Guild Wars 2

When you post an item for a single copper above what the vendors will buy it for, you lose a substantial amount of money on a successful sale.

True story.

There seems to be some confusion on how the Trading Post actually works as I do not believe each and every individual in this category is aware that they are a charity giver. The game interface doesn’t make it completely clear what is going on so allow me to shed some light on the matter.

As per the wiki, there are costs to selling:

The listing fee for selling on the Trading Post is 5% of the sales price. This listing fee is not returned even if the listing is cancelled. Upon successful trade an additional 10% fee is deducted from the price, i.e. the total cost of a successful sale is 15%.

The minimum listing fee is 1 copper, and at least the listing fees seem to be mathematically rounded (Meaning: 29 copper sales price = 1,45 Copper fee -> rounded down to 1 Copper, 30 copper sales price = 1.5 copper sales fee, rounded up to 2 copper)

For example, if you find a weapon that sells for 99c at the vendor and you put it on the TP for 1 Silver, you instantly lose 5 silver just for posting that listing. In the event that it actually sells, they buyer pays 1s for that weapon and you receive 90c. The net result is that your 1s weapon earned you 85c when you could have simply sold to a vendor for 99c.

Let’s recap. You find an item that’s worth 50c and you want to sell it. Here are a couple of options:

Sell to Vedor for 50c
*You receive 50c
*Instant deposit

Post to TP for 51c
*Wait, possibly hours or days
*May not sell at all – lose 3c for nothing (5% listing fee = 2.55c, then round up)
*Once sold, you have to run to a TP NPC to collect earnings
*You net 43c (-3c Listing Fee -(10% sale price = 5.1c rounded down)) = -8c

Believe it or not, many MANY of you are opting for the latter option, taking 43c with more effort over 50c. You lose substantially more coin with higher value items.

If the math gives you a headache*, just sell to the vendor. You’ll make substantially more money this way.

*[Edit: Fixed math from 38c to 43c because I didn’t proofread after making adjustments to examples the first time. >_<]

Thank you for this post….couldn’t have said it better

From now on when I sell stuff I’m going off the original price and possibly adding 1/3 to that price to sell at the outpost, not just based on what the highest purchased price is or the lowest selling unit.

And yet, I can sell that item from anywhere, getting it out of my inventory, for a “15%” convenience fee. I don’t think I have a problem with that.

Thanks for this, I started to catch on to some sort of pattern, but you just confirmed it for me

thank you, i was wondering why i kept losing money on every trade ive made…

That’s just stupid. I don’t have a problem with the listing fee, but this hidden fee is totally bogus. I’ll think really hard about selling anything on the TP from now on.

@Vexus – How often do you end up with bags filled with items that can only be vendored? A large portion of drops can either be sent directly to your bank collection, or salvaged into materials that can be sent. I would think it would take an hour or 2 of constant leveling to fill your bags entirely with vendor items, and in that time you will likely find multiple merchants. Unless you are leveling in Outer Mongolia, a merchant is likely within a minute or 2 run. So I don’t see why anyone would lose money just for some sort of perceived convenience.

I wasn’t aware of this math, but I already thought it was silly to post something on the TP so close to vendor price and had stopped doing so. Glad you posted this though.

Indeed. I sell most of my items to the vendor as it’s much more convenient and I’m not losing out. I only sell rare/exotic items and materials on the trade post.

Vexus.5423:

And yet, I can sell that item from anywhere, getting it out of my inventory, for a “15%” convenience fee. I don’t think I have a problem with that.

If inventory space is a major concern during your travels, it’s possible that a good portion of your loot is getting filled up by basic crafting materials, or “collectables.”

Click on the gear in your Inventory window and hit “Deposit all collcetables.” More often than not this will clear a considerable amount of space for more valuable loot.

Deposited collectibles go to a special section at your bank.

TP working as intended.

Wondering why they even set a floor selling price to NPC vend. People should sell at a price they want, if other people benefit then so be it.

If people want to just grab a few quick copper as compared to what selling the items would net them, let them. Its not like they are being robbed blind as all the info is in front of them.

