ectos stacks??

So lately ive been seeing people in kamadan selling minis for several stacks of ectos and sometimes even 250+ armbraces. So ive been wondering for a long time, how do people get that kind of money? i know theres a sticky topic on this forum on "How to make money" but im not talking about getting 100k, i presonally have around 1000k, but if you are one of those people who has 250 ectos or more, care to share your story? how did you go from 1000k to 250+e, scing, vqing, p-trading?
post below im super curious!

Short story: bought a unded naga back when they came out for like 50e. Quit for a while - maybe a year ish, don't remember. Came back and it was worth more than 1000e. (Funny cause now it's back down to like 50e lol)

Then I traded here and there to get to where I am today.

You do what is mentioned in the sticky but frequently, you trade with higher and higher value items, you look to turn a profit in everything you do, and you can also get lucky.

not that I have a stack, but I know back in the days---people actually farmed for ecto, the old trapping groups, the 50hp monks etc....and before it was nerfed the tomb of the primeval kings was an easy spot to get a few.
Not as hard as you might think considering the age of the game.

(and a few lucky sots got some nice rare minis they sold...like the mpb, pandas and candy corn one<---from the contests)

Basically, if you play since several years you get a lot of stuff you can sell. You don't even need to be a trader to get decent wealth. At this point in time you also have a lot of easy ways to get to money just from playing.

I'm into distribution, not to be confused with power trading. The volumes are much different.

When I was a low volume distributor, I salvaged mats from drops, gold UNIDs, and chest runs. These I turned into consets and crafted rare mats for elite armors. The mods and inscrips from salvage I sold and turned into more lockpicks and gold UNIDs. Wisdom was already maxed, so my salvage rate was 1 level below max, and I was able to extract a LOT of value out of salvages and make a good profit. About six months ago I had amassed 1000K and enough lockpicks (7 stacks, worth about 210e) to finish off the Treasure Hunter and Lucky titles. This was also while I spent money to max Drunk, Sweet, Party titles, and buy Obby Armor.

Then I switched to medium volume distribution by selling for farmers. Farmers are good at generating lots of salable materials, but not as good at storing and selling stacks. You can get very good prices when you buy in the 10 - 40 stack range. The finished products, like consets and full titles of consummables can get you good premiums from players who can pay for convenience and bulk orders. My profit margin was much better, and by the end of November my net worth was 1,100 ectos. Included in that was about 170 stacks of pcons waiting to sell months from now at full market price. I had also got rid of the low profit mods to make space, and freed up about 350 slots for stacks.

In December I began high volume distribution. I purchased feathered crests, glacial stones, steel, and saurian stacks to have concentrated storage of raw materials to make consets. I also set aside about 320 slots and 600 ectos for Wintersday Gift stacks. The idea here is to break down the gifts and store the consummables for 2014 when the prices are much better. Because people still want title points and are paying okay prices for 1 point consummables, I've been selling those off at a small profit to make room for 2, 3, and 50 point consummables. So far I've bought over 300 Wintersday Gift stacks, stored over 180,000 title points, and have a net worth of about 2,000 ectos in trade goods.

I've also been able to broaden my offerings into Hall of Monument weapons; Oppressor and Destroyer. I keep about 15 weapons in stock for ready sale, and the materials onhand to craft custom orders. It's about a 100 ecto capital investment with pretty decent profit margin. When I start clearing sales of consummables and pcons in 2014 I'll start carrying Tormented weapons in stock.

The key to my success is making sure everybody wins. The farmers get to free up space at a fair rate of return so they can keep farming. My retail prices are very competitive in Kamadan, sometimes the lowest on the market. When a customer can get everything he wants in one stop shopping, he's a happy customer. And when I watch my costs, the profits and sales turn are great!

Distribution is different from power trading, and I see a power trading out there. That business model is based on underpaying the seller or overcharging the buyer, and keeping the difference. One customer bought about 12 HoM weapons from me for 50k each, and later I found him hawking them for 7e each. People can come to me for the same weapons at 50K each with a better selection. His only value added is being online times when I am not.

