Guild Wars 2

This is long but I want to share, and if you take the time to read it, I believe you’ll be glad you did. Continued in multiple posts.
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A couple of givens and qualifiers for this list
1) Be aware that you lose 15% on any item you list and sell. 5% is a non-refundable listing fee taken for your existing gold. 10% is a tax deducted from an item when it sells. The TP calculates the latter when it shows net profit.
2) You are not already rich :P. These rules still apply, but rich folks tend to scoff at these more tedious tasks. You just need 1-2g to get started buying stacks
3) You are buying in stacks of 250.
4) You know better than to ever undercut the next lowest seller by more than 1c.
5) You are buying your items via the ORDER TAB, at no more than 1c higher than highest bidder, and selling at no more 1c lower than lowest seller.
6) Emphasizing #4, you realize that you do not have to drastically undercut to get something sold. Goods at lower price (even by 1c) will always sell so long as they are in demand.
7) In my experience, a good profit margin starts at around 15%, but I have accepted any item with a low overall investment cost with a profit of 10%+.
8) Make sure that the item you are wanting to sell is decently higher than the vendor sell cost if you are starting in the real low coppers.
9) Optional but recommended: You are keeping track, ideally via spreadsheet (link at bottom of post #3).

So Here goes:

1) Crafting Components are ideal, but upgrade components are nice too. People are always crafting and these are always on the move and therefore in high demand, whether people just want to level to the next crafting tier, or are trying to turn a profit of their own.

2) Avoid the crafting components that are not drop items. There is just usually a lesser demand for these because someone is trying to get rid of extras, or can just make them themselves using the components, which usually sell at a lower combined cost. Exception are the items that are “transmogrified” like an amethyst lump or a bolt of cotton, as these are also frequently traded.

3) Avoid ordering any item that has a short list of orders. The fact that a lot of other people are Not ordering the same item is not an indication that you have stumbled upon a gold mine. It is an indication that you are looking at an item with a low demand. You don’t want to trade in items that have a low demand.

4) Trade in items that have a lot of activity/movement/demand. These markets tend to be more volatile because, yes, more traders are involved, but your goods will be bought or sold quickly. A volatile market, one that may dip randomly and drastically, is also just as likely to jump right back up. The important part is that there are constantly people buying and selling, which has its own way of stabilizing a market. In most cases, if you post an item that is suddenly undersold, you will find your goods will sell within 24-28 hrs. In other words, don’t freak out and pull your stack unless it stays longer than this and is tying up your capital.

5) Trading in “high ticket items” is not usually as profitable as you think. First of all, you will feel the 15% loss a lot more, and therefore you require a greater disparity between Order and Sell cost to actually make a profit. The problem with this is that the greater the disparity between Order and Sell, the more likely a seller looking to unload is to do so via sell. A savvy seller will list their goods at 1c less than the lowest seller. The people who fulfull items on order when there is a big difference are really impatient, but not entirely common. Sure you can take your chances, but in most cases you will find that these orders are slow to be filled.

6) Don’t tie up your gold waiting for a big profit. This ties into the above. You see an item that sells at 10s but the highest order is 5.5s. Do you really think that the average seller will opt to lose 45% of their money? Sure, some will, but most buyers are inherently more greedy and savvy than that. This is not a smart way to invest your money because your order willl take much longer to fill (refer to #4 again if you need). You will end up waiting too long for that order to be filled, and in that time of waiting, the market can shift drastically.

7) Remember that the idea is not just simply overall profit, but profit margin. In other words, how much money is being returned for your investment. If you buy a stack of something and make 1g, but you had to invest 15g to get that, you are doing it wrong.

8) Look into lower ticket items. In my experience, these are the goods that are 40-99c per but branching to 1-3s as you gain net worth (using a spread sheet becomes particularly important the bigger the numbers are, refer to #5). You will often find a greater profit margin in these items because people find any difference measured in copper as insignificant, but that’s where you come in. You can buy a 250 stack of items at 2s and sell them for 2.5s, and you just made 31.25s in profit…but that’s only 5% profit margin and you had to invest 5.75g! Buy 250 stack of something at 37c and sell it for 56c, and you just made 26.5s for a 19% profit margin and you only invested 1.06g! Are you kidding me? That means you do that times 4 and you more than quadrupled your profit for the same investment. I am telling you…low ticket items are the way to go.