Here is the thing people are not getting….

You found a cool drop, butkittenyou can’t use it, or any of your other toons. So you decide to sell it. You put it in the TP, someone can use this cool item, and they will pay for it too. You take a 15% hit when the transaction is said and done. So what. That is how it works.

If I go to sell my house and get a realitor(TP) to sell it for me, you know they are going to take a heafty . Probally more that 15. You are using a service. The TP should be paid. Anything you craft and or find and sell is pure profit. Wither you vender it or sell it on the TP, it’s still pure profit. The only thing it costs is time. (unless you bought the mats from the TP, in which case you screwed yourself out of a bigger profit).

People keep getting butt hurt about prices being low… Well duhh… they should be low. The game is only 2 weeks old. No one has amassed a good amount of wealth. It is gonna take alot of time (months) for the economy to level it’s self out.

Another thing, stop flooding the market with vender trash. You are not going to get anything for it at the TP. Either vender it or salvage it for the materials. Selling low level common stuff, at the TP, is a bit stupid. Especially when players are getting pretty good drops from the numerous bosses, area events and whatnot. You need to sell the masterwork and higher at the TP, everything else vender or salvage.

Kailthir.6384:

Here is the thing people are not getting….

You found a cool drop, butkittenyou can’t use it, or any of your other toons. So you decide to sell it. You put it in the TP, someone can use this cool item, and they will pay for it too. You take a 15% hit when the transaction is said and done. So what. That is how it works.

If I go to sell my house and get a realitor(TP) to sell it for me, you know they are going to take a heafty . Probally more that 15. You are using a service. The TP should be paid. Anything you craft and or find and sell is pure profit. Wither you vender it or sell it on the TP, it’s still pure profit. The only thing it costs is time. (unless you bought the mats from the TP, in which case you screwed yourself out of a bigger profit).

People keep getting butt hurt about prices being low… Well duhh… they should be low. The game is only 2 weeks old. No one has amassed a good amount of wealth. It is gonna take alot of time (months) for the economy to level it’s self out.

Did you even read the OP’s post before replying?

He’s not complaining about the TP fee, nor is he ‘butthurt about prices being low’. He simply informs players that selling at close-to-vendor price actually loses them money, and shows the math proving that.

well the root of this issue is that all tradeposts are linked between -every- server so instead of individual tp’s we got 1 major tp.

that causes huge overflow of items, and then we got this nifty "auto match price " button,, so you wont even need to see effort to selling items.

my self ive moved on, to either vendor items, or directly sell to buyers if thre is reasonable buy order. such as iron, if it sells for mere 1c above vendor price, i just vendor it for the same reason op brought out, its more profit!

especially armors are nearly always auto vendor or salvage, cause they tends to sell for so litle, cause so many people has them as drops, yet so few buying them :I but atleast its easier to find items you need, even the most rarest ones,like for now it seems dyes are the -money hauls- outside of exotic armors

Vexus.5423:

And yet, I can sell that item from anywhere, getting it out of my inventory, for a “15%” convenience fee. I don’t think I have a problem with that.

Considering that you can get 8 slot bags for practically free, you can carry salvage kits and that vendors are practically everywhere, I’d say that it’s a pretty minor convenience. I’ve ran out of bag space only once and that was a bugged champion mob that spawned a chest for every participant.

I put it up blindly, if somebody can use it, good for them. I will continue to do so.

Also its better then wasting the time hunting down a vendor when you in the middle of nowhere

Then there’s certain dynamic events with the endless hordes of mobs on a long timer and you’re getting your bags full of stuff. Even if a vendor is close by you have to take time to run back to it, talk to it, then run back to the action. Use the TP, take a bit of a loss on some items – but in the end you’ve actually made a profit: both in gold and EXP.

Vexus.5423:

And yet, I can sell that item from anywhere, getting it out of my inventory, for a “15%” convenience fee. I don’t think I have a problem with that.

Or you could salvage and send to vault from anywhere and sell the mats for a real profit later. I believe that’s a “have your cake and eat it too” scenario.

