Tips on the Marketplace

I did a quick search and couldn't find a topic similar to this. If there is one, please point it out and I'll gladly post there.

Here is a quick encounter I had today. I had bought a necrid horseman for 12k, and wanted to resell it for 15k. So I wondered around as I was selling other items, and advertised it as 15k obo. Along comes a guy who wants to buy it. He offers 13k. I try and whisper him(as its sometimes hard to get 15k, and I just wanted rid of it) but he's offline. So I say in both local and trade that he's offline and I can't whisper him. Eventually I get his attention through the spam.

But by the time I've managed this, the overeager guy has managed to bid himself up to 15k. He thinks that the silence from my end(because I wasn't whispering him back) was because his offers were too low.

So in this thread I wanted to toss out some common sense tips on how to go about buying something, or selling. We're not talking about making people rich, just common sense.

1) Go to the friends menu before you advertise that you want to buy or sell, or before you whisper somebody who has what you want. Check to make sure you are in a status which will allow you to whisper back and forth.

Also make sure that the item(if you are selling) is in your inventory or available in storage. If you're buying, make sure you have the cash to back up what you're trying to pay.

2) If you really want to buy something, advertise a reasonable price. If you are whispering someone else, make a decent offer. If your offer is refused, or someone does not immediately offer you a good deal, don't immediately up the money.
Don't be overeager, be Patient.

3)Be polite, and be clear. Make sure they know you are Buying or Selling(especially in the party menu). If you don't want to trade for something(because you don't want to spend time trying to sell it for the money) say "Cash Only".

4) When somebody whispers you with an offer, it often helps to shut off the local or trade channels so you don't have to compete with the spam flying by just to read a 'NTY'. When you're done, you can just turn it back on and go back to trying to buy or sell.

Several people have mentioned haggling, that wonderful lost art. I had been trying to sell a Victos for 25 for quite a while(this was a couple months ago), but could get no buyer. Someone offered 20, and I asked if I could persuade him to go to 22. He accepted and we both came out happy. An extra 2k doesn't hurt when you're expecting to spend 20, and I was glad to get that 2k rather than wait another day to MAYBE get 25(or end up selling for 20 to someone who wouldn't haggle).

5)If you are trying to sell an item, be sure to advertise the stats/name and what your price is. If you advertise "make offer" be prepared to be 'lowballed', because people will assume that you don't know the general price range and will take full advantage. If you don't know the price range, Guru has a price check forum and in-game people will often give pc's (take with a grain of salt). If you say "reasonable offers only" (or some variation) it means you know the price range, or have a minimum you'll sell for, but want to see if someone will offer more.

Ex. You know its worth 20, but you're hoping someone will offer 25-30 because they don't know you'll settle for 20.
From the experts:
6) If someone quotes a Guru price as being, say, 40-50, because you'll be getting a great bargain at 30, think about why they're selling it that cheap. It may be worth that much according to Guru, but have these stipulations:
1)The pc is old
2)Its worth that much IF you can find a buyer. The people saying you're getting a bargain obviously couldn't find anyone to buy at that price. So even if it is worth that much, its only going to help you if you can manage to sell it(which is doubtful if someone is trying that hard to sell at a discount)

7)If you are in a high spam area, don't contribute. When a brief lull pops into the spam, place your ad. If the text is going by too quickly, try going a district up. If you choose to contend with the spam, don't shout but DO make sure that the important parts are visible. When selling the Mini in my example, I made sure to bold OBO. It was enough to garner attention without being obnoxious.

If you are in a low spam area, wait until your last advertisement has faded before placing it up again. Spamming when there is no trade traffic will simply make people ignore you. If they won't read it when nobody else is speaking, they won't read it when you shove it in their faces.

8)Finally, if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. I'm no power trader, but I've missed opportunities to buy items cheap because I didn't know the standard price range off the top of my head. But in just as many cases I've taken my time to check the price check forums and discovered the deal wasn't as good as I thought it was (if not downright outrageous or a scam).
9)Adding someone to your party is the easiest way in the world to find someone in a large city, and works even better since the addition of cross district party forming. Also good for newer players, the ones that can never find storage. Also, storage is often full of traders, so try setting yourself off to one side, so its easier to see you.

10) When you buy something, don't just walk up and open a trade window(unless they specifiy to do so). Whisper and make sure they still have it, negotiate a price, etc.
If you're selling an item, don't just run around opening random trade windows, doing so will simply waste time(and be as effective as getting 1g bids).
Even when I'm only selling 1 item, to have someone want to open a trade window without an explanation is rather confusing. And a simple whisper will save time if they've already sold the item.