9) Don’t be afraid to pull an order. Before you log off for the day, check your orders, and click on anything that doesn’t seem to be moving. You want check to see how the gap has changed since you first ordered. If the profit margin has changed drastically, then consider just cancelling the order. What is likely taking place is a mass unloading of people who simply got their orders fulfilled before you, and are now racing to outsell each other. If that is the case, the price will probably continue to dive until most buyers have realized the market shift and have stopped investing and selling (and the market will eventually go up as demand goes back up).

10) You goal should be to expect an order to be fulfilled before you log off, and listed before you log off, but in most cases you will start to see orders arriving within minutes, and you’ll want to start listing ASAP. You do not want to give the market time to shift. Sometimes it shifts in your favor, and sometimes not. It’s best to capitalize on the odds you are seeing right at that moment than to gamble on tomorrow’s market.

11) You don’t have to, and may not want to, list a full stack all at once. There is nothing wrong with starting to list whatever you are getting as it comes in, and it has its benefits. First of all, especially if you are undercutting, other sellers will be less likely to undercut you if you have a smaller amount listed that isn’t a threat against their own stack. Many savvy sellers will not undercut and just dump their smaller stacks in with that of an already existing smaller stack to not have to even lose that 1c per. (Thank you Morphemass for this handy reminder, see his original addition below)

Advanced

12) Be #1 Orderer, but not always the #1 seller. Usually when you find an opportunity to profit you want to be the highest bidder for an order because you want that order fulfilled ASAP, because the sooner you get that order fulfilled, the sooner you can start to sell, and the less likely you are to be impacted by any sudden shifts. Fast transactions are less likely to get affected. However, when you are selling, look at the top 5 sellers. If they are stacks of 50+, then just beat the price. If lower, watch it for just a few minutes or just list yours at the same price. However, if you see that the quantities are currently reallly low at multiple tiers (EG: 5 for 66, 1 for 67, 3 for 68, 10 for 70) and so on, either list your stack just 1c lower than the first big stack, or wait a few mins to see how things are selling. Chances are you can make a bit more money by giving competitive stacks a chance to clear out.

13) Sometimes buy out your competitors, and sometimes don’t. Just remember that the lowest cost item WILL sell, you just have to worry if this lower-cost seller will either start an avalanche that will drastically undercut you and potentially ruin the market, or is just a nuisance to be ignored. Sometimes I like ordering an item and seeing a small quantity being sold drastically lower than I wanted to sell it for, because that low price is the first thing an “unloader” sees when deciding to sell or fulfill an order. If they don’t see a big diff, they will just fulfill my order, and soon that low seller will clear out and I can go back to selling at my planned price. Just remember that buying out someone who is only marginally outselling you means YOU LOSE money due to the 15% you will pay in taxes to relist for just a bit higher. These nuances are things you really just have to get the hang of as you go.

Link to the spreadsheet I use: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgNBPMaxIf_ndF9fRVNISDFEM3VmQlpWMjI3NVJ1QWc

Thanks a lot man, I’m thinking of starting to experiment with try to make some money using only the AH. Your advice should help a lot. Can you give out the names of any specific low ticket items that might be good to start on?

Schei.7301:

Thanks a lot man, I’m thinking of starting to experiment with try to make some money using only the AH. Your advice should help a lot. Can you give out the names of any specific low ticket items that might be good to start on?

What I would do is filter crafting components and upgrade components (specifically the gemstones) and tell it to show them price lowest to highest. Skip the first couple of pages (start in the 20cs, otherwise items are often too close to their vendor cost) Click on an item and compare the order cost vs the buy cost, and since I was using the spreadsheet, I’d punch the two numbers in and see if I liked the profit, then just order the stack of goods. I’d usually do this until I either had invested most of my liquid cash, or got into items that were too rich for my blood. I’d spend like an hour doing all of this, standing at the TP guy and grabbing up orders that came in, listing them, going back to ordering.

Mandar.9813:

Schei.7301:

Thanks a lot man, I’m thinking of starting to experiment with try to make some money using only the AH. Your advice should help a lot. Can you give out the names of any specific low ticket items that might be good to start on?

What I would do is filter crafting components and upgrade components (specifically the gemstones) and tell it to show them price lowest to highest. Skip the first couple of pages (start in the 20cs, otherwise items are often too close to their vendor cost) Click on an item and compare the order cost vs the buy cost, and since I was using the spreadsheet, I’d punch the two numbers in and see if I liked the profit, then just order the stack of goods. I’d usually do this until I either had invested most of my liquid cash, or got into items that were too rich for my blood. I’d spend like an hour doing all of this, standing at the TP guy and grabbing up orders that came in, listing them, going back to ordering.

