65 replies to this topic

[Verificus]

So here I though I'd use my skills for the most basic concept of buy low sell high to start myself a fortune in this game.

Wrong!

You can't really, or well you can, if you have the patience of a stone that is.

I've tried a dozen or some high in demand items. What I do is check the buy orders.
Let's say copper. Copper might sell at 23 a piece but can be ordered for around 18 a piece.
You will see a couple of 20's and 19's too, but I generally go with what the lowest priced high supplier is. Which in this case was 18 copper a piece. So I thought hey, I wanna make alot of cash, why not buy a 1000? Wrong! You can't. You'd have to buy 4 stacks of 250 and sell those seperately aswell, all the while the prices rise and drop and you are stuck having an order in the TP for 1-2 hours when the lowballers finally clear the field. Let's say this doesn't happen and it does sell. Yay! You just made profit. About 2 silver worth of profit. It took you about 5 minutes to do so at that rate you'll be making 24 silver/hour. Which is totally pathetic.
Not to mention you spend more time on the TP than actually playing the game.

But mister, why don't you buy items that sell for more than copper? I did, here is the problem. For a number of fine crafting mats, the difference between orders and sales is about 2-8 copper. Resulting in about the same net profit as with copper. Copper is alot let risky though. Another problem is, the fine crafting mats selling around 1-2 silver are usually in much lesser demand. Meaning if some random comes in and decides to put up 200-300 2 copper more expensive than you, it might take many hours before those orders are filled. And then yous till have to sell them too! Sometimes, the higher the crafting mat, the items don't even sell at all. You have to wait like a day.
There are certain crafting mats that have a nice 30 copper spread difference however those are often the items that sell the slowest.

So how the hell do you guys make your money so fast. I hear people in Lion's Arch constantly saying how they make 15g/day or how they have 50+g in their bank. And this is actually people that don't buy gems, as they have much much more gold. I've spent hours scouring the TP to find niche markets that have a good balance of high demand and a high enough profit for me to try and net 1g/hour. Maybe I'm blind, but I can't find it.

Edited by Verificus, 09 September 2012 - 01:25 PM.

[Ninja Ataris]

It's the point of the system. People saying they earn 15g day are playing tons or BSing.

https://www.guildwar...irtual-economy/

They want a very equal economy.

That said, prices will become better on the Trading Post once more and more money gets injected via DEs and such. Right now though, it's very hard to make profit. Especially on weapons and armor.

[Braku]

Good I say...

[Verificus]

Ninja Ataris, on 09 September 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

It's the point of the system. People saying they earn 15g day are playing tons or BSing.

https://www.guildwar...irtual-economy/

They want a very equal economy.

That said, prices will become better on the Trading Post once more and more money gets injected via DEs and such. Right now though, it's very hard to make profit. Especially on weapons and armor.

How else do you explain the exquisite gear and rare gear of lvl 80 that are priced around ~3-4 gold and ~50 silver respectively are being bought. There is a good amount of them listed (like say a couple hundred maybe) and I see at least a dozen being sold each hour. Apparantly there are many people who have enough budget to buy one full lvl 80 set. This prolly not for every class and I know there is much more expensive stuff.. But a basic rare or exquisite lvl 80 set might cost you around 5-10 gold or 30-40 gold depending on which rarity you want. I can't even afford 5 or 10 gold.. let alone 30-40. So there must be a way to make that kinda gold that I am missing.

[Reeku]

Verificus, on 09 September 2012 - 01:22 PM, said:

So here I though I'd use my skills for the most basic concept of buy low sell high to start myself a fortune in this game.

Wrong!

You can't really, or well you can, if you have the patience of a stone that is.

I've tried a dozen or some high in demand items. What I do is check the buy orders.
Let's say copper. Copper might sell at 23 a piece but can be ordered for around 18 a piece.
You will see a couple of 20's and 19's too, but I generally go with what the lowest priced high supplier is. Which in this case was 18 copper a piece. So I thought hey, I wanna make alot of cash, why not buy a 1000? Wrong! You can't. You'd have to buy 4 stacks of 250 and sell those seperately aswell, all the while the prices rise and drop and you are stuck having an order in the TP for 1-2 hours when the lowballers finally clear the field. Let's say this doesn't happen and it does sell. Yay! You just made profit. About 2 silver worth of profit. It took you about 5 minutes to do so at that rate you'll be making 24 silver/hour. Which is totally pathetic.
Not to mention you spend more time on the TP than actually playing the game.

