Guild Wars 2

BEFORE you list something on TP, determine whether it will make you money or just drag down the economy! The easy way to do this is:

1. If the ‘Lowest Seller’ and ‘Highest Buyer’ Prices are within a nickel or so, forget about it! You will LOSE money on this trade and ruin the market for the rest of us. Sell to a vendor.

2. Otherwise click ‘Match Lowest Seller’ and then divide the Projected Profit by the quantity you are offering. Compare this result to the ‘Meet Highest Buyer’ price. If you aren’t making at least a nickel on each item, forget about it! Prices may well move against you and your items will be stranded on TP when you could have almost the same money immediately by selling to a vendor.

It’s astonishing how many people are selling stuff on TP for less than they would get by vendoring it. DO THE MATH!

(hint: a handheld calculator with BIG keys is a worthwhile investment if you want to stop losing money on TP)

I guess you are referring to items that are listed at 1 copper over vendor value.

While you are right that people would get more gold from the vendor for those items because they have to pay 15% fees and taxes, for the economy its actually better if they keep doing it.

Because if they sell it on the tp, they actually sink gold out of the economy, which counters inflation. IF they sell it to the vendor, they generate gold, causing inflation.

Nobody wants inflation.

agree with wanze. all TP trades are good for the economy. even if they never get purchased.
better for the player? yeah, sell to a vendor if it’s 1c above merchant value.

on the other hand, some people list such a huge volume that it would literally add so much time to their routine that the 5c you might save is not worth their time to check if they would make more from a merchant or TP.
I run into this when I do crafting. I’ll craft like 300 things and list them all on the TP. Once upon a time I would check to be sure someone didn’t artificially deflate an item (if there is a buy order for 1 of something and you sell 2 to them, it will sell them 1 then list 1 at that price, thus lowering the sell listing price). Now I just sell everything without thinking about it, knowing that maybe 2-5 items are artificially deflated and I’m selling at a loss. But to get 1g more profit out of 500g total profit by spending 30 extra minutes double-checking every price? I’d much rather do it quicker and get slightly less out of it.

There is a reason many people dont’ use sell order and just sell to the lowest buy order. They just don’t care.

Many people just dont’ care because it is virtual gold not real gold. And many people dont’ care because it’s penny change.

When you have the gold you dont care and sell to orders and buy from listed

An inaccuracy in my rant as OP: when you can’t make money by listing the item, the preferred solution is selling to the highest bidder, not to a vendor!

Obviously my viewpoint is that of resource collector, not crafter. If we stopped selling our resources dirt cheap, the price would rise and make collecting more worthwhile. That might raise the price of manufactured goods, however. No free lunch! <sigh>

OP you are overlooking some obvious reasons as to why this situation persists.

There is one overriding reason why it happens.

You can sell on the TP at any time and from any place. Vendors require you to physically go to them to sell.

Combine this fact with the limitations that bag space can put on item gathering / general game play and you can see why people are willing to take a discounted return relative to the price a vendor offers in order to save the time/money involved in finding one.

The value of that saved time/money that would be needed in getting yourself to a vendor can often be many magnitudes greater than the increased return the vendor would offer.

Full or nearly full bags in the following situations:

- Mid run fractal or dungeon.

- Following eotm commander, defending a tower in wvw and you have a few seconds lull in the fight.

- Just got onto a good megaserver for a boss fight and you are waiting for him to spawn, no near by vendor and wp will go contested when boss spawns.

And countless other situations where the time/opportunity cost/money involved in getting to a vendor is not worth the extra return on the sale.

With luck, TP 2.0 will make it easier for people to know what they are missing by selling to highest buy order.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-new-trading-post/

I actually prefer it that people sell it to the TP at 1c+ vendor price. I snatch that kitten up