Vendor point of sale
Participating vendors run Metaru Event POS at their booths — a fast checkout built for card shows that works offline and syncs when connectivity returns. Every sale rung through the POS becomes a Tier 1 observation in the index pipeline: the highest-trust data class in the methodology, because identity, price, and settlement are all captured first-hand.
Barcode-labeled inventory
Before the show opens, vendors label inventory with QR codes generated by the POS. Each label encodes the full card identity — set, collector number, language, printing, finish, grade, and cert number for slabs — plus the asking price. At checkout the scan resolves the exact tracked asset with no manual matching, which is what makes variant-level reference prices possible.
Negotiated final prices
Card shows run on negotiation. The POS captures both sides of it: the labeled asking price and the final agreed price. That spread is itself a market signal — systematic discounts feed the liquidity and freshness models, and the final price (never the sticker) is what enters pricing.
What the transaction log records
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Timestamp | Second-level UTC capture time at checkout. |
| Event / booth | Show identifier, booth code, and device id. |
| Asset identity | Barcode-resolved variant: game, set, number, language, printing, finish, grade. |
| Cert number | For graded cards — enables physical-asset tracking across resales. |
| Asking price | The labeled price at the start of negotiation (RM). |
| Final price | The negotiated settlement price actually paid (RM). |
| Payment method | Cash, card, e-wallet, or manual entry. |
| Customer reference | Anonymous rotating id — never a name, phone number, or identity document. |
| Override reason | Required free-text note whenever a vendor overrides a labeled price. |
Anti-manipulation flagging
Screens run at the moment of capture. A sale is automatically flagged when the final price deviates more than 25% from the prevailing reference, when the discount versus asking exceeds 20%, or when pattern screens fire — repeated counterparties, the same cert re-trading in short windows, price laddering, or override clusters. Flagged sales are held out of pricing entirely until reviewed.
Analyst review
Every flag is resolved by a human analyst with a recorded decision and rationale: accept, accept with a haircut weight, reject, quarantine, request more evidence, or escalate to the Metaru Index Committee. The decision trail is auditable end-to-end — no silent edits, no unexplained prices.
Privacy
The network measures the market, not the people in it. Buyers are represented only by anonymous rotating references — no names, contact details, or identity documents are collected at checkout. Vendor identities are pseudonymized in analyst tooling and never published. The system is designed PDPA-conscious from the schema up: collect the minimum, aggregate early, publish only market-level statistics.
Why vendors join
- Free, fast event POS with barcode labeling, receipts, refunds, and offline sync.
- A clean end-of-show sales log — inventory sold, realized prices vs. asking, per-event totals.
- Reference-price visibility on the floor: label prices against the same data buyers see here.
- Priority access to Metaru market research and the monthly Metaru Monthly Index Report.
- A stake in market integrity — verified data makes pricing fairer on both sides of the table.