But mister, why don't you buy items that sell for more than copper? I did, here is the problem. For a number of fine crafting mats, the difference between orders and sales is about 2-8 copper. Resulting in about the same net profit as with copper. Copper is alot let risky though. Another problem is, the fine crafting mats selling around 1-2 silver are usually in much lesser demand. Meaning if some random comes in and decides to put up 200-300 2 copper more expensive than you, it might take many hours before those orders are filled. And then yous till have to sell them too! Sometimes, the higher the crafting mat, the items don't even sell at all. You have to wait like a day.
There are certain crafting mats that have a nice 30 copper spread difference however those are often the items that sell the slowest.

So how the hell do you guys make your money so fast. I hear people in Lion's Arch constantly saying how they make 15g/day or how they have 50+g in their bank. And this is actually people that don't buy gems, as they have much much more gold. I've spent hours scouring the TP to find niche markets that have a good balance of high demand and a high enough profit for me to try and net 1g/hour. Maybe I'm blind, but I can't find it.

It doesn't suck, it does require patience. Its the closest game you will ever find that comes close to stock market trading. Get used to it, it is not your lame World of Warcraft market that lets you control a particular commodity in a quick sweep. Buy low and sell high obviously works no matter what, but its a matter of obtaining the right product and fighting for it. It wont be easy either, and it shouldnt be. I love this system.

[Ninja Ataris]

Verificus, on 09 September 2012 - 01:41 PM, said:

How else do you explain the exquisite gear and rare gear of lvl 80 that are priced around ~3-4 gold and ~50 silver respectively are being bought. There is a good amount of them listed (like say a couple hundred maybe) and I see at least a dozen being sold each hour. Apparantly there are many people who have enough budget to buy one full lvl 80 set. This prolly not for every class and I know there is much more expensive stuff.. But a basic rare or exquisite lvl 80 set might cost you around 5-10 gold or 30-40 gold depending on which rarity you want. I can't even afford 5 or 10 gold.. let alone 30-40. So there must be a way to make that kinda gold that I am missing.

They're listed, sure, but you don't know whether they sell or not.

Also, keep in mind you can buy gold for gems. Quite a few do.

[ilr]

Verificus, on 09 September 2012 - 01:22 PM, said:

You have to wait like a day.

Oh God Forbid!!   ....that there be a fully global market that actually requires some patient.  What's this game coming to???  

PS:  The OP obviously doesn't understand crafting enough yet to know what the REAL hot-ticket items will be in the future and thus he'll miss all the fun.  Those who played the heck out of GW1, already know what they will be

Edited by ilr, 09 September 2012 - 04:14 PM.

[Verificus]

ilr, on 09 September 2012 - 04:13 PM, said:

Oh God Forbid!!   ....that there be a fully global market that actually requires some patient.  What's this game coming to???  

PS:  The OP obviously doesn't understand crafting enough yet to know what the REAL hot-ticket items will be in the future and thus he'll miss all the fun.  Those who played the heck out of GW1, already know what they will be

You misinterpret. I don't mind having to wait one day. If that was the actual even playing field I was doing business on. The fact is. I've SEEN multiple exquisite items being sold every hour. I watch alot of markets. That means that there are people that have found a way to make heaps of gold. Despite Anet's plans to make this a smooth, communist-like ecoconmy, which I would have appreciated, they failed. Working for it would only be acceptable for me if it meant that working yields higher results than playing the TP. Which it cleary doesn't, how else to explain the huge sales of the items. Let me define huge though, by huge I mean, a huge part of the hardcore players, which I consider myself one of. Most likely 97% of all players are casuals and don't have those heaps of gold, however the other 3% dominate the gold input/output with whatever strategy or market niche they have found.

I have jeweler on 400 and I can tell you, there is not a single item I can make right now (and I invested heavily in trying to get all the recipes, still missing a few though) that I can sell without a loss. All mats are more expensive than the final product. On products where it's not easily determined wether its a loss or profit, the fee does an adept job at assuring there is no profit to be made.

Maybe I chose the wrong profession, but I considered, since the gems that are required to make the items are many many times more scarcer than ores and the like, I could probably dish out a good selling item. Guess I was wrong. What is that magical crafting market you are referring to that all GW1 players will use to gain an unfair advantage?

Edited by Verificus, 09 September 2012 - 04:48 PM.

[Shiren]

As much as I liked that trading is difficult to become rich with, it's very clear there are many people in the game who have figured out how to make massive profits doing it. Flipping still exists, you just haven't figured out how to do it yet. Others have and they are rolling in cash.

[Verificus]

Shiren, on 09 September 2012 - 04:56 PM, said:

As much as I liked that trading is difficult to become rich with, it's very clear there are many people in the game who have figured out how to make massive profits doing it. Flipping still exists, you just haven't figured out how to do it yet. Others have and they are rolling in cash.

