and alchemy ingredients. Lots of players would rather pay someone else to farm those resources, so there is reliable demand.
The next post, though, will cover how to decide which furnishings to sell, so you can embark upon building your furniture empire.