Guild Wars 2

I wonder if anyone can explain where i started losing money on the TP.

Buy 100 orichalcum ore for 3s 50 each,

refined into 50 ingots,

so logically selling 50 ingot for 7s 80 each should net me 80b profit per 1 sold

minus 15% on listing fees.

started with 3g 96s, ended with 3g 77s.

Maths is not my strong point. but i swear somethings wrong?

is the listing fee % really that much id be losing money?

If there was money to be made in refining ore, everyone would be doing it.. And then it wouldn’t be profitable anymore

7.8 × 85% = 6.63

Net loss per ingot = 37 copper

i have no idea how people make money buying low and selling high then, everything i can find on the tp any profit made would be lost to listing fees

but thanks for the explanation

To show you the math :

Buying the mats (3.5s per ore) :
100 * 3.5s = 3g 50s
==> You paid 3g 50s as an investment

Listing fee (5%) on 50 ingots at (7.8 s per ingot) :
0.05 * 50 * 7.8s = 19.5s
==> you paid 19s 50c to list your ingots

Transaction fee (10%) on 50 ingots at (7.8s per ingot) :
0.1 *50 * 7.8 s = 39s
==> 39s are deducted from your earnings by the TP as transaction fee

| These costs may be summed up as TP fees (15%) :
| 0.15 * 50 * 7.8s = 58.5s = 39s + 19.5s

Total ammount of money you would get if ignoring fees :
50 * 7.8s = 3g 90s

Difference between money spent and money gained (including TP fees):
(1 – 0.15) * (50 * 7.8s) – (100 * 3.5s)
or
(50 * 7.8s) – (0.15 * 50 * 7.8s) – (100 * 3.5s) = -18s 50c
Which matches up with your losses

where

<money gained> – <tp fees> – <money spent> = profit

==> If profit = 0 : This is the ammount of money you need to make to break even on your transaction. Anything more is your profit.

[Edit] switched some things around to avoid misunderstandings

ixon.2496:

i have no idea how people make money buying low and selling high then, everything i can find on the tp any profit made would be lost to listing fees

but thanks for the explanation

By monitoring a variety of items and watching for dips in demand. Commodities like ingots are too easy to come by.

Speculation by purchasing large quantities of an item before a patch, with the expectation that the item’s value will go up due to increased need or scarcity resulting from the content of the patch.

Thanks for that in depth breakdown, what id like to know is how much difference there needs to be in buy/sell price to negate the 15% fees if that makes sense?

Basically you will need to keep track of your buy prices and can then calculate the minimal sell value (for the same item) by using :

<bought item value> * 1.15 = <break even - price>

The factor 1.15 representing buying costs and tp fees combined is a constant (until tp costs change)
Any price higher than break even price will net you a profit.
If you are crafting items you will have to factor in how many base items you need for 1 craftted item.

< nr of items needed to craft> * <bought item value> * 1.15 = <break even - price for crafted item>

As for items crafted using different components you’ll have to expand this even further.

Sites like
https://www.gw2tp.com/
http://www.gw2tp.net/
and
http://www.gw2spidy.com/

can also be used as a base for such calculations

20% is a good rule of thumb for “break even”. Any less and it isn’t worth your time.

In your example of 7.0s for two ori ore, aim for significantly more than 8.4s to sell the ingots. (Ideally, try to buy when the price is dipping, as shown the graphs available from the links above and try to sell when the price is peaking.)

edit: for the mathematically inclined, the actual “break even” is closer to 18%, but for the mathematically challenged, 20% is easier — and takes into account ‘effort’

To break even divide your cost by 0.85. So 50 Ori ingots that cost you 7s in materials to make has to sell for 8s 24c to break even. 41c posting fee that you pay and an 82c sales tax that you won’t even see.

As Illconceived points out the other way is to tack 20% onto your cost as a sure way to price it so there is some profit. 7s x 1.2 × 0.85 = 7s 14c. So roughly 2% profit.

When the amount of labor is so small to do the crafting, the market will correct quickly.

Look for an opportunity to make something else with base ingredients.

I used to make unidentified purple dye and I made quite a bit of money until the price of grapes went up. I’d buy grapes and blueberries in bulk and the other ingredients with karma. The market for unid purple dye is not large, I would not move more than 4 or so of these in a day.