Guild Wars 2

I’ve earned up a bulky nestegg that I’m inclined to blow on trying to be a market maker.

So: share your stories on your successes or failures in trying to reset an equilibrium for an item by buying out existing walls.

How’d you pick the item, why’d it succeed or fail, what lessons did you take away from the experience?

Wanze said he tried to control a market once and failed. (Previously unknown sellers kept popping up out of the woodwork to undercut him.) If he couldn’t do it, I certainly wouldn’t risk my money on it.

I still think it’s theoretically possible for a cabal of traders to pool their money and seize control of a niche enough market, but again, the hidden supply in GW2 is VAST, and even if you succeeded, I have a feeling that ANet itself would intervene if players started complaining. The TP is such an integral part of the game that they need to maintain player trust in it. The day that players start going to third party sites instead of using the TP is the day that the GW2 economy collapses.

They only way you are going to control a market is with limited time event items. Items that are currently obtainable in game will cause mass undercutting when you try to buyout supply to raise the price. If the demand is high enough the price will stick, but you will get undercut no matter which item you pick, there’s no avoiding it.

I wouldn’t try now though, because the introduction of the Ultimate Citizen’s Rescue Bag made it apparent that Anet will introduce more copies of items that are short on supply.

I tried to control a limited recipe market once, just for fun, but only really succeeded once I actively pulled others in (that I did not know) by dumping a substantial amount of recipes in their buy orders. They then pushed the price up with gold I didn’t have yet. Pushing a market alone takes a lot of gold and patience.

Buttercup.5871:

I tried to control a limited recipe market once, just for fun, but only really succeeded once I actively pulled others in (that I did not know) by dumping a substantial amount of recipes in their buy orders. They then pushed the price up with gold I didn’t have yet. Pushing a market alone takes a lot of gold and patience.

This is the best strategy and i often do it. However i dont see this as cornering/controlling a market because most of the time, you wont be holding the mayority of the stock and usually make profit by selling at some point to other speculators, not consumers and by doing that, supplying towards an artificial, not a real demand. The Ultimate Citizens Bag reintroduced alot of items, mostly recipes, that fall into that category: Keepers/Zealot, toxic nourishments, rune of antitoxin, Marjory´s Chili and the masterwork cooking recipes. Many of them have been bought out right after the event ended and already give out profits over 500%, if you sell now to other speculators.

I also bought 20k recipes each of givers exotic insignia/inscriptions at 1c over vendor price of 1.33s as i thought, its a save investment because in the worst case, i only lose 2.5s per stack, if i sell back to vendor. But during last years wintersday update, Anet removed the vendor value of those recipes and i lost over 3 gold per stack.

I also spent around 500g once to try to manipulate Tarragon just to see, if its possible.
I actually managed to raise the price by 100% but at the new price, the demand wasnt high enough to dump my whole stock back into the market and i made a loss in the end.

In my opinion, even the precursor and legendary markets are very hard to manipulate/corner because (despite common belief) the influx of new supply is just too high.

You could control the market for permanent hair style change contracts… all you need to do is find one.

tolunart.2095:

You could control the market for permanent hair style change contracts… all you need to do is find one.

And as soon as someone gets one from a BL Chest, you only hold 50% of the supply out of a sudden.

I’ve managed to scare off (a) stupid seller/s (as in those that have not studied the market they are entering and dump too many units all at once/per day) that put ceilings in my markets by just selling my usual amount per day at just above buyer prices. I was only pulling about 15% profit after taxes, and had to endure it for a week or more, but in the end the ceiling got de-listed. This also only worked because at the time I had a month’s worth of lead time from when I had bought until I had to sell, and there was therefore a significant difference between my buy and sell prices.

it is doable. however only with very specific items at the right time. it’s extremely difficult, even probably impossible for one single person.

I had all of the blue sentinel inscriptions on the market before they were rereleased.

This was by accident. I bought up a lot during the event, and still had them almost a year later. I was just trying to unload them when anet undercut me.