Yeah just been messing around with it here in the past 10min, only making about 5% profit on some 20c items but perhaps I can keep experimenting and get a little more.

Schei.7301:

Yeah just been messing around with it here in the past 10min, only making about 5% profit on some 20c items but perhaps I can keep experimenting and get a little more.

If that’s all you can afford then that’ll have to do, but I’d I’d start looking upward sof 30c values, bigger profit margins, because again, at 20c you are closer to the vendor costs so just less room for profit.

Mandar.9813:

Schei.7301:

Yeah just been messing around with it here in the past 10min, only making about 5% profit on some 20c items but perhaps I can keep experimenting and get a little more.

If that’s all you can afford then that’ll have to do, but I’d I’d start looking upward sof 30c values, bigger profit margins, because again, at 20c you are closer to the vendor costs so just less room for profit.

Yeah I’ve just been experimenting with some 40-60c items, close to 10+% profit but to actually make some decent money off of them I would have to buy about 1500 units, and during the time it would take to fill a buy offer like that, the prices would seem to fluctuate quite a bit.

Schei.7301:

Yeah I’ve just been experimenting with some 40-60c items, close to 10+% profit but to actually make some decent money off of them I would have to buy about 1500 units, and during the time it would take to fill a buy offer like that, the prices would seem to fluctuate quite a bit.

Well TP trading takes patience and it’s for those people who enjoy the process, and btw, I do not buy more than 250 of any item. At any given time I might have 6-12 items on order, sometimes more, each order started as 250 stacks. I do not put all my eggs in one basket. Honestly though, anything that has over 20% profit margin for you is not the norm, and it tends to happen most with items valued between 1-3s but those markets are more volatile and more likely to screw you over.

So the idea is to have many stacks on order, but for different items. I only place a second stack order when I receive it fast and see it is already selling really well., but that is not common actually.

Most of the time, when you come upon a profitable area, you’ve got a window of opportunity, so stacks of 250 keeps it quick and easy.

Mandar.9813:

Schei.7301:

Yeah I’ve just been experimenting with some 40-60c items, close to 10+% profit but to actually make some decent money off of them I would have to buy about 1500 units, and during the time it would take to fill a buy offer like that, the prices would seem to fluctuate quite a bit.

Well TP trading takes patience and it’s for those people who enjoy the process, and btw, I do not buy more than 250 of any item. At any given time I might have 6-12 items on order, sometimes more, each order started as 250 stacks. I do not put all my eggs in one basket. Honestly though, anything that has over 20% profit margin for you is not the norm, and it tends to happen most with items valued between 1-3s but those markets are more volatile and more likely to screw you over.

So the idea is to have many stacks on order, but for different items. I only place a second stack order when I receive it fast and see it is already selling really well., but that is not common actually.

Most of the time, when you come upon a profitable area, you’ve got a window of opportunity, so stacks of 250 keeps it quick and easy.

I see what you are saying, I’ll probably need a little more starting money to do that. How much gold do you usually run around with, or how much gold would you have placed as orders and valued in listings at any time?

Mandar.9813:

I do not put all my eggs in one basket.

I think this is very important. Everything is a calculated risk and you wont come out ahead all the time, but with enough diversification you can guarantee an overall net gain.

Could you please elaborate on 3 and 4? Why is it bad to undercut someone more than 1c?

Not really anything of value here.

All I got out of it was your personal preferences in profit margin and that you dislike it when people put in sell orders for more than 1 copper below the lowest one already in.

10% profit within 24 hours is worse than 3% within 6 hours, especially if you’re investing your profit.

Similarly, conditions for undercutting sale or buy orders depends. If you’re buying something that is going down in price, you need to either completely withdraw or lower your prices. If you’re selling something that is going up in price, you would preferably bump up your sale prices so that you don’t get left over. And of course, if the market you’re handling just has a lot of movement, then making sure that you have stock is a higher priority than making sure you maximize profit.

It’s a bit sad to see people giving “trading” advice and then utterly ignoring the time aspect. Just because you trade on a 24h span does not mean everyone else does.

Using GW spidy or a trading website such as:
http://www.guildwarstrade.com/

Is also invaluable since you can research past pricing of an item to get a feel for it’s upper and lower limit instead of just it’s current value, this’ll allow you to squeeze a larger margin out of your trades.

A useful additional tip – when selling do not dump especially if you hold more than a stack of a given item. It avoids placing a ceiling on the current trading price and is both safer (reduced risk of lost listing fees if the market dives) and quicker (in terms of unloading 1 or more stack of an item) to sell in quantities < 100.

