How to buy and sell to and from other players

Is there a guide for buying and selling stuff to and from other players? I don't want to get ripped off. Are there ways in GW to set myself up as a merchant (like in the bazaar in EQ) or an auctionhouse (like in WoW) or to view what other players are selling? How do I compare the prices players are asking for items to make sure they are good prices. How to find out a good price to ask for items I want to sell?

Spend time watching chat to see what people are asking.
Spend time reading in places like Ventari's to see what people are buying/selling.
Spend time watching the Dye Trader, Material Trader, Rare Material Trader, Rune Trader, etc.

It basically takes time and effort, nothing else (except basic common sense). Some things are very stable, and others fluctuate a lot. Knowing what is stable, and making use of descrepancy will help make money, and knowing what is not stable, and making use of the variations will also make you money.

There is no 'easy' way to learn, it just takes time, observation, and interaction.

For runes, insignias & materials, check at the traders and sell/buy a little cheaper. Inscriptions usually go for a k or two (the popular ones at least), I think attitude not aptiude is the most expensive one.

Ask your guildies/alliance members about weapons, you can always google but it's usually 50/50 whether or not you get a post from 2006 or not. There is a pricecheck section here on the forums btw.

Greens are usually dependant on how farmed the area is, eg. Claws of the Broodmother you'll probably have to pay someone to take them because of Raptor farming. But unfarmed greens I usually just ask for 5k because I suck at prices and it seems thats an acceptable price.

Decent rare gold weapons I get usually go to my heroes so I'm spared the torture of trying to sell and getting ripped off. If you check wiki, the design a weapon, weapons seem to be worth a lot and will be highly saught after so you could probably find someone buying/selling in Kamadan to give you an idea of price.

What MagmaRed said.
Also, When your first starting off if your not careful what your buying/selling items for or you over pay for an item you might end up losing cash. Don't sweat it to much though, eventually you'll make it back through another trade or two.
Easy things to PwrTrd with are items you get from the Gifts of the Traveller. Buying Red/Blue rock candies for as cheap as possible and re-selling in bulk in Kamadan can make for some easy money.

1) go to kamadan (american district, preferably 1 or 2)
2) press 'p' to open up the party window
3) select 'trade' and put up a buy/sell message

Buying from and selling to players is a little hit and miss, mostly because of the time it takes out of your playing the game.

I would far rather play for an hour than sit in a town spamming wts or wtb xxx.


I would only sell to players items I have seen to be in demand so watching what people ask for is vital.
For me its feathers they seem to be in constant demand and are easy to farm for.
I always keep a few stacks in my storage so if I see someone wanting a stack I can pick up an easy 10k.

Buying from players, only do that when you really need something that is difficult for you to get yourself.
You should also know the rough price of an item by doing a search first.
Be prepared to waste a huge amount of time and cash if you want a rare item.

MagmaRed said it best. Watch trade chat and check ventari forums to see what people are bidding on. It does take alot of time and dedication if you want to be a full-time merchant and it's not for the faint of heart.

AC

This guy knows what hes talking about

There is no in-game support for player to player trade beyond the trade chat (visible to all players in the same district) and the trade section of party search window (visible to all players in all districts in the same region of a town.)

As others have said and implied above, there is no set of rules or guides for learning the player-to-player gear market in Guild Wars. It's not especially difficult to figure out; it simply takes time. I would suggest you start by learning about the max potential stats (damage, energy, armor, etc.) on weapons and note the differences between inscribable and inherent items.

Price Checks (PC)

If you're trying to figure out the price of an item you plan to sell or buy, I would suggest first trying to look it up yourself on a fansite like this one. When I need to find out the ballpark price of an item, I do the following ...

