Animal Crossing Community: divisor's "80+ trades & still learning!" Trading Tips & Trading Post Walkthrough

ACC has a wonderful system for trading called the Trading Post. It allows you to set up trades, post your codes on a specialized page, and leave feedback about the person you traded with. This lets other people know how reliable and trustworthy of a trader a user is. The more positive feedback you have, the more people will want to trade with you. Conversely, if you have a lot of negative feedback, you may find it harder to find a trader partner. Now, let's get started!

1. How to set up a one way trade

This is useful if you're part of a giveaway. A way one trade consists of one user giving an item away for free. To start up this kind of trade, or any kind of trade, you'll need to go into a user's profile or one of their posts and click on the green arrow icon. This will take you to the Trade set-up page. You can then select a category of items to choose from for the trade. If you select "All AC Items," you will be taken to a listing of their entire catalog. You will then see the items they have. The items listed with a dot on the left of the item name are items that the user has in their catalog (The icons to the right of the item name indicates your catalog). If there is no dot or a cross, then that user does not have that certain item in their catalog. If the item has the cross icon next to it and is blue, that means the item is on that user's Wishlist, a perfect item to trade and a perfect match! All you need to do to set up the trade is to click on the item the other user does not have, then scroll down to the end of the category and click the "Update Items" button. After this, just select "Propose Trade." You will then be taken to a confirmation page for the trade, where you can write a message to the other person. If you're satisfied with the trade, select "Confirm Trade." If you're unsure of the trade, you can select "Request Counter-Offer" to ask the other person to add items on their own.

2. How to set up a two way trade

This is pretty easy. All you need to do is follow the steps for a one way trade, but when you see an item you want that the other person has, click on it. It should have an orange background behind the icon, so it should stand out. If you put lots of items on your Wishlist, you'll have an easy time trading. The Trading Post roots out unfair trades though, so try to make each trade as fair to each person as possible and you shouldn't have any trouble with it.

3. Finishing the Trade and leaving Proper Feedback

You've got your trade set up, so now all you need to do is order the item(s) from your catalog and get the item code(s). To do this, you simply need to go up to Tom Nook (or Timmy or Tommy) and choose "Other Things" and "Hear Code." He will ask for the town name and player name of the person you're trading with. Once you tell him the names, he will give you a case-sensitive 28 character item code. Write that code down, then enter it on ACC. Once you've done that, you just need to wait for the other person to do the same. Once both users have entered the item codes, you will be able to see the code for your item(s). Just tell that code to Tom Nook by choosing "Other Things" and "Say Code." After you enter the code, Tom Nook will give you the item. Once this is all completed, simply go back to ACC and click the code confirmation button. After the other user does the same, you can then leave feedback. You can leave either Positive, Neutral, or Negative. You can also leave a comment about the trade, which is always a good idea. If a trade is completed in a timely manner and without too much trouble, it's good to give Positive feedback. Neutral should be given for a trade that expired, or for a trade that was not completed very quickly or politely. Negative feedback should be given if you never received your item(s) or if the other user was very rude. Just make sure to always be fair with your feedback, however. If you think that you've received unfair feedback, you can always report the trade and a Moderator will take a look at it and decide if the feedback was deserved or not.

4. Trading Tips

Here are some quick tips for efficient trading. I use them myself and they work quite well.

1) Always double check the code. It is a must that you double check the code to make sure you have everything written down correctly.
2) Keep a small notebook to write your item codes in. A small notebook is great for keeping codes in; you can keep it near you so you can grab it at any time to write the codes down. It also helps you keep track of all the codes you've received or given.
3) Make sure you put underscores and over scores on your letters when you write them down. This makes it easier to see if it is an uppercase letter, lowercase letter, or a number. There are many numbers and letters that can look the same when you write them.
4) Always be courteous and pleasant to the person you're trading with. Let them know when you think you'll be able to get them their code, and be patient with them as well.
5) The Trading Post only works with AC:GC, so it's important that your default character is the one from your GC game and not Wild World. To check this, just look at the top of a page in the Trading Post where it says "Current Character." Then, just set it to your Gamecube character.

5. Other Information

Universal Codes aren't allowed on ACC, so if you ever receive one in the Trading Post, report the trade. You can tell if you've received a UC by the fact that Tom Nook will tell you that someone gave you the item, rather than "I see, I see. A (item name) has arrived for you." So remember: always be polite and understanding in your trading. It will make for a
much better experience and you'll have a lot of fun using the Trading Post. It can be quick and easy and a great way to meet new people.
Originally posted by videogamer3586

Trading tips

I hope these help some people, especially new members, when it comes to using the lovely ACC Trading Post. These tips are not enforced iron rules -- just things to keep in mind -- common sense and guidelines to good trading.

* There are never any 1's (ones) in item codes -- they are always lower-case L's; however, 0's (zeros) and capital O's are interchangeable -- thanks to Jedi723 for confirming this. ^_^ Note: Because of masterd's comments, I decided to try out the 1's and l's issue again with a few old codes, interchanging the characters. It's strange... some worked and some didn't. However, in all cases, the l's worked, so I'm still sticking with the l's. ^_~ Thanks, masterd.