If I see a stack of 250+ at a given price I will ALWAYS undercut by 1c, as will many others. However if I see 1-200 of an item at a given price (or even a range) I look at what the highest price and quantity that I could sell at if someone were to buy a stack of 250 and place both quantity and price accordingly.

This usually takes 5 minutes more in terms of selling but if your moving higher priced stacks the difference in profit can be quite large (1G+)

When I was started I did it in low-mid level weapons and armor. A lot of items have a 200+% profit margin in that category from just submitting the highest buy order and undercutting the lowest sell by 1c. Many of the items with good stat combinations like carrion go reasonably quickly, too.

People are much more likely to buy an item instantly while leveling up than at level 80. A level 23 dagger doesn’t do you any good if you’ve leveled up to 28 by the time someone sells it to you, but at level 80 people tend to be less picky about when they get an item off the TP. Generally it means that they only people you’re competing with are other traders in that section of the market, and most serious power traders aren’t in that part of the market because nobody pulling in 50g a day wants to fiddle around with dozens of armor listings that only bring in a 6s profit each.

Kid Taylor.5479:

Could you please elaborate on 3 and 4? Why is it bad to undercut someone more than 1c?

Good Question. because if you are undercutting by more than 1c you are missing out on profit. You only have to be the lowest seller by 1c to get something sold (unless, of course, someone undercuts you but that can happen whether you do it by 1c or 20c).

When you’re talking about commodities in demand, like crafting components, they are always in high demand, which means people are always buying them. When someone needs them, they pull up the TP and are given 2 options…to order them, or like many impatient crafters or weekend warriors, will just buy what is listed as the lowest seller. In other words, the lowest price is what sells…so why would you go out of your way to lose money by undercutting by more than 1c? All it takes is 1c lower for your stack to be at the top of the list.

Olba.5376:

Not really anything of value here.

All I got out of it was your personal preferences in profit margin and that you dislike it when people put in sell orders for more than 1 copper below the lowest one already in.

10% profit within 24 hours is worse than 3% within 6 hours, especially if you’re investing your profit.

Similarly, conditions for undercutting sale or buy orders depends. If you’re buying something that is going down in price, you need to either completely withdraw or lower your prices. If you’re selling something that is going up in price, you would preferably bump up your sale prices so that you don’t get left over. And of course, if the market you’re handling just has a lot of movement, then making sure that you have stock is a higher priority than making sure you maximize profit.

It’s a bit sad to see people giving “trading” advice and then utterly ignoring the time aspect. Just because you trade on a 24h span does not mean everyone else does.

First of all, I didn’t say that I trade over 24h hrs. How long it takes to sell something just depends on how fast goods are moving. The only reason why I don’t see a profit for maybe 20 hrs is because I logged off, went to bed, woke up, went to work, and then came home and logged in, collected all my profit, and did it again.

Secondly, the time span doesn’t necessarily matter, it really just depends on how much capital you are investing and how many stacks you are moving. Time span is irrelevant as long as you get a decent return on your investment and you constantly have enough capital to keep trading.

As for making pulling a habitual thing, I like to avoid it and it’s not usually necessary unless you happened to stumble on something at peak price just as it drops. Withdrawing something to repost it just cuts your profit by another 5%, as you don’t get back that 5% listing fee.

However, I still can’t figure why you are still so hung up on the time aspect, because you say that as if the seller has some kind of time control over the market. Perhaps undercutting drastically might cause sellers to close on it faster, but the people who are doing that are probably doing it with the intention to profit off of what you missed out on.

And for the record, when I am sitting there doing my thing, I will have orders coming in while I am still placing others, so I would start to see profit right away, within minutes.

Finally, I understand that there nuances about pricing, things that you started to discuss here, but my idea was more of a beginners guide. The things you are touching on are valid, but to really understand them a player should just get the hang of it and experience and learn how their markets fluctuate.

P.S. I think it’s really sad that you tried to negate the efforts I made to be helpful, by saying that said efforts are “really sad” and I’d have to fully disagree that there is nothing of value here, but that’s your opinion. Construction criticism is fine, but remarks like that are just passive aggressive.

morphemass.2850:

A useful additional tip – when selling do not dump especially if you hold more than a stack of a given item. It avoids placing a ceiling on the current trading price and is both safer (reduced risk of lost listing fees if the market dives) and quicker (in terms of unloading 1 or more stack of an item) to sell in quantities < 100.

