Donating to the thrift store.
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Why when they could just sell it to a vendor for 250?
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Because listing it at that price often leaves it in your market slots longer, and for some of us, getting another 50, 100 or even 249 inf for something is worth less than the value of what we could get by selling (or buying) something else in that slot.
The best value for those cases may be to not list the items at all and sell them to an NPC, but this has other side effects.
[*] You get badges for selling stuff, and dumping cheap, high-volume stuff on the market helps get them faster. They're useful badges for market users to have, too becasue ever other one gives you a bonus transaction slot.[*] Putting stuff on the market serves one of the big-picture communal purposes of the market - getting things other people need in their hands. Me effectively deleting my goods by vending them to an NPC helps no one else who might actually have a use for my trash.
In tandem with the 2nd bullet above, this essentially becomes an act of philanthropy for those of us with a lot of inf. It doesn't affect my bottom line enough to notice if I sell something for 250 or 5 inf. I'll sell it for 5 just to move it and never notice the actual profit - it's just too small.
Edit: as a note, I don't actually list things for 5. I pick larger, unusual numbers to reduce the likelyhood of other people buying my thrift store offerings just to vend them.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I have a possible answer for that.
Once or twice I have found myself needing just a little extra inf to make the posting cost for something I know will sell well. Not feeling like running to the nearest vendor (depending on the zone I'm in) I just put something on the market that I don't really care how much I get for it, as long as it brings me over the top for the bigger sale.
There might be other reasons but thats just a suggestion.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
hmmm, well I figured it must just be dumping for badges, so that makes sense.
That is not philanthropic though, quite on the contrary, that is free market greed. You get more slots to dump more stuff to devalue more items keeping the poor poor, and the rich rich 
Half joking there. You do realize though in your philanthropic gestures though that new players like me actually get hurt by that, because if I could sell a computer virus for 500 I get double what the vendor would give me. Now I can sell them at that price, but it takes much longer with all the 100 auctions up there, and as I have much fewer slots, I can't actually afford it a lot of the time, so I have to vendor them for 250, losing out actually.
Yes, but what that tells you is that the supply of the item is so high that it is driving the price down under the vendor price. There's other stuff at work, but that's a strong effect. It would require people to create an artificial shortage to counteract that (recent MA phenomena nonwithstanding), and that's just not worth most people's effort. It'd be better for you to find something that's lower in supply.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Edited to add the short version: You can both buy and sell on the market.
here endeth the edit.
- - -
There's also what I think of as the "pinball" effect. When you start playing pinball, 100K is a good score. Then at some point you start thinking a million is a good score, then 5 or 10 million.
The Market is like that. I started off picking up cheap salvage and selling it to the store for, like, 20K per run profit. Then I started picking up 10-stacks of common recipes for, like, 70K profit (you had to leave them overnight.) Then I started crafting generic IO's for 100K profit per. Then I started crafting cheap set IO's for 500K or a million profit per. Then I started crafting expensive set IO's for 5 or 10 million profit per.
... then I realized I didn't actually spend that much money and I backed off.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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hmmm, well I figured it must just be dumping for badges, so that makes sense.
That is not philanthropic though, quite on the contrary, that is free market greed. You get more slots to dump more stuff to devalue more items keeping the poor poor, and the rich rich
Half joking there. You do realize though in your philanthropic gestures though that new players like me actually get hurt by that, because if I could sell a computer virus for 500 I get double what the vendor would give me. Now I can sell them at that price, but it takes much longer with all the 100 auctions up there, and as I have much fewer slots, I can't actually afford it a lot of the time, so I have to vendor them for 250, losing out actually.
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You do realize that those who have been around a while and/or actually play the market deal with millions in transactions not sub 1k. I could care less what my kin weapon sells for but I do care about what Num +reg, +rec does.
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Edit: as a note, I don't actually list things for 5. I pick larger, unusual numbers to reduce the likelyhood of other people buying my thrift store offerings just to vend them.
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Exactly the reason I sell for Vendor +7
Here are a few possible reasons;
1. Efficiency. Someone who is seriously Inf farming/merit farming/marketeering/etc. is pulling in at least 10,000,000 Inf per hour. I've seen as high as 25M/hour quoted, but we'll assume 10M. Thats about 2800 Inf/second. Its not worth that persons time to run over to a vendor to sell that common drop for 250 Inf. A subset of this is the person whos on a fun/fast/friend filled team and wants to get back to play.
2. Space. Clearing slots, as others have mentioned, you often have something more important to do with a slot then tie it up for a small transaction, even if its just putting a long term patient bid in on something expensive.
3. "Philanthropy". When I start new characters on other servers (far too often, curse my friends alt-itis!) I often get seed money by buying cheap salvage and running it to a vendor a few times. On my rich characters I'm happy to let others do that by posting cheap, not only may it help out other peoples new characters but its even possible once or twice I've sold salvage to myself on characters on other servers, thus benefiting me directly. 
I've personally done this for all three reasons on different characters at different times.
At some point on all my characters I get to the point where I have a large amount of Inf and taking the time to run to the market and sell the trash isn't worth the time. Also,I play red side a lot and tend to list all my recipes no matter what they are since supply tends to be lower there. If it sits there for a long time and I need the slots for something else I will then gather all the trash up and make a trip to the vendor.
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The one thing that perplexes me though is people listing items for less than they would get in a store. For instance today almost half of the Computer Virus sold have been for less than 250inf. and mostly for 100.
