Guild Wars 2

There’s a lot of people who don’t know how to use the Black Lion Trading Post. I’d like to take this time to enlighten everyone on how to use this market tool with some tips.

Tip #1 – When selling items, always undercut the highest priced item by 1 copper. By doing this, you can maximize profits. As long as your item is the lowest priced listing, it will always sell first.

Tip #2 – When placing Buy Orders, always “overcut” or outbid the highest offer by 1 copper. By doing this, you’re able to get your Buy Orders filled for the best possible prices.

Tip #3 – Always be near a Black Lion Trading Co. representative. You never know when you might need to pick up stuff.

Tip #4 – If your Buy Order isn’t listed first anymore, cancel your order, and repeat #2. Should it turn into a bidding war, you should keep refreshing to see when someone outbids you. Then keep increasing the Buy Order price by 1 copper until it reaches a price you feel isn’t worth it anymore.

Bonus tip – If you have extra Gold, it’s a good idea to convert them into Gems. Keep an eye on the exchange rates, as holiday events and sales promotions tend to make converting expensive. By watching the market trends, get in when the exchange is the lowest.

Or you could wait for those orders to be filled and have yours next in line. I tried this with ancient wood, I started buying at 1.00s, someone overcut to 1.06, I went up to 1.07, two days later the highest buy order was 93c.

Those tips are overly simplistic and can lead to you being tricked. For example, people can get 1 item and sell it at a very low price so your tip #1 would lead you to a loss or very low profit.

There is also no point in overbidding (tip #2) if the item is not selling well. Furthermore, someone can also trick you by buying just 1 of the item at a very high price to trick the market into paying more for it. Also, what is the break-even price? There is no point overbidding for something, out of spite, if you would end up making a loss in the end.

There are a lot more variables to understand before making a reasonable decision. Only fools rush in to undercut/overbid without looking closely at the situations.

Well the keys here are that if you are the lowest priced seller, your item will sell first. If you have the highest Buy Order price, your order will be filled first. And all it takes is a 1 copper difference. Proper value of an item is in the eye of the beholder.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Well the keys here are that if you are the lowest priced seller, your item will sell first. If you have the highest Buy Order price, your order will be filled first. And all it takes is a 1 copper difference. Proper value of an item is in the eye of the beholder.

The most important point is to make a profit. If you can’t even do that because you didn’t calculate your break-even price and blindly overbid/undercut based on these tips, then you might as well stop playing the TP as you are losing gold doing it in the first place.

Some of the tips I posted were how to maximize gains, since 1 copper is the minimum required difference to be first in line. Tips on market flipping is a whole different ballgame.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Some of the tips I posted were how to maximize gains, since 1 copper is the minimum required difference to be first in line. Tips on market flipping is a whole different ballgame.

If being the “first in line” is all you care for, then the best way to be the “first in line” is to simply buy and sell instantly. Otherwise you leave yourself open to being undercut/overbid in this market then you wont be the “first in line” any longer. Again, the tips are overly simplistic for buy/sell orders in this market where undercutting/overbidding is almost a certainty.

There are different levels of money making available to people by using the TP. I think Penguin has offered tips useful for one of those levels, but not necessarily applicable to everyone at all times. Here’s how I would put it:

1. Use the trading post. Amazingly, not everyone sells valuable items on the TP or uses the TP to collect the massive amounts of materials needed for crafting.
2. Use waypoints. Early on, we get used to walking, but eventually it makes more economic sense to use WPs: if you get to Frostgorge in 30s instead of 300, you can kill that many more foes or harvest one more ori node.
3. Stop selling to the highest WTB, stop buying from the lowest WTS. Now that you are using the TP, you can save/earn by waiting rather than immediately fulfilling an offer.
4. Follow the OP’s advice: under- and over-cut those prices by 1c. For the reasons Penguin offered.
5. Research the market. For high-volume or high-ticket items, spend a few minutes looking at supply/demand, price trends, and/or this forum. You can find great deals or discover that the highest WTB is not the typical offer price or the lowest WTS is not nearly the amount most people are getting.

And, of course, the people making big gold on the TP take things farther: creating spreadsheets to help them identify opportunities, flipping, buying bags, buying cheap items to use in the mystic forge, and so on.

Many of these things are easy for some people, hard for others, and boring for a lot of people. In the end, it’s not just about economic efficiency — making the most money in the shortest time — it’s also about maximizing the amount of fun you have in the time available. If you can afford the stuff you need and save for some of the things you want, then you don’t need to do more than use the TP in the most convenient way. But if you want to invest in luxury items (e.g. minis) or build a legendary, then it might be more fun for you to learn how to farm the TP instead of just farming mats and foes.

The problem with tip number 4 (cancelling your sale and reposting it) is that each time you do this, you end up paying the posting fee again. If you’ve only been undercut by a few coppers on a popular item you may well be better off just leaving it there. You’d have to take a look at the market for that item to decide. Just blindly reposting and paying a fee every time you get undercut is going to get expensive.

lunawisp.2378:

The problem with tip number 4 (cancelling your sale and reposting it) is that each time you do this, you end up paying the posting fee again. If you’ve only been undercut by a few coppers on a popular item you may well be better off just leaving it there. You’d have to take a look at the market for that item to decide. Just blindly reposting and paying a fee every time you get undercut is going to get expensive.

He was talking about buy orders in tip 4, not sell orders. But the point about people undercutting your sell orders means that playing the TP is NOT A GUARANTEED PROFIT. You can just as well make a loss by not being able to sell your items even after 2 weeks or more.

There is an element of luck involved as long as you put your items out in the sell queue. This is why flipping and playing the TP techniques and so on are over hyped when people think that they are guaranteed to make a profit if they make the right decisions.

DarkSpirit.7046:

He was talking about buy orders in tip 4, not sell orders. But the point about people undercutting your sell orders means that playing the TP is NOT A GUARANTEED PROFIT. You can just as well make a loss by not being able to sell your items even after 2 weeks or more.

Ah yes, reading comprehension error on my part! My excuse is…er…

Anyway. Any sort of trading is risky. The only people guaranteed to win are the ones running the trading platforms. Nice to be able to take a cut from both sides of the trade…

a) placing a buy order represents no risk whatsoever – at the most a temporary binding of some of your funds (please correct me, I’ve never noticed a fee when placing a buy order). As such, if you are not in a hurry there is no need to “overcut”, rather check the volume and place the offer at a point that you are comfortable with.

b) placing a sell order is different, it does cost 5% to list alone. Again, rather look at the volume and the amount of people listing the item – depending on my quantity I list it at the next “block” (next large volume) or somewhere in between.

The only tip I can give is – if you are selling don’t rely on the information in the selling window. Search the item on the TP directly and glance over.

P.S. This is not related to trading but to the casual here and there getting rid of no longer needed materials. Of course I often do the above as well if I like to have the transaction done without accepting existing sell offers or it’s not worth for 16 copper to fuss about it but it’s still 12 copper more then from vendoring it.