* Capital I's have "hats" and "feet" so you can tell them from the lower-case L's, which are just straight vertical lines.

* Having problems locating a special character in someone's town or character name? This Special Characters Chart is accurate to the keyboards in the game -- find the character on that page, and you can easily find it in the exact same spot in the game's corresponding keyboard.

* Communication is everything. If you plan on being away, or have any other conditions that may affect the trade, tell the other person early/ASAP; otherwise, you're leaving them in the dark, and it may result in a negative rating for you. If you know you'll be away before starting a trade, it's best not to start one until you get back.

* You can have ordered-in items arrive instantly by saving and quitting, and then loading the save back up again.

* Check the Last Active time/date stamp for the user you plan on trading with if you're doing the offering; if they have not logged in in a long time, look for a trade elsewhere. swags adds (thanks!): Note the date on the latest comment left on the person's feedback page; if it is recent, you have a good chance they will trade with you in a timely manner.

* Check feedback comments (by clicking on their rating) for any warning signs; in particular, watch out for negative feedback -- find out what you may be getting into before getting into it. You may be saving yourself a world of grief.

* Check Total Positive Feedback in a person's feedback rating history. Just because a person has a lower unique positive rating (the number you see listed everywhere else) doesn't necessarily mean they have only traded that many times -- oftentimes, a user has repeatedly traded with the same few people because they found them reliable, and because those other people found that person reliable.

* The headings on the Matching Users page can be clicked on to order the list to your liking. For faster trades, click on Last Active; for solid trades, click on User Feedback Rating; etc.

* If you know what you want, but want to give the other person a choice out of your inventory (or you're too lazy to pick for them), you can set up the trade to be one-way (i.e. select items out of their inventory without offering anything in return) and then select Request Counter-Offer instead of Confirm Trade. This forces the other person to send an offer in return for your approval. Attaching an appropriate message to your initial offer is always a good idea.

* A Trade Alert (# Pending Trades) will appear when you're logged in on the left side of ACC anytime actions are required of you in a trade; otherwise, the ball's in the other person's court. You don't need to keep checking My Trades to see if you need to do anything.

* You can have ACC notify you whenever a trade is offered to you (in your Profile Settings), so you don't have to keep logging in just to check. You can even set it so ACC will notify you whenever you need to take any actions (basically the Trade Alerts in your inbox). Make sure you have inbox room if you turn this feature on.

* The View Trade History button is often neglected. Use this when you have a long list of past trades -- both failed and completed -- to check up on any loose ends. You may find an expired trade that wasn't your fault that you forgot to leave appropriate feedback on. Also, if you have a Trade Message Alert, and you can't find the trade it's posted on, it may be somewhere in your Trade History. Use your Trade History to "remember" reliable traders you've dealt with in the past and see if there's anything else you'd like to trade.

* Add the person you're trading with to your Buddy List until the trade is complete to note when they're online easily. This is handy for swapping perfectly timed messages, prioritizing which trades to take care of first if you have a long line-up, and generally getting to know the person. Having a person on your Buddy List also allows easy access to their wishlist and inventory for future trades.

* If all else fails, and you really need help fixing a problem, you can contact a moderator by looking for this on the Trade Status page: "Is this user obviously scamming you? Click here to send a message to a moderator." Most of the time, however, you can solve problems by communicating to each other. You also have the option to let the trade just expire on its own and then leave either neutral or negative feedback.

* A trade will expire 5 days after any action has been taken on the trade -- sending an offer, posting codes, clicking on Code Worked or Code Failed, etc. Since the expiration date keeps changing, you don't necessarily have to complete a trade by the first date shown. Leaving messages on the Trade Status page does not affect the expiration date, so you can communicate as often as necessary -- in fact, it's recommended that you do, especially if you plan on using up a good deal of the 5-day grace period. In an expired trade, you are only allowed to leave negative or neutral feedback.

* Use negative feedback appropriately -- it should be reserved for a truly bad trade (like one where you sent items and didn't receive any in return by expiration), as it's a permanent red warning sign on that person's record to all future traders. Do not give negative feedback just because someone else gave you negative feedback; if a trade expires and you were the only one with pending actions left, then the expiration was probably not the other person's fault. And if you have communicated well up to point of expiration, the other person should understand anyway. If an expiration was your fault, who's to stop you from offering a one-way trade to make up for the missing items?

* Ellie adds (thanks!): If you find that you are getting too many trade offers, you can set your profile to allow only a certain number of trades to be active at the same time. I have found that it can be helpful when you get swamped. You can also set it so that it won't allow any trades. This is helpful when you are going to be away for a while. You won't have to worry about coming back from vacation and having 30 trades to deal with.

I would also like to note that it is definitely and perfectly alright to make mistakes in trading. I'm not posting this because I'm angry at people who make mistakes ^_~ -- we are all human, and I've made more than enough on my part and counting. These are just friendly tips to help you trade more smoothly. I'm hoping more new traders will see this and make less mistakes (thereby discouraging them from trading more).