Only time I have used the TP was to sell 2 extra 8-slot bags I had crafted.
Someone had posted a buying price twice what I could sell them for at a vendor, so I did the trade.

Unless I completely missed something, wouldn’t the net gain be 43c?
With listing price -3c, and 10% fee at -5c, that would come to -8c.

Not like it really matters because the money is still lost, but is this not the real result?
I was just really confused how you got 13…

Blighton.6425:

I put it up blindly, if somebody can use it, good for them. I will continue to do so.

Also its better then wasting the time hunting down a vendor when you in the middle of nowhere

This is really stupid because you’re breaking the market. If people like you keep doing this no one can ever make a profit because no one can ever put the same item up on the TP for a higher price. Is it really that difficult to up the price of what your selling a little?

Hell, you don’t even have to do math. If you list something that vendors for 50c and the listing fee says it’s 3c then just ballpark that the 10% fee is 10c. It’s obviously high and that’s fine. so now you’re at 13c in fees (it would actually be 8c) so round that up to 15c. List the item for 65c. Someone will still buy it but now you’ll actually make a profit on it and people that want to list the same item can match your price and also make a profit.

As it stands now, I have to either match your price and lose money or list it at a higher price than yours and never sell it. Listing items at 1c above vendor is lazy, wasteful, and it breaks the economy.

Just for the record… finding something, then selling it for whatever low price and/or trading fee still means I am making money – it’s not actually losing money…

I would make less then I could have – but that’s not the same thing..

The longer we keep breaking the market, the longer it will take before things will be ridiciously expensive again right?

souldonkey.9534:

Blighton.6425:

I put it up blindly, if somebody can use it, good for them. I will continue to do so.

Also its better then wasting the time hunting down a vendor when you in the middle of nowhere

This is really stupid because you’re breaking the market. If people like you keep doing this no one can ever make a profit because no one can ever put the same item up on the TP for a higher price. Is it really that difficult to up the price of what your selling a little?

Hell, you don’t even have to do math. If you list something that vendors for 50c and the listing fee says it’s 3c then just ballpark that the 10% fee is 10c. It’s obviously high and that’s fine. so now you’re at 13c in fees (it would actually be 8c) so round that up to 15c. List the item for 65c. Someone will still buy it but now you’ll actually make a profit on it and people that want to list the same item can match your price and also make a profit.

As it stands now, I have to either match your price and lose money or list it at a higher price than yours and never sell it. Listing items at 1c above vendor is lazy, wasteful, and it breaks the economy.

Or you know you could BUY his low priced stuff and relist it at a higher price….just sayin

Drintar.1246:

souldonkey.9534:

Blighton.6425:

I put it up blindly, if somebody can use it, good for them. I will continue to do so.

Also its better then wasting the time hunting down a vendor when you in the middle of nowhere

This is really stupid because you’re breaking the market. If people like you keep doing this no one can ever make a profit because no one can ever put the same item up on the TP for a higher price. Is it really that difficult to up the price of what your selling a little?

Hell, you don’t even have to do math. If you list something that vendors for 50c and the listing fee says it’s 3c then just ballpark that the 10% fee is 10c. It’s obviously high and that’s fine. so now you’re at 13c in fees (it would actually be 8c) so round that up to 15c. List the item for 65c. Someone will still buy it but now you’ll actually make a profit on it and people that want to list the same item can match your price and also make a profit.

As it stands now, I have to either match your price and lose money or list it at a higher price than yours and never sell it. Listing items at 1c above vendor is lazy, wasteful, and it breaks the economy.

Or you know you could BUY his low priced stuff and relist it at a higher price….just sayin

If you haven’t looked on the TP, the sheer number of people selling and matching his price makes this impossible.

I’m a bit confused. It seems to me that the main complaint here is that people are selling things for less than what you want to sell them for, and you can’t make money.

Is that an accurate statement?

If so, I don’t think you quite grasp the concept of a free market.

I don’t mean that as a jibe; merely a statement of fact. One cannot simply pound their fist on the table and insist other people stop impeding their ability to make a profit in a free market. One must be more creative than that.