Exactly.. People who believe otherwise are simply oblivious to the facts that have been smacked right into their faces.

[RabidusIncendia]

While people have gotten rich off it (I made 25 gold in a few hours when it went up) this will decline rapidly over time.  E,g. the trick I used to get that 25 in a few hours, will now get you 25 in a few days.  Crafting for profit will decline to oblivion very soon, and has in all items except for level crafting rares and exotics I believe. It's about to hit that pretty soon, too.  Oh and cooking is dead.

Edited by RabidusIncendia, 09 September 2012 - 06:15 PM.

[Verificus]

RabidusIncendia, on 09 September 2012 - 06:14 PM, said:

While people have gotten rich off it (I made 25 gold in a few hours when it went up) this will decline rapidly over time.  E,g. the trick I used to get that 25 in a few hours, will now get you 25 in a few days.  Crafting for profit will decline to oblivion very soon, and has in all items except for level crafting rares and exotics I believe. It's about to hit that pretty soon, too.  Oh and cooking is dead.

So in order words, you'll be stuck farming events.

[RamzaBehoulve]

Ninja Ataris, on 09 September 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

It's the point of the system. People saying they earn 15g day are playing tons or BSing.

Any serious crafter with good market skills can earn more than that on a good day.

Edited by RamzaBehoulve, 09 September 2012 - 06:54 PM.

[Reidir]

You just need to find item that will give you profit and buy low/sell high it. Today i made some gold trading... Eggs. Few days ago ppl could buy it from npc, now you can make a good profit from it (but it will change in few hours).

[buddhist21]

You just have to look for the items, there is ways to do it, it's really random thou, like the other day I saw Glacial Cores being bought and sold for twice the price. The problem is, there are literally thousands of traders trying to do it at the moment to buy their items/gems while it's still cheap so everyone wants a piece of the pie, so it is a bit more difficult, it doesn't help that the AH search function seems to always be bugged either.

[Malice]

Many people will try to play the AH. Some will triumph, most will fail.

Also, not everyone splashing the cash will have made it ingame. There will be many cash rich, but time poor players that will buy gems to trade into gold. Anyone in a half decent job can afford to spend 50-100 a week on gems if they choose to. That is, after all, just missing out on a few beers at the weekend.

Edited by Malice, 09 September 2012 - 09:55 PM.

[Grayle]

I haven't found anything yet either, it's probably out there, but I doubt I'll find it. I've got a few promising leads for the whole "salvage fnished products, sell mats" thing, but as buy and sell orders inch ever closer for everything the 15% cut is swallowing most profit margins whole. And those leads would never yield 25g a day anyway. I even tried Mystic Forging Mithril Ore into Orichalcum, but nope, no profits there either. Buying Rares, selling Globs, also nothing. Insignias, Sigils, Runes, I got nothing. Even the Worn Rag etc market is already cornered. Gold to Gems to Minis Pack to praying you get a good one is, obviously, a dud too.

The only thing I haven't tried yet that I can think of is Cooking for Dye Packs, but those require 100 mats per pack so the margin can't be too big there either.

I dunno, I'm having fun playing the TP at least. More than farming events in Orr, that's for sure.

[Lootifer]

Thats a global market for ya; every opportunity has literally 10+ people all milking it until the margin dissapears.

[Playboy]

On the 6th, I was able to go from 40 silver to 1 gold 70 silver just by flipping certain rare dyes. I didn't flip them such that the next highest seller's price was 30% more than mine, just a few copper. The people that did the other practice are the reason you can't flip rare dyes as easily or as profitably.

[vanbuuren]

Ok i don't understand what i'm doing wrong.

Started off with 8g 14s 17c

I buy 50x uni dyes for 2g 76s 0c
I sell 50x uni dyes for 2g 97s 50c
(minus listing fees) 14s 88c

ended up with 7g 91s 69c

bugged or what am i missing?

edit: arghh they charge an additional 10% on successful sales, thought it was part of the listing fees...

Edited by vanbuuren, 10 September 2012 - 01:13 AM.

[TogetherLemon]

Its similar to the stock market in real life. Hate to break it to you, but when you invest, you don't double your money every day. Most economists will tell you that the goal is to increase your money by about 8-10% every year, a slow and steady increase. Flipping isn't a very effective method in the game. The only really effective merch methods are to buy out all of an item, so you can single handedly dominate the market (usually requires the combined money of an entire guild), or to invest in items. Flipping just isn't very efficient.

