How do you sell your mats?

Question: I've been salvaging whites for mats worth selling like iron and tanned hides, but I'm having trouble selling the mats to other players. In hindsight I am seeing that mats are rarely spammed in trade. So I'm wondering if it's common practice to just sell to the trader since these are easily obtained items. Any answers are appreciated. Thanks.

Answer: Mats are more easily sold in towns that offer crafters for max armor, for rare skinned max weapons, and for consumables. Alternative suggestions include using the mats for your own consumable or armor crafting, selling directly to the trader to save time, saving mats and selling them specifically to people looking to buy them, using the mats to craft rare materials which are more valuable than the combined value of the common materials, or not salvaging common items at all since the value of the salvaged materials could be less than the amount the merchant would pay you for the original item.

Thanks for all the answers, folks.

If you want to make money sell them to the public, if not sell them to the trader. I sell them to the trader usually since I don't like standing in town trying to sell crap.

i find that its pretty much impossible to sell mats to other players. takes ages. Back in the day it was pretty easy to sell mats...not any more.

I just build up stacks and whenever I'm in a town I check the WTBs and occasionally I see a guy buying one. PM him and see how many he wants, check the trader to determine a fair price and sell.

u should have no trouble finding buyers for iron,dust and feathers since they are used for consumables granite is also worth keeping although a bit harder to sell rest i usually sell to trader or keep for my own armors or to help out allies

depends on the material really...bones, chittin, etc....merch....
feathers I sell to the material trader since he gives me a better deal
(and granite slabs I keep---)

so I would say see what the merch is buying them at and then the material trader---whoever is buying for a better price gets my business.

I've got nearly a full stack of everything....I used to sell to players as unkleanone said, "back in the day" but that was a long time ago. Mostly nowadays I just use what I need for consumables and sell the rest....especially granite slabs.....seems I literally get a ton o' them.

Great! Thanks for all the helpful replies.

I keep granite and what I can make cons out of, usually sell the rest to trader when I'm full or need some cash.

i buy n sell dyes/mat/rare mat. all from traders to save time.

Wood, dust, iron, and plant fibers can be crafted into rare materials and sold to the rare trader for significantly more profit than the regular trader or merchant. The material trader or the merchant gets the rest of my materials.

I buy everything from trader unless i see a guy selling them and i buy quiclky As for Os armor if i ever wanted to get it i would simply go to ToA and buy ectos.... Im all for buying off players so long as its quick! :P Im the same with buying i find that peeps just get on my nervs so any rare items i find i keep/hero sell on auction sell forum etc or just merch it :P but again i always like a good deal but im impatiant for one :P for example when i crafed my draggie gloves i used common materials and used a Artistan to craft a lot cheaper/stress free than buying off players or those snazy Rare crafting material guys.

if you check the wiki and keep up on current prices you can turn a stack of certain materials into some rare materials at a crafter and make a nice profit. Hide Squares and Dust are what I generally use.... Also Granite is good to save and sell to those looking to craft destroyer weps. :s

I would really just sell them to the trader in a town.

Or, go where an armor crafter is and sell them there.

Or the consumables crafters.

Save them for when you see WTB. Specifically hang around towns like Droks where they sell max level armour. Spamming often helps there, but really I just save them for when people are specifically looking for them.

OP: Always check the difference on the price you will get between the normal Merchant and the Materials Trader and Rare Materials trader. There is often a big difference to your advantage. The materials traders prices are consumer driven - so the more they are wanted the higher price you will get, whereas the Merchant works on a set price.

As for the secondary language debate going on, regardless of what you personally feel - or how leet/cool you think you are - the statement listed below is what every poster here is required to follow:

The Guild Wars Guru Forum Rules:

9. Do Not Abuse the English Language

This is a message board, not a chat room. DO NOT use "Leet-Speak", slang or chat lingo our forums. Avoid Colloquial writing. This can best be described as "writing in the way that one would speak." It is an informal, slang style of English that should be reserved primarily for speech, as it can seem unprofessional and sloppy in written text. A casual tone can be interpreted positively in person with face-to-face contact, but can be perceived negatively in writing. As such, you have all the time necessary to articulate your posts in a coherent matter. "You" is only two more letters than "u." It will not kill you to type them. Completely illegible posts are subject to moderation - and I can not guarantee their accuracy of 'translating' the author’s original message.

Additionally, when one punctuation works instead of 10 (example: ? instead of ?!?!), use one.

Most of the time, if you add up the value of the things you've salvaged, you'll find that they were worth more than what you'll get for the materials.

It's not cost effective to salvage most things for materials unless:

a. The item is "highly salvageable"

b. You need the materials for yourself (so you don't have to buy them)

c. There is a good chance that the item will "expert" salvage into rare materials.

Yep, that's about right. Most people will agree that selling right between trader buy and sell price is fair.

Another good place to try and sell certain mats is around armor/weapon crafters, as these are where people most likely will be using them...

If they're rare materials then depending on the material (usually all of them are worth something) you just have to wait until you see a player buying. I just save every material that drops then let them build up and go to a place like L.A. and say I'm selling materials.

I would advise just saving them for armor. Nothing worse than saving your 75k for elite armor to relize you still need mats.

on cheep whites I almost always salvage the "highly salvageable" items and then sell for profit to merch

Anything that can be used to make 'consets' can be sold by the stack (250 obviously being a stack) in towns, so dust, iron, and feathers (especially) can make considerably more money for you by selling to other players than to merchant. Feathers value has been pushed up massively by the essence of celerity consumable. So much so there is even a popular thread on farming feathers now in the farming forum. Alternatively you can craft the consumables yourself to sell but this will require the EotN campaign and relevent reputation levels

if it is full in storage than to the merch of course....altho i like to keep piles of dust around for some reason.