If I see a stack of 250+ at a given price I will ALWAYS undercut by 1c, as will many others. However if I see 1-200 of an item at a given price (or even a range) I look at what the highest price and quantity that I could sell at if someone were to buy a stack of 250 and place both quantity and price accordingly.

This usually takes 5 minutes more in terms of selling but if your moving higher priced stacks the difference in profit can be quite large (1G+)

I like this addition. Because I would be sitting there, picking up orders while I am still placing other orders, I would just start to list stuff as it comes in. If you are undercutting, and just dropping 25 or something, your stack is not as threatening to someone else who is thinking about undercutting you, they are more likely to just add theirs in with yours. And yes, the market can suddenly jump up, allowing you to make a bit more. I think I will have to amend one of the rules to include this, thanks for the addition!

Thank you! This is awsome. This is the kind of guide I have been looking for, but expected to never find. Spreadsheet is great too, think I will have to recreate it though – the saving feature isn’t working. Thought maybe that spreadsheet would be filled with items ;-D Oh well, nice job.

Been looking at crafting materials. Can’t seem to find anything with a profit margin like you said. Or if I do nothing that moves fast enough =(

In the beginning i was skeptical on whether we need more people messing around with the TP.

Then i realized that the more competition in playing the TP, the better prices everyone gets as a result.

Good guide, i hope more people start doing this.

Great thread. Hopefully some people will find it useful (and quit complaining :-).

I’ve wanted to make a thread similar to this many times. One that actually helps the community at large. One problem I always found was that anything I would write has already been written, just across multiple threads. A question I always asked myself was: “How do you help people that don’t really want help?”

I don’t know how many threads I’ve read saying “this / that is broken”, “players are manipulating the market”, or “tell me how to make money”. Well….you just explained, in detail, how to make money using the Trading Post. Now, only time will tell if people will use the information. My guess is your post won’t stop the whiners because they’re just too lazy and have such a sense of entitlement that reading a post that makes them put any effort into something isn’t worth doing.

I spent WEEKS in the beginning of the game developing a spreadsheet that would help me to make money on the Trading Post. Reading your thread, I noticed several of the same methods I used. It’s not difficult to make money, but it does take some effort.

Again…..nice work!!!! The community needs more players like you.

This stuff looks familiar…

Logun.5360:

This stuff looks familiar…

Aren’t you the guy who claims to make like 20g on a bad day off the tp?

Schei.7301:

Logun.5360:

This stuff looks familiar…

Aren’t you the guy who claims to make like 20g on a bad day off the tp?

No, I never claimed to make 20g per day

Grok Krog.9581:

Been looking at crafting materials. Can’t seem to find anything with a profit margin like you said. Or if I do nothing that moves fast enough =(

Expecting to see a huge profit margin is not realistic. The key is to be moving A LOT of different items, all the time. If you see like 15% profit margin (after a 15% loss) that’s pretty decent. Once you get into items that are 1-3s per, you can get closer to a 30 or even 50%, but those are riskier because they are much more vulnerable to big undercuts. I have seen beautiful profit just melt away, on something like Cayenne Pepper, because some troll went in there and started selling stuff for 50c less…and often that starts an avalanche of more sellers following suit.

Anyways, I am really glad to see mostly positive response to my post. I was bored one night when the game wouldn’t let me in, and a reply to someone’s post that I accidentally deleted prompted an “oh, what the hell” moment and it turned into this big solo post.

BTW I have intentionally not recommended any specific items to people because I want you to figure that out, and some traders might not like me giving away all their secrets. Once you start to find what sells, you’ll find yourself going after the same items, but on rotation as the market shifts and responds to people buying and selling. All profit margins diminish and expand, sometimes within a few hours, sometimes over a couple days.

Logun.5360:

Schei.7301:

Logun.5360:

This stuff looks familiar…

Aren’t you the guy who claims to make like 20g on a bad day off the tp?

No, I never claimed to make 20g per day

But you did say that you often flip items with hundreds of gold right?

Schei.7301:

Logun.5360:

Schei.7301:

Logun.5360:

This stuff looks familiar…

Aren’t you the guy who claims to make like 20g on a bad day off the tp?

No, I never claimed to make 20g per day

But you did say that you often flip items with hundreds of gold right?

I said per hour

Logun.5360:

Schei.7301:

Logun.5360:

Schei.7301:

Logun.5360:

This stuff looks familiar…

Aren’t you the guy who claims to make like 20g on a bad day off the tp?

