Why would I sell if the TP prices are at 1 CP above vendor price?
You’re not missing anything, just vendor them.
Hi. I had precisely the same question. The best reason I can find is that if you are in a situation where you are pressed for inventory space and do not immediately have access to a vendor (and deposit collectible offers no space, and you don’t want to / can’t salvage), then it would be preferable to sell on BLTC instead of destroying the unwanted good.
Hopf Bifurcation, Norn Mesmer, We Are Owl Exterminators [OWL], No Dice [DICE]
Fort Aspenwood
Fort Aspenwood
Based on that justification, there shouldn’t be a lower limit to the sale price in the first place. If selling for less than vendor price could be beneficial to you, it ought to be permitted.
It’s actually best, if you are forced to do something like that, to simply pay the 5% fee for listing then cancel the listing so that it ends up in your pickup box. This way you can retrieve + vendor the item later for a net 95% of its value.
Considering that most such items won’t sell, that’s bound to happen anyway.
The reason why to do it is you’re stuck out in WvW with overfull bags. Or in your story quest, a dungeon, or just out in the world and don’t have access to a vendor.
It happens all the time to me, particularly for things like leather and ore, and for greens and some blues that I don’t want to salvage cuz I already have too much leather and ore.
The diff in price is some smallish bit of copper, less than what you “lose” by destroying an item. It’s all profit, just a smaller profit.
Based on that justification, there shouldn’t be a lower limit to the sale price in the first place. If selling for less than vendor price could be beneficial to you, it ought to be permitted.
But there’s a good reason they don’t allow it. If stuff was selling for less than vendor some guy could just buy it and vendor for instant profit. Exploit right there.
My quest is to find the dorito.
I’ve been in another game where some items were routinely sold on the market for less than vendor cost, and did it myself. And low level characters often stripped those sub-vendor priced items from the market and ran them to a vendor, but it was not considered an exploit even by the developers, since it was much easier to get money in that game. A maxed level character could get as much “cash” from 20 seconds of fighting as a lowbie could from a couple minutes of running back and forth, so it was used mainly to get starting cash for a new character.
The basic reason is that different people have different priorities for their time vs. in-game money. If you place a very high value on your time, and low value on the in-game money, perhaps because you have made a lot already or just don’t need that much stuff beyond what you already have, its easy to just post all the stuff you have collected or crafted in the process of leveling up your crafting skill on the market. Especially if you are “out in the field” and don’t want to pay to come back to somewhere with a vendor, since Waypoints aren’t free.
If, for example, you can kill 3 more critters in the time it would take you to run back to a vendor, the drops might be worth more than the handful of coppers you would save by getting the “full” price for your stuff. And many people would find it more fun then having a bit more cash.
Why would I sell if the TP prices are at 1 CP above vendor price?
Posted by: Snoring Sleepwalker.9073
Hi. I had precisely the same question. The best reason I can find is that if you are in a situation where you are pressed for inventory space and do not immediately have access to a vendor (and deposit collectible offers no space, and you don’t want to / can’t salvage), then it would be preferable to sell on BLTC instead of destroying the unwanted good.
I can see that as potentially working. However I’ve never had my inventory ever get that full. While I’m only running 15 slot bags, and one of them is full with various things I want to keep on me, I have never had a problem.
Keeping my inventory empty is easy.
Just like it was in GW1, where lots of people were still complaining about inventories being too small because they wanted to carry lots of stuff with them that they wouldn’t use.
So I suspect that scenario isn’t as common as you think. Instead I think the real reason that people are listing for less than vendor price + listing fee is because they aren’t paying attention to the listing fee. Let alone the sales tax which they don’t know about.
Then again, after playing Eve Online (an MMO where scamming is explicitly allowed) and seeing the constant spam of “give my ISK, I’ll give you twice/triple back” in Jita (suggesting that there is always someone who falls for it) I’ve found it hard to care about people falling for such stupid scams.
Based on that justification, there shouldn’t be a lower limit to the sale price in the first place. If selling for less than vendor price could be beneficial to you, it ought to be permitted.
But there’s a good reason they don’t allow it. If stuff was selling for less than vendor some guy could just buy it and vendor for instant profit. Exploit right there.
The people ‘exploiting’ it would quickly push prices up until it’s no longer profitable to flip that junk to the vendor. Maybe higher as some of them won’t be taking the hidden sales tax into account.
Though I’d hesitate to call it an exploit. If you’re flipping items like this, it’s only because someone else was stupid enough to list them at the low price without any encouragement from you. They would have listed it even if there was nobody there to flip the item, wounder why it isn’t selling, then drop the price further to undercut the other people doing the same thing until the price can’t drop any further*.
At least flipping means they get some coin despite their stupidity.
*What percentage of the vendor+1c sell orders do you think ever sell ?
I’d say a pretty low one.
The people ‘exploiting’ it would quickly push prices up until it’s no longer profitable to flip that junk to the vendor. Maybe higher as some of them won’t be taking the hidden sales tax into account.
Not true, considering that the sales tax only hits the seller, not the buyer.
If such a change was made, shortly afterwards you’d find that large amounts of pretty much every item would be ordered at vendor-1c, so it would probably remain profitable to do so, but very slightly; you’d also be waiting in very long buy order queues to get the items.
Though I’d hesitate to call it an exploit.
Agreed – it wouldn’t be one.
It depends on what it is. For leather I would think many of them would.
Why would I sell if the TP prices are at 1 CP above vendor price?
Posted by: Snoring Sleepwalker.9073
The people ‘exploiting’ it would quickly push prices up until it’s no longer profitable to flip that junk to the vendor. Maybe higher as some of them won’t be taking the hidden sales tax into account.
Not true, considering that the sales tax only hits the seller, not the buyer.
If such a change was made, shortly afterwards you’d find that large amounts of pretty much every item would be ordered at vendor-1c, so it would probably remain profitable to do so, but very slightly; you’d also be waiting in very long buy order queues to get the items.
True, I had forgotten that buy orders were untaxed.
On the other hand, kindness also shows up in MMOs. So I wouldn’t be surprised for someone who is intentionally being kind and breaking even on flipping items to the vendor, maybe even losing coin.
They might not even be a kind person. They might be a troll who enjoys seeing the people whine about their obviously unprofitable activities on the forums and calling for ANET to end it.