Yeh I hope everyone eventually understands, my items have sat in trading post since it was fixed and I’ve not sold a single one, I saw a sword for 30copper the other day with a vendor price of 66copper. I bought it immediately and vendored it. Happy days

If I was in a pickle where my inventory was full and I was out of salvage kits, I could see myself putting something on the TP for below vendor price just to prevent having to destroy it for something more valuable.

Thanks for the info!

My rule of thumb: Sell things (at least)30% higher than what the vendor would have given you. Should give you a 11% difference between vendors price and TP income(this is counting after -15%).
100c VENDOR
130c PRICE TO SET AT TP
130c – 130(0.15[the total cost of a successful sale]) = 110.5c ; around 111c

It’s not actually losing money, if you got the items “for free” or were just making them to get xp from crafting.

It’s just selling for less than you might have.

But looking on the TP, it seems it’s only vendor trash that’s posted for vendor price — blue and green items, and crafting materials that are in surplus.

Anything that people actually want is buy/sell above vendors’ floor price.

Thank you OP trying to explain that to someone in game is a lost cause atm… seems our community has picked up some from other not to be mentioned communities. I will refer people to this post now as I could not have wrote it so very clearly.

Hey guys,

Yes, in World vs. World PVP, I often do not have time to run back to the merchant who is located in one single spot on the map. I’m usually fighting enemies or keeping my team alive. And my goal, and gameplay style, is to not die. So I’m alive, for 5 hours on end every night in WvW, with loot dropping left and right. I usually fill up my bags within the first 30 minutes of being in the map. From there, I salvage some items, but not all, and eventually get to a point where I’m selling random things on the TP just to keep a slot open for the next drop… which comes so fast I end up managing bags more than I’d like!

I have to resort sometimes to mailing a bunch of gear to a friend just to clear space, however shortly after, I’m there again full of loot.

Now, I probably should grab the lowest salvage kit and destroy everything for materials and send those to my bank. I understand this, and after a while as many items have, I will get more than 250 in a stack and begin carrying extras on my person. So then I have to wonder if I should sell the salvaged material on the TP in the end. So you go to sell the leather and so on, and find out it’s worth 4c. You can sell even the junk loot for 30c. And selling on the TP might not give me that full 30c but it gets me close, so why waste all the time thinking about it. Just sell it however it can be done. Salvaging is the same amount of work with the end result being less money.

I wouldn’t mind selling items for lower than the vendor price, except they make it so you can’t put in buy orders lower than vendor price, so no one is able to make money on that. I just don’t need the junk and there’s so much of it. Everyone just wants to get rid of it for whatever they can get. Mind you, my situation is about the junk loot (including up to Masterwork items), and anything crafting is a separate issue.

Right now for crafting even, people just want to get rid of their junk! So if you’re here and ranting that people are selling all the high-end exotic gear at a loss, then ok you have a valid point. But if you’re still leveling up and wondering why your crafted item isn’t selling for profit, it’s probably because there are 10,000 others leveling up the same profession trying to offload the junk they had to craft.

Some people make money on junk. If you want to be a junk dealer, I’m sure you can. There’s just not huge profits in it unless you’re that guy who started 1-800-got-junk.

Just a little more math for those who care, if you’re looking for what price you need to list something at so that your profits match the vendor price after the 15% TP fees are taken out.

list price = vendor price / 0.85

Of course, dividing by .85 is not as easy as adding 1, so I think we’ll just continue to see things listed at 1 over the vendor prices.

Tatty.9680:

I saw a sword for 30copper the other day with a vendor price of 66copper. I bought it immediately and vendored it. Happy days

I didn’t think it was possible to list something at less than the vendor price? If it is, I should really go scouring the TP for free money...

Simple solution to those upset that prices are so low on the TP:
Vendor all your items, that way, you will generate a profit at an accelerated rate compared to those players using the TP, in a few weeks/months, you will be rich and can influence the market with your purchasing power!
If you are worried about the sheer size of the market due to it being a worldwide Trading Post, you could always find a group of like minded profit driven individuals and form a conglomerate, or gasp a GUILD! You could call yourselves the Robber Barons and be the advocates of Capitalism! Exert your economic influence over the markets of Tyria!