No, I never claimed to make 20g per day

But you did say that you often flip items with hundreds of gold right?

I said per hour

Like a Boss!

A lot of your ideas are what I’ve learned myself. It’s a very good guide.

I took it to the next level though.

I’ve followed the tutorial on gw2spidy to get the JSON object according to their API in google spreadsheets. The result is something that looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/1MMPD.png

What makes it different than the spreadsheets you guys are making? For me, every field is filled in with real-time data from gw2spidy, so I can check exact profit margins for all crafting materials, giving me room to spread my investments, which means I’m still hundreds of gold from being able to work all the markets I want to at once. Exponential growth, here we go!

StopSign.7124:

A lot of your ideas are what I’ve learned myself. It’s a very good guide.

I took it to the next level though.

I’ve followed the tutorial on gw2spidy to get the JSON object according to their API in google spreadsheets. The result is something that looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/1MMPD.png

What makes it different than the spreadsheets you guys are making? For me, every field is filled in with real-time data from gw2spidy, so I can check exact profit margins for all crafting materials, giving me room to spread my investments, which means I’m still hundreds of gold from being able to work all the markets I want to at once. Exponential growth, here we go!

Huh, I will have to look into that one of these days, thanks for the tip on the spreadsheet!

StopSign.7124:

A lot of your ideas are what I’ve learned myself. It’s a very good guide.

I took it to the next level though.

I’ve followed the tutorial on gw2spidy to get the JSON object according to their API in google spreadsheets. The result is something that looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/1MMPD.png

What makes it different than the spreadsheets you guys are making? For me, every field is filled in with real-time data from gw2spidy, so I can check exact profit margins for all crafting materials, giving me room to spread my investments, which means I’m still hundreds of gold from being able to work all the markets I want to at once. Exponential growth, here we go!

THIS…..is exactly what I’ve done as well. Starting with a small, and borrowed investment, of 5g, I have since paid that investment back and generated more than 100g for myself trading every few days. My spreadsheet tells me EXACTLY which things I should invest in and how much profit I stand to make. The are about 10 things that will give me 50% profit or more (accounting for the purchase price and the 15% listing/selling fees) and I can buy these things by the 1000’s.

Making money on the trading post IS possible….but it takes work. The smart players in the Trading Post won’t give you the items they’re trading in, but they will try to give you some advice on how to make money.

The other thing I’ve noticed about people telling others what to invest in on the forums is that item QUICKLY become un-profitable.

My advice: If you really do have a way to make money, keep it to yourself or you risk that way of making money disappearing in a heartbeat.

It’s like the old saying….“Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. TEACH a man to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime.”

As the market moves, so do I. Why? Because my spreadsheet tells me to. Weeks of time invested in creating a quality tool will allow me to make money throughout my time in GW2 without ever farming for anything.

You forgot to say….when a special event occurs….EX. Wintersday, sell whatever you are getting for high prices right away knowing that the bottom will drop out later, at the tail end of the event.

it would be funny if you all formed a giant cartel, though I doubt you would be able to agree on prices.

Field Marshal.7946:

You forgot to say….when a special event occurs….EX. Wintersday, sell whatever you are getting for high prices right away knowing that the bottom will drop out later, at the tail end of the event.

Soooo true, but to the last time tried to do this, I really kitten off a guildmate. Apparently she was trying to ask where to see what these WOOL things could be traded because she was more interested in getting the special traded items, and all I did was emphatically reply “just sell them at the TP and buy the stacks later”. Via guild chat I was told “thanks for all the help. not”. So, while I may have been tooo pushy in guild chat, I laughed then, and even more now, knowing that the value of said goods went down from 4-6s per to 30-40c per within 24 hours. I made a lot of gold, and they did not :P.

I’m wanting to save up for my T3 set on my Guardian, and I’m looking at ways to do that. Right now I have about 30g. My question is, would it be faster to try to follow this guide and “play the market” so to speak, or to run dungeons etc hoping for good drops? I used to gather mats from nodes, but bots really turned me off of that. Thanks!

I was trying this out today and it was so slow. The money I was making would easily be more if I was running dungeons. What’s recommended for the fastest money making? I think the problem is that the initial investment is too low. What kind of stuff should I flip when I have around 10g?

Walrus.6390:

I was trying this out today and it was so slow. The money I was making would easily be more if I was running dungeons. What’s recommended for the fastest money making? I think the problem is that the initial investment is too low. What kind of stuff should I flip when I have around 10g?

