Newbie question: trading in ESO?

A newbie question, the first of many I'm afraid. How does one buy and sell, other than to NPCs, in this game which appears to have no auction house?

Kairos wrote: A newbie question, the first of many I'm afraid. How does one buy and sell, other than to NPCs, in this game which appears to have no auction house?

The 'Auction Houses' are run by Guilds. If you go to the Bank, you'll find an option to use our "Guild Store". Looking around the major cities, you'll find others. They generally look like a little shack or shop counter, and will have a person with their Guild Name after it, for example: "John the Imperial (Trading Guild)". This is an 'Auction House' for the "Trading Guild" guild. There will be a few in each major city. You can find them on the city map when pressing [M] by locating the "Guild Merchants" icon.
When buying an item from a Guild Store, the item will be mailed to you (This can sometimes take a few minutes - if it does, change zones using a wayshrine, and this will usually refresh your Mail list and bring it through quicker). You then need to select the message and press [E] to bring the item from your Mail into your Inventory.

You can also trade character to character by pressing and holding the [F] button and dragging it to the Trade option (looks like two curly arrows).

You can also trade by sending items in the Mail. Open the Mail tab by pressing the [#] button. You can send a mail by selecting the 'Send' tab, and add an item using the [E] button when scrolling your inventory.

Many thanks for this. I do have some follow-up questions.

So - are the Guild stores exclusive to guild members? Meaning that I, as a member of Alith, would be barred from trading in a "Trading Guild" location?

And if there are many smaller "auction houses" rather than one single one, is there any way of comparing prices?

Kairos wrote: Many thanks for this. I do have some follow-up questions.

So - are the Guild stores exclusive to guild members? Meaning that I, as a member of Alith, would be barred from trading in a "Trading Guild" location?

And if there are many smaller "auction houses" rather than one single one, is there any way of comparing prices?

You can buy from any Guild Store, but you can only list at your own Guild Stores (you can be in five guilds at once).

Comparing prices is somewhat tricky. Most people who want to do this use an add-on called Master Merchant that quickly compares prices of the guilds they are in. If you're looking to find out a price, you can usually shout out in Guild Chat "pc on ...." and then link in the item by right-clicking on it in your Inventory and selecting "Link in Chat" (pc meaning "price check"). Then a few people with Master Merchant will link the average prices back to you.

And probably the last follow-up question on this subject. From the name "Trading Guild", I would guess that some large guilds specialise in providing trading services. Are there three or four you would recommend I join, purely for mercantile purposes?

Kairos wrote: And probably the last follow-up question on this subject. From the name "Trading Guild", I would guess that some large guilds specialise in providing trading services. Are there three or four you would recommend I join, purely for mercantile purposes?

There are boatloads of them. I'm in Trinity Merchants and Fair Trade Society. But there are plenty more to choose from. Shout out in Guild Chat to see if anyone can invite you to one.