[brightemo]

I can make about 50s-1g / hour on the TP, but it is very boring, requiring a lot of clicking. That is just flipping high-volume items.
I guess if I was L80 then farming events would be better but I'm only L40.

[applejuic3]

i spend about an hour a day flipping and i've went from 2g when the trading post went up for everyone, to 40g now. just have to know what items to look for.

[varus55]

went from 2g to 26g in 2 days of flipping on the tp

[Requiem For Dawn]

flipping rates for most of the items is terrible. the problem is not the waiting time its mainly the tax that you pay

lets take the ecto market for example
ecto sells for 19.5~18.5 silver
ecto bought for 18~17 silver
the gap is about 2.5-0.5 silver which would be a quite nice income over time but here comes the tax!
because of the tax you need to sell your items for at least 118% from what you bought it to make a freaking 0.003% profit
118% from 17 is 20.06 => 20.06 * 0.85 = 17.05
in conclusion you bought ecto for the lowest rational price, which probably took hours to obtain, then sold it OVER the rational selling price, which will take even more time!, just to end up earning 5c per ecto...

they only way I see flipping possible is by guessing the market needs and getting the items beforehand, or by a slow and steady collecting huge huge amounts of the same items selling for very cheap then selling them...
either way is difficult and require hours of tracking items in the TP which I find nearly imposible (or at least not as profitable) for the casual player

[ilr]

Requiem For Dawn, on 10 September 2012 - 04:20 AM, said:

flipping rates for most of the items is terrible. the problem is not the waiting time its mainly the tax that you pay

lets take the ecto market for example
ecto sells for 19.5~18.5 silver
ecto bought for 18~17 silver
the gap is about 2.5-0.5 silver which would be a quite nice income over time but here comes the tax!
because of the tax you need to sell your items for at least 118% from what you bought it to make a freaking 0.003% profit
118% from 17 is 20.06 => 20.06 * 0.85 = 17.05
in conclusion you bought ecto for the lowest rational price, which probably took hours to obtain, then sold it OVER the rational selling price, which will take even more time!, just to end up earning 5c per ecto...

they only way I see flipping possible is by guessing the market needs and getting the items beforehand, or by a slow and steady collecting huge huge amounts of the same items selling for very cheap then selling them...
either way is difficult and require hours of tracking items in the TP which I find nearly imposible (or at least not as profitable) for the casual player

^definitely the most accurate portrayal so far^

[Edge]

Ninja Ataris, on 09 September 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

It's the point of the system. People saying they earn 15g day are playing tons or BSing.

Not true. When everything is fresh you can make quite a profit. I made 20g after they put the trading post up because people were buying everything for high prices because supply was low. Armor I sold for 7g on day 1 now sells for 3g. I bought runes for 1g each and now they're for 30s.

[Drakos]

"I wanted to abuse the Auction House and make a ton of money off of gullible newbies."

Denied.

I say well done by Anet. Sure, a few people got by and made a killing, but I'm glad that for the most part, prices are stabilizing at especially low rates such that players actually have to work to make a profit rather than the easily controlled trade-manipulation found in other games with server-based economies.

[Lootifer]

Drakos, on 10 September 2012 - 08:12 PM, said:

"I wanted to abuse the Auction House and make a ton of money off of gullible newbies."

Denied.

I say well done by Anet. Sure, a few people got by and made a killing, but I'm glad that for the most part, prices are stabilizing at especially low rates such that players actually have to work to make a profit rather than the easily controlled trade-manipulation found in other games with server-based economies.

Blergh; firstly flipping or margin trading is NOT making money off gullible newbies. Its making money of people who do not want to spend their time waiting for orders to fill and essentially get their items or gold instantly. There is a valid premium to be paid for this as there is a gold value associated with time.

Secondly "server-based" and "trade-manipulation"... you know there is one single economy in GW2 right? You know there are literally 100's of market traders all competing for the same opportunities right? You know the market is highly liquid right? You know all these things contribute to it being 99.9% IMPOSSIBLE to exert market power (what you call trade manipulation)...?

And finally for the wider audience: I have started finding the odd good margin here and there. So maybe margin trading isnt dead after all? (and my ability to divide by 0.85/time by 1.15 is getting pretty quick )

[applejuic3]

Edge, on 10 September 2012 - 06:43 PM, said:

Not true. When everything is fresh you can make quite a profit. I made 20g after they put the trading post up because people were buying everything for high prices because supply was low. Armor I sold for 7g on day 1 now sells for 3g. I bought runes for 1g each and now they're for 30s.

true.
it's definitely becoming a little more time consuming and needing to be creative to make money, but i'm still making some nice coin.