I am not the only high volume distributor out there, I see quite a few in Kamadan (Luke Has No Weapons and A California Girl to name a few). At some level we can act like player character NPCs and bring a lot of liquidity into the market. We can provide a market for certain goods that the NPCs can not. The more steady and repeat customers we can get, the faster we can earn our way to the Club 250a; wealthy elite.

From what i know there arent many people farming, so how did you find these farmers that provide for you?

I assume he was talking about ToT/Wintersday gifts farmers. You can literarily buy tons of stacks and sell them twice the price you bought them for. At least.

You asked how ppl managed to have so many ectos? Well the answer is rather simple. In one word : Patience.
This game is all about patience, never be too hurry. If you don't know the price of an item that is for sale but you think you may get a good profit out of it, just don't buy it. In most cases, not losing your money will be better than a hypothetical profit.
You shouldn't reason in terms of profit, but in terms of choice. You have to make the right choice from what you know.
If you feel like what I've said above isn't clear, just remember this : don't pull eggs in one basket.

That was a basic advice for trading. But this advice does apply on everything that is economic-related in gw. Like investing on runes, weapons and skills for heroes. If you don't feel up for trading, just do Zquests, they're a good way to make money. You will eventually have nothing to spend your money on, so the money will just stack up until you have enough money for expensive items. People who has tons of ecto are ppl who already bought what they wanted, or they are about / on the way to.

The bigger farmers usually reveal themselves in the manner in which they trade. Some of the signs:

1) For material trading, they will sell multiple stacks in one transaction, and often give bulk discounts. So a trader selling one or two stacks of feathers, probably just a casual farmer. A trader offering 7 stacks for 5 ectos is probably farming heavily.

2) Likewise for Wintersday Gift stack and Trick or Treat stack farmers, they will sell in large amounts. They'll probably advertise "x" price but indicate an available quantity of x10, x20, etc.

3) Farmers prefer to be paid in ectos over platinum. They're usually worried about hitting the 1,000p max in Xunlai.

4) Sometimes I just ask if they farm, and let them know they can contact me to sell in bulk. Same goes with conset buyers, I ask if they speed clear, solo farm, or do clearing contests for time.

You'd be surprised how many big farmers are really out there. Most don't like to spend too much time in Kamadan because it cuts into their farming time.

Farming for runes these days are quite good considering how the prices have skyrocketed.
Even among insignias and minor runes. For ex:
Minor Strength 2.6k, Divine Favor 3.6k, Soul Reaping 2.5k etc. Trolls are a good source, or any low level foes you can kill in masses. It might not end up to stacks of ectos, but it can bring in decent money. Occational Sup Vigor and that's 43k value right there.

I farmed my first 100 ectos doing speedclears and converting the rewards (items, obsidian shards etc) into ectos, and bought a load of stuff... Obby edge (customised ofc) elite armours, etc etc.

Then I wished I hadn't spent it all, and farmed another 50.
I took that 50e to Kamadan where I had seen others trading stuff, and tried my hand at some low level trading. Everlasting tonics, BDS etc. I did that for a while, and the items I traded gradually became more and more expensive. Thereby automatically increasing the number of ectos made in each trade.

Eventually I began trading Uninscribable (some say oldschool) weapons and shields, and the cash really started to come in.
Then I started collecting really rare items that cannot be dropped by baddies any more (truly Oldschool) which turned out to be eye-wateringly expensive, and this fuelled the need to trade more in order to pay for these items. It's self-perpetuating now.

But to trade in these old school items, you need to know what you're looking at, as well as what any profit margin might be. It's very risky unless you know, and you can lose hundreds of ectos in a single deal if you're careless or wrong about the values.

A word of warning to anyone reading this who thinks they can just become a trader. Many are called, but few are chosen. It's not as easy to make mega-money as people are making it seem.

Max

True that. Even to trade commodity items like personal consumables, title points, or rare armor materials means you must know the costs and prices of what you are trading. You also need to know whether an item is easy to sell, average to sell with enough time, or hard to sell. You can get the greatest deal in the world, like a green Envoy weapon, but if it's hard to sell, you'll have a hard time making a profit and keep the trading going.

A good example is alcohol. In the off season you can get +/- 80g/point, sometimes as high as 100g/point. Towards the end of the Wintersdays event you'll be lucky to get 45g-50g/point, if you can find any buyers at all. So if you bought early in the event at 70g/point you may still lose money if you don't move those stacks quickly (or sit on them until the off season).