Hope this lays out some common sense and that others will add to it. I will leave this by saying: Watch out for scammers and hackers. Don't buy an account number unless you're begging to be ripped off.

But that's just my two cents
/edit
I will continue to edit this post as people point out little details I don't mention, or phrasings which are more clear than my own babbling.
Bargaining, especially, is very important. If the person only has 4k and I want 5, I'd rather get a sure sell now(especially when emptying my inventory) for less than none at all. That little you lose now will often be made up by people desperate to overpay later.
If you are selling, hit submit offer obviously, but wait to see what they offer before you hit accept yourself. Oftentimes someone will try to toss some trade items in, or worst case scenario, they'll just not offer anything and steal your accepted offer for nothing.

This thread is more about the normal Joe in the Marketplace, but if you do have aspirations go down a few and read what Akhilleus has to say. Here's a tidbit

You buy and re-sell things for 3k profit and want to give people advice on the marketplace?

Rofl...

That might not be his best sale, it could've just been what inspired him to post this. I think it's some good advice to follow for people who are just getting into trading.

Good informative post. I espcially liked the part about shutting off other channels. You could add that both buyers and sellers should stick to whisper channel and not bounce around.

Also, whether buying or selling, add your info to the Cross-District search window. When I pop into a busy district it is the first thing I check to see if anything interesting is posted. Much easier than trying to read everything in the flying text of the chat window.

And be prepared to bargain. If you are buying and feel the price is too high, give a reasonable counter offer. Sellers are quite often willing to drop the price slightly to make the sale.

@Hand of Ruin - pro traders will tell you that the majority of their sales are low to medium profit. The point is to make a profit - the OP's was 25%.

That's a nice guide there. Most of which I do already, but I'd not thought of "Cash Only"...kind of obvious now I think about it...you do get a lot of nut jobs trying to trade you 2 orange dyes and a white shield for your Green Longbow sometimes.

There are 3 main things which bug me. One is when someone is, say, spamming a "WTB" message...you whisper them...they're "offline". It's exceptionally annoying because, as you say, it can be hard to get their attention through the rest of the spam.

The second is when people say "WTB/WTS a good sword". What's that then? Often I whisper them asking them what, exactly, a "good" sword is. The usual response is "Max damage, req 7, 20/20, +30HP, 15^50 for no more than 50 gold"...or some such rediculously low amount.

The third annoying thing is when people tell you what an exceptional bargain you're getting...usual messages include "WTS ... for 15k - Guru says 20-40k" (Guru is always too high anyway), "WTS..... for 15k FAST TRADE ONLY" (so you're desperate then?), or ome of my recent favourites "WTS <insert non max damage hammers here> for 1k each cmon people it's less than before" (it's just sad).

If you want a no-hassle trading, designate a trade character. Wait until its full of items, inventory + bank.

Then go into trading cities (LA, Kamadahn, Kaineng), and look *only* for "WTB very specific thingy". If you have that thing, sell it ASAP.

Stay in each city for 5-10 minutes, then move on.

This isn't suitable for high-end items, it works best for mods, greens and some desirable skins. Since you're only dealing with WTB people, which means no haggling, no debates about value, no spamming.

Ignore people who "WTB good weapon/shield/mods".

After one round of 3 districts, you should make at least a few sales, then give it a rest for a few hours, or even the day.

Very good advice. I think I'll try that tonight. I've built up quite a few weapon mods that I want to unload.

It's very good to move around. A few weeks ago I had a Lian's Lantern that I wanted to sell for 3k. (Elementalist Canthan Green). I went to LA to sell it based on the theory that since it drops very close to Kaineng Center there wouldn't be many buyers there. The Kaineng people could just step outside and get their own lantern.

Well I spent about a half hour in LA trying to sell the lantern but no takers. I moved to Kaineng and put up 1 WTS message on my way out to do quests. The lantern sold immediately. So much for my theory.

From my experience, if I'm a buyer, I look to buy near where an item drops. I assume there will be a greater chance of someone having what I'm looking for that way...I manage 10 characters, so usually I buy something when I'm trying to round out a new build and I'm anxious to try the build, more than I am to farm an item. I don't know if that helps to get into the mind of a buyer, but that's just me.

I've also found that you can get better deals doing this. If I need ectos, I hang out usually in ToA. If I want a green, I hang out where people find them. When people come back in they often times just want to move what they've found and are typically much more likely to take a lower price. Once an item hits a trade center sellers will generally try and get a little more.