Why when they could just sell it to a vendor for 250?
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I can't imagine a circumstance where any of my characters would care about 250 inf.
It's too small a sum to be on my radar, even at the lower levels.
I generally dump all my salvage on the market for 1 inf and delete the stuff that doesn't sell instantly.
I have a level 8 brute who bought a level 30 damage IO for 25,000 yesterday and sold it for 300k this morning. At level 8, he sees no difference between 1 inf and 250 inf. And the gap only widens the higher you get.
My level 30 stalker has 30 million inf- for him, there's no difference between 1 inf or 100,000 inf.
It's just a scale thing. 250 inf isn't a big enough sum to worry over, certainly not worth an extra trip to the vendor if it doesn't sell instantly at the market.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
I have been collecting some data about crafting and sales this week.
One particular piece of salvage I have been using 'typically' goes for between 10 and 300.
I have been bidding 500 per piece purely to make sure I get the stack NAO!
Given that particular common IO is making over 100K profit per sale, its not worth my time and effort to bid creep 10, 100, 300, 500.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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The one thing that perplexes me though is people listing items for less than they would get in a store. For instance today almost half of the Computer Virus sold have been for less than 250inf. and mostly for 100.
Why when they could just sell it to a vendor for 250?
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I can't imagine a circumstance where any of my characters would care about 250 inf.
It's too small a sum to be on my radar, even at the lower levels.
I generally dump all my salvage on the market for 1 inf and delete the stuff that doesn't sell instantly.
I have a level 8 brute who bought a level 30 damage IO for 25,000 yesterday and sold it for 300k this morning. At level 8, he sees no difference between 1 inf and 250 inf. And the gap only widens the higher you get.
My level 30 stalker has 30 million inf- for him, there's no difference between 1 inf or 100,000 inf.
It's just a scale thing. 250 inf isn't a big enough sum to worry over, certainly not worth an extra trip to the vendor if it doesn't sell instantly at the market.
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This. If I can't sell for over a million, I list for 1. Or delete.
RagManX
"if the market were religion Fulmens would be Moses and you'd be L. Ron Hubbard. " --Nethergoat to eryq2
The economy is not broken. The players are
laziness most likely.
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.
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The one thing that perplexes me though is people listing items for less than they would get in a store. For instance today almost half of the Computer Virus sold have been for less than 250inf. and mostly for 100.
Why when they could just sell it to a vendor for 250?
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Normally I do. I don't really care about the 250 inf. That's chump change, but I visit a vendor after every TF just to dump extra salvage (other then rares) because it is not worth my time and the market space to try to sell it.
However, on each character, I like to have as many market slots as possible. That means selling 7,000 items. That can take a fairly long time, so what I will often do is pick a somewhat desireable piece of common salvage, that I can usually download, but that I can often buy for a reasonably modest amount, in bulk (say, 300 inf, or 500, oer even 1000, not usually more then that). Then I will proceed to fill up all my market slots bidding for 10 of that salvage at that relatively low price, and when I have a decent amount, selll them all off for 1 inf. Then buy more, and sell them. I figure I may lose from 299 to 999 inf on each one (depending on the buy price) but the overall cost of 7000 * 999 (max) = 7 million inf, is worth it to me for those extra market slots.
Infinity:
Ellen, 50 MA/Inv Scr
February Night, 14 Ice/Ice Blstr
Guardian:
SilverSwordmaid, 29 Kat/Rgn Scr
Vicious Killer, 33 Emp/Enrgy Def
Electromagness, 40 Rad/Rad Def
Sense of Humor, 50 Fire/En Tank
Virtue:
Kickfest, 50 MA/SR Scr
Freedom:
Glorious Ending, 29 EM/DA Bru
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At some point on all my characters I get to the point where I have a large amount of Inf and taking the time to run to the market and sell the trash isn't worth the time. Also,I play red side a lot and tend to list all my recipes no matter what they are since supply tends to be lower there. If it sits there for a long time and I need the slots for something else I will then gather all the trash up and make a trip to the vendor.
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I post them for 300 to try to get close to vendor amount.
Mostly I post them to earn the badges for +2 salvage and more market slots.
Well, also to keep the prices stable. Nothing like low or no salvage posted to drive prices up toward insanity.
The plastic tips at the end of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister.
--The Question, JLU
At level 50 killing a minion will give over 1000 inf. There's really no point in selling common salvage at all. When I'm at the vendor I dump all my savage for 1 inf... when I'm at WW, I do the same.
I gotta make pain. I gotta make things right. I gotta stop what's comin'. 'Least I gotta try.
250 inf is just not worth making the run to the vendor. Sometimes you just gotta clear your inventory.
I have billions. I dump at 1 influence because my time is more valuable than sorting through my garbage for pennies. If someone else wants to pull out the cans and recycle them, that's fine by me, but I'm not taking the time myself.
I also bid for stacks at well over the normal market rate. I'm not going bid creep to save a couple hundred influence when I'm trying to craft and sell a multi-million influence enhancement.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
I am kind of new to the game and have been having fun with the market and trying to figure out some of the nuances of it.
I have been keeping fairly good records of sales histories of many items that seem lucrative, and have been starting to make money that way.
The one thing that perplexes me though is people listing items for less than they would get in a store. For instance today almost half of the Computer Virus sold have been for less than 250inf. and mostly for 100.
Why when they could just sell it to a vendor for 250?