Guild Wars 2

Am I correct in thinking that those people selling items 1c more than the minimum listing price, are actually making less money than if they sold to an NPC because of the listing price? For example a hammer that sells to an NPC for 32c is listed on the trading post 200+ times at 33c with a listing price of 2c. Wouldn’t you make more money selling to the NPC? Am I understanding this wrong, and is there any way to combat this?

Yes, they are selling the item for less profit than they would make if they sold it to an NPC.

They get a value out of it – empty bag space while in the field. I, personally, wouldn’t want to spend a few cp for a bag space constantly, but apparently other people do.

There’s one way for players to “combat” it. Once the materials you can salvage are worth more than the item, buy and salvage the item. That isn’t going to happen any time soon, but perhaps in the future it will become an issue for cloth as more of the population reaches 80. There are game changes that could change this, including raising the minimum posting price in the TP or disabling the TP in the field, but I don’t personally like either of those ideas.

You need to think about this relatively, the auction house is not place to make money on trash items. What it is to alot of clued up people is a portable shop vendor following you around all over the map.

It’s by far a better option sometimes to just sell at cost and loose a couple of copper than spend time running to a vendor when you could be earning cash. And it’s definitely cheaper than spending several silver on going to a waypoint rather than loosing 1 or 2 copper an item.

People who keep asking this also seem to miss, is that not everyone cares about making as much money as they can. Some are even fine with losing a few copper. It’s just a few copper.

I know this may be hard to believe, for people who are into that sort of thing, but some players are happy with what they get just playing the game, and they throw stuff up on the broker, just in case anyone else wants it.

GW2 just happens to make that especially easy, so you see a lot of it.

Vzur.7123:

People who keep asking this also seem to miss, is that not everyone cares about making as much money as they can. Some are even fine with losing a few copper. It’s just a few copper.

I know this may be hard to believe, for people who are into that sort of thing, but some players are happy with what they get just playing the game, and they throw stuff up on the broker, just in case anyone else wants it.

GW2 just happens to make that especially easy, so you see a lot of it.

The solution to that problem is that the interface could advice a minimun price so that you will earn at least 1c more than if you just sold the item to a vendor NPC, considering the listing fee and TP cut.
So if you sell a 32c item, the TP interface could suggest you selling it at 40c (assuming the listing fee is 3c, TP takes 4c, so you get 33c).

The real solution is to remove the ability to utilize the trading post without first going to a trader or activating the black lion trader express that was purchased with gems.

Then, and only then, will people stop/slow their use of the trading post as a convenience bank.