Good advice for the most part. Ignore the idiotic comment about making 3k. Nobody in his right mind scoffs at 3k made in 10-20 minutes with absolutley no effort. Well,...almost nobody.
I never understand people who throw out WTB or WTS and then are set too offline, must be spending too much time griefing RA. Joke people.

This is a very good guide. We all know how frustrating it could be to buy/sell because of all the stupid people out there, but this provides viable tips.

with the economy shitting the bed as bad as it is, i dont see much point in power trading, or upselling items.

theres 40-50 WTS for every 1 WTB.

nothing is really worth anything anymore...what used to be 100k + ectos is now 25k. gg anet.

I bought 250 iron for 2k.

But good guide, the offline thing really bugs me.

3k off of a 13k investment is appx a 24% profit margin.
while 3k is not a very large profit, 24% is on the higher end of the scale on the average profit margina trader can expect.
so, based soley on the price of the item, ill assume hes a beginner to modest trader, since he may not yet have the capital to make more costly investments and afford a loss, should it occur.
however, based on his guidelines, it displays he at least has his bearings on the basic dos and do-nots...

i'd say his chances of success as a trader are pretty good, especially if hes capable of making more rules the more successful he gets and abiding by them as he does now.

i would stress one thing though; build repeat business, build repeat business., build repeat business..
nothing ensures your success more than building a list of clientelle who come to you regularly for things they need. if they know you find what they want...exactly what they want, within a reasonable timeframe, and within their stated price-range, they will return again and again and again. typically item requests are harder to pull off and you make a smaller profit margin than blind trades (where you dont know the buyer or seller), but because you know one or both people on either side of the deal, you tend to get these kinds of trades form the same people over and over. and along with great customers comes great referrals.
i cannot stress how much of my business came from "hey, a friend told me you sell XXX, would you happen to have something in XXX pricerange?" or " a friend said you buy XXX in the XXX pricerange, interested?"

i hate it when you ask someone for a price and they say "offer", ffs i was gonna make a offer i wouldnt ask for a price would i.

and then when u offer them a price dont say "HELL NO WORTH MORE THAN THAT" and then when you ask how much they want they ignore you

There's always one flamer in every post isn't there?

Great advice to new and old traders alike - profit is profit.
Thanks for the good read.

One thing I'd like to add is that while having a system and network like this is good, it can also be very time-consuming. If you wish to become a power trader like Akhilleus, you need to make sure that you're willing to put in the time and effort to create and maintain your client base, among other things.

If you're doing small-time trading, this is not always necessary, and you can do fairly well selling to random people by observing the basic rules the OP outlined, and you can refine it further based on your own experience and needs.

I generally just say "Umm, no, you tell me how much you want otherwise I'm not interested". They're usually deperate enough to abandon their "You offer me only" policy and tell you how much they want. Then it's either a case of me putting in a counter-offer only to be told "HELL NO WORTH MORE THAN THAT" (Although the word "noob" usually works it's way in there somwhere"), or on a very rare occaision me putting in a counter-offer and the trader actually realising I want to negotiate the price. Price negotiation seems so dead these days....everyone knows what price they want and wont settle for anything less than Guru says....

I always like to do a bit of bartering for prices, although alot of people dont. If u dont have exactly the overpriced offer they want then they wont sell it.

just a little thing I would like to add, Do noy try to sell/buy stuff when your party is full. else It can be really hard to find that person in a masscrowd

If someone tells you to ''offer'', then it's better just say no thx and leave.

Any particular reason why?

Normally this is said for 2 reasons

Reason 1 - They don't know the value and will just hold out until they get what they think is a good price.

Reason 2 - They know the value and want to see if they can find someone who is clueless regarding pricing.

I have abused offer noobs loads....

I either lowball them or force them to give me a price.

I dont know if it works now but many months ago it did

good post,i wish everyone did these things maybe GW needs a trading tutorial...lol.

It doesn't matter who you are or what the item is....if i see the words "Offer" I will immediatly say 1k. It could be a Bone Dragon Mini, or a (Insert highest price greenie ATM)....I will say 1k.
After they give me the "Lol" and the "Worth 50-90k" remark, I will kindly suggest they not tell me to offer.

Most traders who have some sense will tell you what they expect, or at least a range to start the haggeling process.

Thats the reason I laugh when people quote the "PriceGurus" in trade chat, scammers all of them.

Yes! total agree.