• For materials, dyes, runes, etc. - Go into a large town and check the NPC trader prices. They quote stuff for sale at a markup than what they offer to buy yours for. The price in player to player trade usually works out to splitting the difference. Here's a link to wiki which will lead you to all the NPC traders available.
  http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Trader
• For things there are lots of copies of around and frequently traded that the game doesn't have traders for, check the PC guide threads. Look in the stickies in the Price Check section and you can find links to guide threads for things like weapon mods, tomes, greens, minipets, etc. While the original posts (OPs) of those aren't always up to date, you can always read through the recent replies near the end of the thread to get an idea of more current prices if the original list hasn't been updated in a while.
  Here's a link to the main list of PC guides. (It's also a sticky in the PC section.)
  ** LINK HERE! For All Other Price Check Guides **
• For gold weapons
  • Be sure you understand the specifics of your item. Normally, any attached mods/inscriptions aren't really relevant to the price because those can easily be removed or replaced. The important bits of information are fixed things like if the item is inscribable (and its inherent mod if it's not inscribable,) if it has max base stats, and its requirement (attribute and level.) The differences in market value between otherwise identical items where one has a higher requirement level and/or one has an inscription slot can be really huge.
    Here's a link to wiki about max stats for most weapons. Realize that a "max staff" needs the inherent HSR and energy built-in bonuses to be max in addition to the damage.
    http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Perfect EDITED this link because I found a better one.
  • Check the Auction system here to see what prices folks are asking for similar items. You can type in search text strings near the top. You can navigate through the item categories to see listings, too.
  • Search Ventari's threads to see what prices can be found in current and recent trade posts. Hit Search and click Go Advanced. Type in the exact text string of the item you're looking for in quotes (examples would be things like "Spiked Axe" or "Baneful Scepter") and limit the search to only Ventari's Corner and its subforums.
  • If the above two don't give a pretty good feel for recent prices and current market supply/demand, maybe start a Price Check thread asking for help. I always try to find information my own first. Replies to PC threads can be very helpful, but you have to take them with a grain of salt. The responder may be mistaken. You can also try standing around popular trade districts (like Kamadan AD1) and asking for PC help on an item. Both methods can be rather hit or miss. At least with the PC threads here, folks are a lot more reluctant to post an intentionally wrong answer because it'll be public and they risk ridicule (and sanctions against their forum account in extreme cases.) I find asking for PC in-game, I'm more likely to get things like people whispering 20k when I know the item in question is likely over 200k. This is another good reason to do as much of your own PC searching up front as you can.
  • Be sure to check if any of the item's salvageable mods or inscription are worth more. Often, I find the most valuable part of a weapon is the attached mod. I salvage that off and save it to sell, but I just merch the weapon because I know it's fairly common and/or something I don't want to waste the time and inventory slot trying to sell.
• For non-max or blue/purple weapons ... Sadly, these are usually merch food unless they have the maximum damage/energy/armor for the minimum req. with an inscription slot (examples are ar 15/req 7 inscribable shields and en 12/req 8 offhands.) There are a few skins (mostly from NF) that have different appearances in blue/purple versions than they do in gold; these can be worth a surprising amount sometimes. Wiki should be able to tell you if your blue or purple item is one of those rare cases. With inscribable gear, sometimes you'll find max weapons/shields/offhands with an inscription slot - unless the gold-counterpart is significantly valuable, it's probably not worth the trouble trying to sell the blue/purple version. For non-inscribable loot, I can't think of any case at all where a non-max blue/purple loot drop item would be worth selling. I could be forgetting one, though.

Finally, realize that prices in player to player trade will always fluctuate. Just because someone bought a sword like yours for 50k last week doesn't mean you'll immediately find someone willing to buy it for 50k when you put up a sell ad. If someone offers to buy yours for 20k, they're not necessarily trying to scam you - it could simply be that they have a different idea of the sword's value than you do. If you want to hold out for more money, you can for sure! But please don't fall victim to the mindset that everyone is out to scam you. I see that happen to folks sometimes, and it's a shame. Some people who get like that become so unpleasant that I simply refuse to deal with them - no amount of pixels is worth it.


Yeah, I know, I know - "Nice novel, Luny!" ... at least I put some of it in bullet lists!

Cheers & GL!
Luny

Press P when you are in the kamadan and go price check section on guru,you will get enough information about price