IMO, the important thing to note is not that I am saying this is the best way to make gold. This is beginners guide for people who are interested in making gold using the TP. Farming for gold via dungeons and other methods is quite viable, and in the right circumstances, you can’t beat plain ol’ farming.

However, there are a lot of players out there who are intrigued by the prospect of using the market to make gold, who may not be in the best position with level or otherwise to get gold, or are just simply traders at heart.

TP trading is ONE of the ways to earn gold, and this beginners guide is just here to give some tips to those who are currently interested in this pathway of gold earning.

On my first toon at sub-50 (level) where, for me at the time, gameplay money at best was getting 1-2 silver for completing hearts, turning silver into gold via these types of methods was amazing. Being sub-50, with no farming methods in place, TP trading made me feel “from rags to riches” because I was able to support the “wants”. Where you take it once you get to level 80 and can farm in the best areas is up to you.

TP trading is not THE way to may gold, it is just ONE of the ways, if you are interested in this aspect of making gold. If you find the process too tedious, then you are probably more of a farmer.

To be fair, I haven’t done TP trading for gold in awhile. I made this guide well after I had stopped trading, mostly because I got caught up in guild events, WvW, helping farm, etc. If I had enough play experience I’d make a guide on farming, too, but I am still a noob when it comes to the best things and places to farm.

Walrus.6390:

I was trying this out today and it was so slow. The money I was making would easily be more if I was running dungeons. What’s recommended for the fastest money making? I think the problem is that the initial investment is too low. What kind of stuff should I flip when I have around 10g?

The problem that I find with your question is “fastest money making”.

Why does everyone seem to only care about getting from 0g to 100g….or 1000g in a matter of days? It takes patience, time….AND effort to get there. If you want to farm your way there because that’s what’s most comfortable to you….then farm away. I farmed my BUTT off in GW1. That’s how I spent a majority of my time….and all I ever did was eek by. I decided to take a different approach to making money in GW2.

I started with 5g that I borrowed from a guildmate to get where I am today. I’ve spent about a month, maybe 6 weeks, developing a tool that I can use over and over and over again to make money. Every day that I want to trade and make money in GW2, I use this tool. It shows me EXACTLY what I should buy to make a 50%. That 50% profit includes my initial investment, the listing fees and the sales fee. So…for every 1g I put in, I get 1.5g out. There are LOTS of other things that I’m NOT investing in that could yield me 25%-40% profit margins, but right now, I don’t care about those. I can’t buy enough of the things that make me 50% profit margins fast enough. I put EVERY copper I have into buying the 50% profit margin stuff and every order I place is filled by the next day.

Like I said, it’s taken me about 6 weeks, with a 5g investment, to get in the neighborhood of 130g. You know what? I’m ECSTATIC about that because the work I put into creating the tool will NEVER have to be done again. I can continue to use this tool for the life of the game…..and STILL be able to make money. I don’t want to farm again. I put the work in up front so I wouldn’t have to work the entire time I play GW2.

I’ll give you my specific example:

Investment: 5g

Day 1: Buy 5g worth of stuff
Day 2: Pick up stuff and sell
Day 3: Pick up 6.5g / Buy 6.5g worth of stuff
Day 4: Pick up stuff and sell
Day 5: Pick up 69.75g / Buy 9.75g worth of stuff
Day 6: Pick up stuff and sell
Day 7: Pick up 14.63g / Buy 14.63g worth of stuff
Day 8: Pick up stuff and sell
Day 9: Pick up 22g / Buy 22g worth of stuff
Day 10: Pick up stuff and sell
Day 11: Pick up 33g / Buy 33g worth of stuff
Day 12: Pick up stuff and sell
Day 13: Pick up 49g / Buy 49g worth of stuff
Day 14: Pick up stuff and sell
Day 15: Pick up 74g / Buy 74g worth of stuff
etc.
etc.
etc.

The secret is compounding your investment. Find something you can GUARANTEE that you can make a good profit on. THIS is guarantee is where the tool you create comes in. The reason that I really only work in the 50% profit margin range is that I’ve found that, while the market does swing, it doesn’t swing far enough in the matter of a couple of days for me to lose my shirt. This WORST that will happen is I break even and all that’s happened at that point is that I’ve lost a little bit of time trading.

My advice: Put in the work on the front end and reap the rewards for YEARS….otherwise you’ll be farming forever.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

Find something you can GUARANTEE that you can make a good profit on.