During the weird AI bug for the IDS run i was selling some IDS's for 50k+ and was called ever name and told every reason it's not worth that much.... but just replied with "Sorry no thanks"

Side note.. Don't be in a rush to Click "Accept"

What I don't understand is the amazing lack of haggling. If I ever try to sell just generic weapon mods, I'll say "PM what you want", so that if I have it, I can just give a price. When someone PMs with "How much?", and I give them a price, they just "no thanks".

I swear this happens all the time, I think I've sold maybe two mods that way. Not to mention, the prices I'm giving are the GURU PC *lows*, so it's not like I'm performing highway robbery. What ever happened to counter-offers?? Ugh, I just hate the "trade system" GW has.

Yeah, you got me pegged as to my experience at trading. I managed to hit the Minipet craze before everyone started trying to sell them(and prices started to drop), and from there I just try and use common sense. The majority of my current fortune came from Christmas. I took a little time out of each day to farm orr emblems (about 2 weeks before the event began), and sold them all the first night(because I undersold everyone else).

I didn't want to clutter my OP with another anecdote(though I did leave a pointer to your thread) but here's an extreme example of getting referrals.

I was feeling ticked off at all the people trying to sell Halloween items for outrageous sums, as well as annoyed at the fact Cantha couldn't get any. So I put the Pumpkin head on, painted my armor orange and rp'ed my way around each Canthan city.

Claiming to be an emissary of the Mad King Thorn, I handed out sets of halloween items to people that didn't get a chance to go to LA. I even had people asking if i were an NPC or worked for Anet(it was awesome). The point, however, is that within a 24 hr. period I had quite a few people whispering me to find out where I was. Someone had passed the info on to their alliance,and I gladly helped out.

If you can get those few repeat customers, they'll be sure to tell their friends/guildies/etc that you're a good trader to go to for items. A farmer or low end trader (like myself) can get 1 million with time. Big time traders make it that way by building up a list of friends and High end clientele. And they become the multi-millioniaires.

But that's just my two cents

Your only really doing yourself harm through doing that. An real example, someone was spamming a shield for sale. I enquired about the price and they said "offer". I offered 100k and resold for 350k.

Yes, there may be alot of people who say offer and act jerks afterwards but there are also people who really dont know the price of their item.

whenever i see someone in chat spamming "offer" i just ask what their c/o [current offer] is. most people reply back with some ridiculous amount. if by chance i get back what seems like a reasonable c/o reply, ill counter offer and tell the guy my offer is good for like another 5 minutes.

I think quite often the "offer" traders are not pros. A player goes along getting drops only worth salvage or merch value, and then suddenly gets one that seems valuable - rare skin, 15^50, +30hp. They ask for pc and get varying answers depending on who answers, so are totally unsure about the real value. The fear of being laughed at keeps them from setting a price.

And yes, they are the ones who the pro traders love to run into.

My advice to them is to set a price after checking the forums for similar items and go for it. You can have 100k now or 350k somewhere in the distant future when you have acquired the knowledge to accurately price it yourself. If you come away happy with your sale, then it was a success.

>Forum decided to behave,edited out #10<
I attempted to edit the first post to add this, but the forum is being finicky with me. If it doesn't show up, I'll just leave this here for now. If it does, I'll edit this out.

Thanks to all the people that put in their own common sense, hopefully it will do somebody some good.

Done the same thing myself. One example was a req8 -2/-2 eternal back when they was worth 300-350k I offered 100k he accepted I resold later that week for 300k.

Thpugh these are all good reasons why not to say offer, I have a good one to do say it...serious buyers...there is a HUGE lack of serious buyer sin GW, I wish there was a way of selling stuff without spending HOURs and HOURS of trying....

I do use this methog to do most of my trading, as im semi beginner, been trading for maybe 2-3 months, but cant really hit any jackpots, heck, I would even pay someone to teach me >.<

True story. I always lecture people who give me the "offer" crap. It's your item, you're trying to sell, you tell me the price! I swear if restauraunts had the same type of business model they'd never make money.

Walk into McDonald's:

You: Yea, I'd like a #1, two chesseburger Happy Meals, and one apple pie. How much is that?

Them: Offer?

Hahahaha!!! That just cracked me up

I guess it doesn't really apply to something small like a McDonald's meal, but say if it were a car or house, there will be bartering involved.

Its bad when 4 out 5 people trying to buy a bow with perfect sundering mod for 1 K.So to say time to close your shop.

A bump to get this in the limelight(as there is a buy low sell high thread atm)

I hope people find this information useful, and that others keep any helpful info coming. I will unfortunately be unable to continue to edit the first post, as I will be incommunicado for quite some time(read "you might hear from me in about 3 months")