@ozymandias
That’s too much work I just want 10% profit selling junk!

Why is it that people list more common items (low-level weapons, armor, etc) at the vendor price when they could just as easily sell to the vendor and make the same amount of gold but instead they get it instantaneously? Part of me wants to assume that it’s because people are dumb and the market hasn’t had time to stabilize yet so supply is high and demand is low. Does anyone think this will get better with time or will it continue to be this bad?

ozymandias.5317:

Simple solution to those upset that prices are so low on the TP:
Vendor all your items, that way, you will generate a profit at an accelerated rate compared to those players using the TP, in a few weeks/months, you will be rich and can influence the market with your purchasing power!
If you are worried about the sheer size of the market due to it being a worldwide Trading Post, you could always find a group of like minded profit driven individuals and form a conglomerate, or gasp a GUILD! You could call yourselves the Robber Barons and be the advocates of Capitalism! Exert your economic influence over the markets of Tyria!

That post is too priceless coming from that username. +1 and much <3

It’s only been a couple of week since the release, everyone is still experimenting with the TP. Give it a couple of weeks more and it will fix itself

The people that do this probably don’t realize there is a fee associated with it. They just think “hey! why not? I can make 1 copper more here than if i sell to a vendor!”

Someone already said it. Its a mather of personal choice either to destroy the item selling it to npc or provide it to someone else so that the item can be something of value besides losing like 5-10 copper.

I think it will continue to be bad or just above the vendor price. The vendor price acts as sort of a price floor, and we are reaching it. Which means there is still more supply than demand on certain items. One thing I think that helps keep supply high is being out in the wild, and not having a nearby vendor. With a full inventory, it makes sense then to put an item on the TP.

The only thing that will rectify this would be a decrease in the supply of items or an increase in the demand for the items. Either way I think the solution would probably be worse than the problem itself. Enjoy the cheap gear in the meantime.

Worthless items are worthless. They fetched a decent bit of silver before the TP because people actually had to put work into buying/selling. Now, when your bags are full and you are stuck in a dynamic event for 45 minutes you can put stuff on the TP to free up bag space.

I just wish players would pay attention to the fees. It’s very frustrating trying to sell an item only to see 30 more listed at the 1c above the vendor price. I know the system is young, but people please remember that 15% fee! lol

If you think about it, Its a massive bank with unlimited space. Put it up while your bags filling up. List them up for just over vendor price (if sold, happy days) if you want to keep them, list them up for a stupidly high price.

I think its because there are no server TP. The Tp is based on all servers so this could be the reason. If it was server based, I believe the prices would be higher. It should balance it self out sooner than later.

My rule of thumb has been to sell items at a 20% mark up. That way the item is out in the world and makes a little more money than just selling to the vendor. However, people selling that item at 1c above the vendor causes my item to take a substantial amount of time to sell.

That being said if it’s less than 1s to the vendor, I just salvage it for the mats. More than a silver I’ll check the TP and see if it’s worth selling, and if it is, then it goes up. If not, off to the vendor with you!

I think anet need to make players more aware of the fees involved in the trading post. I’ll admit I only found out about the costs after I noticed I wasn’t getting as much money as I thought I was getting. That really isn’t how people should be finding out.

When players open the trading post pages there should be a tutorial pop up telling you about listing fee and the 10% charge on sold items.

Although this particular problem might also be because mobs give out weapons and armour to players like adults give kids candy at Halloween.

Vexus.5423:

And yet, I can sell that item from anywhere, getting it out of my inventory, for a “15%” convenience fee. I don’t think I have a problem with that.

the exact reason that I use the trading post…

Perhaps adding the expected sell fee right next to the listing fee would be in order? So it would display right away that the listing fee is 5c, sale fee is 10c, and the total fees = 15c for example. Or players can just pay attention

Any item that sits 1 copper above vendor price will always have a very high supply, a very low demand, or both. If supply decreases and demand stays the same or increases the price will eventually go up. Once players discover they can make more money vendoring these items supply will decrease. The invisible hand cures all ills of the Trading Post.