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Trade Queue 101
We ran a technical piece on how the Trade Queue is implemented some time ago, and while it’s explained in pieces around the site we’ve decided to have one main post detailing exactly how it works. This is purely a supplemental reading piece, and most orders complete fast and fine without needing this information.
Rawkhet uses two queues to manage orders. They are the Preparation Queue and the Trade Queue.
Preparation Queue
Orders are prepared approximately twice a day, sometimes more (there are times when we miss a slot due to heavy external work or commitments, but we generally never cross more than 24 hours without a preparation batch). When each batch of preparation completes, the customers of that batch are contacted at the same time. This email also contains information on how many hours remain in the current trade slot.
From here on, customers also get an email at the start of every trade slot (if they miss the current one).
Note that orders are cumulative – if a customer places multiple orders targeting the same game, they will all be prepared together.
Entering the Trade Queue
As mentioned in the order ready email, customers can then REPLY (do not create a new email thread) the email to join the Trade Queue. This is as simple as a reply such as “yes, I’m ready”, “ready”, “I’m available”, etc.
The following reply examples are NOT accepted as queue entries:
- “I can trade at 7pm” – we don’t keep track of what time it is for you, and we don’t do scheduled timings, stick to the time range provided
- “I’ll be ready in 30 mins” – we don’t keep track of this either (as this is rarely accurate), message when actually ready to get queued up
- “I’m keying in the code now” – don’t jump the queue, wait for a response as the email mentions (further reading: It’s Never 7691)
- “Okay” / “Noted” / Other vague reply – please be explicit
Upon entering the trade queue, customers will then be notified when their turn is reached. This may happen almost instantly if there’s no one else in the queue, so please don’t say you’re ready and then immediately take a shower or cook dinner (yes, this has happened).
We cannot provide hard estimates on when it will be your turn, due to the variance in the timing of trades (further reading: On the subject of Timing) and dynamic nature of the Trade Queue.
If you are unable to confidently use email, have difficulty checking email or don’t receive email notifications, please contact us using any of our other means on the Contact page with your order number in place of replying the email.
Your Turn
When it reaches your turn and if less than 10 minutes has passed since the reply, you’ll simply given further instructions to head online.
If more than 10 minutes has passed, we’ll send another email first to check if the customer still available. We can only wait 10 minutes before we have to move on to the next customer, so if no response is received we will drop the customer from the queue.
To ensure a smooth trade, please ensure that you have read the Trade Guide before we begin trading.
Trade Queue Explained
Orders are not first-come-first-serve. Each order entering the Trade Queue carries a “weight”, which is a value based on how large the order is (see the technical piece mentioned at the top for more information). Weights start at 0 and increase by 1 every 10 Pokemon (e.g. a team of 6 Pokemon has a weight of 0, a team of 12 Pokemon has a weight of 1). The queue is prioritized in ascending weight, so that smaller orders do not get bottlenecked by large ones. For fairness, weights decrease by 1 every hour to prevent large orders from getting stuck indefinitely.
Please do NOT message repeatedly in a small amount of time (e.g. sending multiple “I’m ready” within the same hour or so). Doing so will ADD 1 weight to your current position in the queue.
The Trade Queue is usually empty 2 hours after a preparation batch finishes, given the number of consoles we have.
Conclusion
Only 3% of orders on Rawkhet do not process smoothly, generally stemming from customers having email difficulty and/or not reading instructions. For most orders, the instructions and warnings on this page are unnecessary. The problem is that this 3% of errors create a tremendous backlog on Rawkhet’s operations, delaying others in the queue. A perfect illustration this can be seen in this Visa’s PayWave commercial.
Huge shout out to the customers who reply with how many hours they are available, or voluntarily tell us they are no longer available so we can remove them from the queue. It really helps and goes a long way, thanks!
To a smoother queue 🙂