Not sure if this counts… but during the last flame/frost dye release I noticed that certain non-flame/frost dyes that came with those dropped in price. I bought up as many of them as I could and held the price higher than it would have naturally been because of the increased supply. I waited a little while after the sale, then sold them all at a good profit. It wasn’t a full market (all the dyes) but a part of one.

“I also spent around 500g once to try to manipulate Tarragon just to see, if its possible.
I actually managed to raise the price by 100% but at the new price, the demand wasnt high enough to dump my whole stock back into the market and i made a loss in the end.”

I realize what an amateur I am when I read something like this….how gold do you have Wanze? (rhetorical)

Cassocaster.4576:

“I also spent around 500g once to try to manipulate Tarragon just to see, if its possible.
I actually managed to raise the price by 100% but at the new price, the demand wasnt high enough to dump my whole stock back into the market and i made a loss in the end.”

I realize what an amateur I am when I read something like this….how gold do you have Wanze? (rhetorical)

My guess would be under 1-2k, I’m sure he doesn’t keep a whole lot just sitting around not making him more money… that would be silly.

Lockouting everyone from the supply of a item is some you can only do for a limited amount of time. Control a crafting item was something you could do for a limited amount of time(4-8hrs). That was before some ascended items hit the market. This is a global market eventually someone will come up with the same idea. Posting about how you make money on TP will only reduce your profits. Some do this once they have to much money to spend and their idea greatly effect prices.

The big issue with controlling a market is figuring out how to lock other people out of getting the supply of that good. With some many ways to get some items that is hard to do. So the only markets people tend to control are the limited items like jetpacks, monacles, so on. Once an item drop under 5 supply you see someone buy them all out and reprice them.

I will say that I have bought almost the entire supply of masterwork rifles listed under 2 silver hoping for a second Hunter to sell…..I equipped the first because I love the weapon. Once the remaining 3000 or so are gone I will have effectively raised the cost of masterwork rifles, if only a smidge.

Risingashes.8694:

I’ve earned up a bulky nestegg that I’m inclined to blow on trying to be a market maker.

So: share your stories on your successes or failures in trying to reset an equilibrium for an item by buying out existing walls.

How’d you pick the item, why’d it succeed or fail, what lessons did you take away from the experience?

Don’t look at all the items hanging around on offer and think “Oh, if I just buy out the bottom 400 I’ll be able to resell them at X and make a profit tidy profit on some and an acceptable profit on the rest…”

First step is try putting a bunch of bids at a solid step up for the highest standing bid… it shouldn’t take you long to find out supply for everything is vastly deeper than it looks and controlling a market is literally trying to steer the iceberg when you can only see 10% of it…

I haven’t tried in GW2, but I have been moderately successful in other games controlling a low supply items and adding a increase of approximately 50% to the price. It is very time consuming however.

Lasica.5068:

I haven’t tried in GW2, but I have been moderately successful in other games controlling a low supply items and adding a increase of approximately 50% to the price. It is very time consuming however.

I once sold bags of rice on a tiny atoll called Puka Puka, whose inhabitants were out of rice at that time. True story but also totally unrelated.

Due to the nature of the supply side in this game, there are VERY few items on the TP you could even try to attempt this with. You cannot “corner” a market unless you can control the source. You are certainly welcome to try.

Wanze.8410:

I once sold bags of rice on a tiny atoll called Puka Puka, whose inhabitants were out of rice at that time. True story but also totally unrelated.

You should have given it to them just for the karma.

But you can’t buy stuff with karma in the Real World. We need more karma sinks.

Karma sinks? Every seen the recipes for dye making for chefs? Many of the ingredients can only be bought with Karma.

Behellagh.1468:

Karma sinks? Every seen the recipes for dye making for chefs? Many of the ingredients can only be bought with Karma.

700 karma per crafted dye is the highest, though. Spidy got its calculations wrong.