Fulmens

You're doing it wrong. I know, that's not constructive criticism. I'm going to split this into two parts. One where I talk about marketeering, and one where I talk about how to make your inf primarily by playing the game.

MARKETEERING:
Here's a couple of well-crafted explanations of how to buy, craft, and sell for more.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=222969
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=210614

There's almost no difference between "buying a recipe for a million, crafting and selling for three to five million" and "buying a recipe for ten million, crafting, and selling for 20 to 25 million."

The top 3 mistakes (I would guess) people make:
1) Not letting things sit. Make your bids before logging out, check em when you log in. If it doesn't look like something's going to sell, wait till next Tuesday before relisting it.

2) Picking a slow mover. I only marketeer in top level (and occasionally bottom level) recipes because those move five or ten or twenty times faster than any other level. You've seen how slow L30 stuff is to show up.

3) OVERPRICING YOUR STUFF. If I want to sell something for 20 million, and the last five all sold for 20 million, I list at, like, 16,000,908 . Higher than 15 million. But WAY lower than 20 million. If you have the same thing for sale, and you see the last five selling for 20 million, and you list at 20 million or even 19,999,999: You will never sell your stuff because I'm in your niche undercutting your prices. Bid a little high, sell a little low, pick something with a respectable profit margin even if someone guesses your exact price.

I'll leave you with a thought: I can often find something selling for 10 million, that costs me 2.5 million to make and sell (counting wentfees), and I can move a HUNDRED of those. That's 750 million profit. Yeah, I need to log in five times and make twenty at a time, but still. . . "I can't afford to play in the expensive niches" goes away fast if you are good at the cheap niches.

IF YOU HATE MARKETEERING:

That's fair. You can still get rich.
Instead of using one Alignment Merit to buy one, I don't know, Luck of the Gambler Defense at level 30: Use it to buy one Kinetic Combat Dam/Rech at level 35. This will sell instantly at 50-80 million. More if you have a little patience, probably, and more if you craft it, definitely. Other popular sellers are Kinetic Combat Dam/End at 35 [1 merit], and a lot of 2-merit recipes: the Miracle and Luck of the Gambler: global recharge at minimum level. Celerity: Stealth at minimum level. Kin Combat: Dam/End/Rech at max level. Do your research, find out what's hot, and make that. If you're getting your Alignment Merits by doing ITFs or similar, you may get a nice purple on the way and accidentally make another hundred million.

You can be rich! You!