The other thing required is persistence. If you're not spending a regular amount of time and effort doing it, you probably won't be successful. Farming and speed clearing can be picked up and dropped as mood dictates, but trading requires consistent effort.

I acquired most of my wealth running urgoz and deep for people. I also did a ton of vanquishing for people.

I don't really play anymore but the way I got my millions was power trading way back in the day. I remember what got me started was that I saw an assassin with Ancient armor and i thought it looked cool, so i asked my in game friend what type of armor it was and he said something to the effect of, "Oh that? haha, trust me you'll never afford that armor." This was when factions first came out and I was still a fairly new, and very poor player. I didn't know how but I was gonna prove him wrong. Then, not long after, I was in KC and saw someone selling a q8 Celestial Bow inherent 15^50 mod, gold, max, everything desirable. At the time I didn't know a thing about power trading, I had no clue what it was worth, but I did know it was worth a lot. So I asked him how much and he said 60k, I instantly bought it not knowing what it was worth but knowing it was worth a hell of a lot more than 60k. It took me a long time to sell but I ended up getting frustrated and trading it for a Zodiac bow which I knew to be worth 100k +10e, I sold it fairly quickly. The next taste of huge profits (at the time, 40k +10e was a huge profit to me) occurred when I saw someone selling a mini Ceratadon when they first came out for 70k, I bought it knowing I could sell it for a lot more. I ended up trading it for an Elemental Sword which I sold for 60e. From there I knew I could make it power trading and started hanging out in Kama d1, literally just standing there for hours watching trade chat so I could learn prices of items. I wasn't even buying anything for along time, just studying trade chat. I got to where I could literally tell you how much you could get for any item worth while, and I could tell you a quick sale price and a high retail price. I knew what items were easy to sell which ones were hard to sell. I knew the market like the back of my hand. Then I started buying stuff, anything I could afford that I saw someone selling for less than what I knew I could get for it. Eventually 60e turned into a 100 and that turned into 3 accounts with 1000k plus more ectos, then that gold turned into 25+ sets of elite and cool weapons, then the gold kept piling and pretty soon I was where I am now. I'm not worth 250a or anything like that, but if i could get refunds on gold spent on armor and get back what I spend on my weapons, plus gold still on my account and other rare items it would probably be in the 20 million range. To be honest man, I had always wanted to have that kind of money but once i got a few million, had all the armors I wanted, all the fancy weapons I wanted, and had plenty of gold to do basically whatever I wanted, it was enough. Having 250a isn't all you think it is. Once you have a few million you can literally buy anything you want excluding the insanely priced mini pets (panda, kanaxai, vizu, etc). Having a certain mini pet was never that important to me since they really serve no purpose besides displaying wealth.

I can buy anything within reason now, but you're right, that's not the point. I just passed the 125a mark, net worth, and still going strong. But there are businesses I want to get in, or am now just getting into, that require a lot of working capital. You knew what that was like when you first got started; you couldn't buy every good deal that came along to power trade because all your money would be tied up.

To augment my Hall of Monuments Destroyer and Oppressor business, I just started adding Torment Weapons. I wouldn't use 5-10 Torment weapons myself, but that's barely a start to provide the variety that some of my customers would like (and they have been asking for Torments for the Hall of Monuments). So that net future investment in Tormies will be close to 400e when the pane is fully stocked, but to translate that into potential spending money is just nuts. Even the idea of buying a second set of Obby armor just seems wasteful, even though it really wouldn't slow down the business.

I certainly would not call myself a 'Big time Farmer" but I am sitting on 2K ToTs and 1500 of 2K Wintersday Gifts; I'll farm anything that produces DP buffs, or is useful for cons; mostly I keep them for guild activities, sometimes I sell them, ; and while I try to get a fair rate I never much care to turn a huge profit and your right; in that I don't think I've ever spent more than 30 minutes in Spamadan at any one time. I would much rather be in the field toasting uglies.

If you prefer time in the field to bartering I think feather farming outside JBluffs is still one of the best sources of constant income. The Feathers, the runes, the Iron you salvage are all valuable. : ) BB.