Could you give me a hint of where I can start? I’ve got an idea of what kind of tool it is and everything, but I just can’t think of what item, of thousands, would have enought profit margin and liquidity. I’m not exactly asking for your item, just how can I find a similar one?

Walrus.6390:

Charismatic Harm.9683:

Find something you can GUARANTEE that you can make a good profit on.

Could you give me a hint of where I can start? I’ve got an idea of what kind of tool it is and everything, but I just can’t think of what item, of thousands, would have enought profit margin and liquidity. I’m not exactly asking for your item, just how can I find a similar one?

Figure it out. I made my spreadsheets and put in buy orders for 100 of every item that showed more than 5c profit. I replaced any buy orders that got filled with new ones and replaced the ones that didn’t move with 50, 25 to see if they could get filled. In this way, I learned a few items that were really high traffic and would tend to have profit, like intricate totem or grapes or raspberries.

Schei.7301:

Logun.5360:

Schei.7301:

Logun.5360:

This stuff looks familiar…

Aren’t you the guy who claims to make like 20g on a bad day off the tp?

No, I never claimed to make 20g per day

But you did say that you often flip items with hundreds of gold right?

Is 20g a day that much? I have about 200g capital right now and I made 40g today just trading. I think, had I the capital, I could make 100g+ a day. I think I’ll be there in a week.

Kraggy.4169:

These sort of ‘guides’ depress me, I despise people who ‘flip’ prices as their way of making money instead of playing the game. Prices spiral and new players are unable to afford anything, one sees it in all MMOs of course, sadly no MMO makes items bought of the ‘AH’ un-relistable.

So it’s much better to grind, “playing” the game?

Tarang.7562:

Kraggy.4169:

These sort of ‘guides’ depress me, I despise people who ‘flip’ prices as their way of making money instead of playing the game. Prices spiral and new players are unable to afford anything, one sees it in all MMOs of course, sadly no MMO makes items bought of the ‘AH’ un-relistable.

So it’s much better to grind, “playing” the game?

I do wonder how the market would look like if everyone earned the same steady amount of gold.

I’ll pray to every god that Anet comes up with a patch to not be able to resell items bought from TP.
That will be the day you all quit.

Horheristo.3607:

Tarang.7562:

Kraggy.4169:

These sort of ‘guides’ depress me, I despise people who ‘flip’ prices as their way of making money instead of playing the game. Prices spiral and new players are unable to afford anything, one sees it in all MMOs of course, sadly no MMO makes items bought of the ‘AH’ un-relistable.

So it’s much better to grind, “playing” the game?

I do wonder how the market would look like if everyone earned the same steady amount of gold.

I’ll pray to every god that Anet comes up with a patch to not be able to resell items bought from TP.
That will be the day you all quit.

So, the problem with people making money is that they are not all making the same amount of money?

Tarang.7562:

Horheristo.3607:

Tarang.7562:

Kraggy.4169:

These sort of ‘guides’ depress me, I despise people who ‘flip’ prices as their way of making money instead of playing the game. Prices spiral and new players are unable to afford anything, one sees it in all MMOs of course, sadly no MMO makes items bought of the ‘AH’ un-relistable.

So it’s much better to grind, “playing” the game?

I do wonder how the market would look like if everyone earned the same steady amount of gold.

I’ll pray to every god that Anet comes up with a patch to not be able to resell items bought from TP.
That will be the day you all quit.

So, the problem with people making money is that they are not all making the same amount of money?

Don’t put words into my mouth or pretend you try to understand what I’m saying.

Just stop, go back to spidy and I’ll keep my ranting, and might get heard by one of the 6 gods.

I dont see anything wrong with making money in a way other than grinding. Arenanet even tried to get rid of grinding. Why do you think they would hire an economist if they didn’t want people to “play the market”?

Call Me A Legend.4109:

I dont see anything wrong with making money in a way other than grinding. Arenanet even tried to get rid of grinding. Why do you think they would hire an economist if they didn’t want people to “play the market”?

Because fluctuating precursors.
Because fluctuating T6 mats when we’re told massive bots were banned.
Because fluctuation.

I’ve seen resellers in my life in many games, but this market is DOMINATED by traders.
It is only profitable to the traders themselves while penalizing everyone else.

Only players who will resort to same method will be able to create a steady ~ fast game progression.
A steady affordable market will be one in which none can resell a purchased item, therefore no artificial supply and demand are created, and if anything – more supply rather than demand.

So I can only live in false hope that the idea will be implemented.

Thank you for the tip mate! I can’t believe that I only found this now. I am certain that this will prove to be useful.