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Do you craft the recipes you get to sell them? Do you buy IOs crafted, or do you craft the yourself. I would love any insight into these problems, taking into account I'm not rich (about 80 mil on each 50), and neither toons are necessarily "farmers" (FF/Psy Def and Bot/FF MM).
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Whichever is the most profitable for the amount of time I'm willing to spend profiteering.
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Whichever is the most profitable for the amount of time I'm willing to spend profiteering.
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take your time, last 5 mean by it noa prices and sundays prices are not wednesdays.
1 month I turned 20mil into 270 (toon still not 50 yet). You have plenty of money to play around with. dont buy at the buy it now prices
Lead Squirrel at Dr. E Spider robotic site #643
Nothing saids its your spot like an ourob. Portal dropped on the ground.
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Whichever is the most profitable for the amount of time I'm willing to spend profiteering.
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take your time, last 5 mean by it noa prices and sundays prices are not wednesdays.
1 month I turned 20mil into 270 (toon still not 50 yet). You have plenty of money to play around with. dont buy at the buy it now prices
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I meant I'm usual not willing to spend the time figuring out which salvage I need, buying the salvage for non-buy now prices, and crafting the item. Sometimes I just don't care enough for a small additional profit.
If playing with IOs for fun and profit, work your stock on the weekends when people buying it NAO push the price up (and restock on weekdays).
If buying stuff for yourself, put in some more patient bids and wait awhile.
FYI, some of us do most of our IOing for self use between 30-33 so it's mostly done for the run up to 50 (at those levels it's easy to hit ED caps, and leaves you at full bonus strength for lvl 30 TFs and zones like Siren). That, and most of your slots would have already been dedicated to marketing all that time.
Dive in and go nuts, though. Don't be afraid of a few mistakes along the way. And for goodness' sake, don't end bids and postings in "000."
President of the Arbiter Sands fan club. We will never forget.
An Etruscan Snood will nevermore be free
Make sure you always buy recipes and craft. Never buy crafted IO's unless you don't mind paying 100%+ markup. If you want to fund your whole IO experience, buy three of every recipe instead of one. Craft them all and sell two and you should be in the black the entire time...might even come out ahead if you're patient!
I don't craft the recipes that drop unless they're purple or otherwise known to me to be expensive. Why spend the time to craft for one recipe when I can craft a stack of ten for the same time and slot investment? So I toss them on the market at a bargain price for whoever is actually making influence in that niche, or vendor them if nobody is bidding.
On the other hand, I don't buy crafted IOs. It pains me to overpay for something I can craft myself. But if I were being more consistent in my behavior, I'd probably buy crafted IOs, even knowing that the markup on them can be hundreds of percent. For the time and slots invested, I'd often be better off just paying it and getting back to making influence.
If you want to make your influence crafting, look for a big spread between the cost of the recipe, necessary salvage and crafting costs and the price that people are willing to pay for the crafted IO. I've had good luck, but I've heard of people being burned by temporary price spikes and the like, so you may want to watch the niche for a while rather than jumping right in. I just jump right in myself. It's only play money.
"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 did buy a few lvl 35 IOs when I was at that point in my career, and they did some good. I didn't fully IO slot or anything, though.
OK, the pinball metaphor.
When you play pinball, you have "Breakthroughs" where you go from getting a score of 100K to, like, 500K or a million. And then 2 million. And then someone comes along and scores 15 million and you're like "how?"
The market is like that. Someone like Smurphy has godzillions of inf. He doesn't care if he makes an extra 15 million on something. He's got more than he can plausibly spend. People who spend a ton of time in the game, like Werner, are also backstopped by money.
I am currently at a point where I like to make about 10 million per transaction but I'm happy with 5. If I find something that makes 20 million, I'm excited and nervous about the niche collapsing.
My main advice is: Find a niche where you can roughly double your money. (Don't forget about cost of salvage, and crafting cost, and Wentworth's 10%.) Start out looking for things that make you a million or two- things like Thunderstrike, Crushing Impact, and maybe Serendipity. When you feel comfortable, start going higher-end. Decimations, Devastations, maybe Miracles. Eventually, if you really get into it, you start going for the pretty big hitters- the "buy for 20, sell for 40" type of things like Impervium Armor: Resistance. I haven't personally gone farther than that. Purples and PVPs give me vertigo and fear.
I rarely buy and craft more than two of the same thing. I handcraft my fortune. If you do craft ten at a time, though, do not LIST all ten at the same time. The perception of large supply kills prices.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
This may be more basic than what the OP was after, but perhaps it'll be helpful:
Understanding the Fundamentals of the CoH Auction Market
This short guide will explain a few basic truths of the market in CoH. The goal is to introduce a few important concepts and avoid drowning the reader in details.
I don't think this guide is very long, but here's a TL;DR version anyway:
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If you want to make a fortune playing the market or just want to avoid paying top prices, the secret is to have a bit of patience. Don't outbid peak weekend prices. Look at average prices on a Tuesday or Wednesday, put in your bids, and [u]force yourself to wait a day or two for your bids to pan out[u]. Buy recipes and salvage and do your own crafting instead of buying pre-crafted IOs.
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Supply and Demand
Unlike a store, prices are set in the CoH markets by "supply and demand". We've all heard this phrase, but what does it mean? Simply put, the more available something is, the lower its price will be and vice versa. Prices are set between willing sellers and buyers. No one can force you to buy at a price you're not willing to pay.
Example: before the Mission Architect (MA) was introduced, only rare (orange) salvage was pricey due to its rarity. Uncommon (yellow) salvage was abundant and therefore cheap, and generally you'd get a better price by selling it to a store than by selling it on the market. Now uncommon salvage frequently sells for 50K-100K inf. What changed? MA missions don't drop salvage, they drop tickets. Players have shown a reluctance to redeem their tickets for uncommon salvage; instead they save up for desirable recipes. People are crafting IOs just as much as ever so demand has remained constant but supply has tightened up, so salvage sells for more.
Prediction: when the Going Rogue expansion goes live, there will be at least a temporary shift away from the MA. Salvage will once again be abundant and prices will plunge.
Cyclic Demand
Demand that predictably follows a pattern is called "cyclic demand." In the real world, think of peak season hotel prices. Hotel prices are always highest in the peak season because there are more people chasing after a fixed number of hotel rooms. This pattern of higher prices during peak season is so reliable as to be predictable.
Is there cyclic demand in CoH? Sure. There are always more players on during weekends, holidays and special events such as the release of a new issue or a double XP weekend. Why should you care about cyclic demand in CoH? It'll make more sense after the next section....
Gotta Have It NOW
When most players decide they want to buy a set of IOs, they proceed to bid high enough to get the set right away. That's understandable. For them the market isn't fun. It's a necessary chore, like going grocery shopping. They want to get it over with and get back to having fun. By putting in high bids they get their stuff quickly. Experienced marketeers derisively refer to that as "get it now" pricing; they're derisive because it guarantees the buyer is paying top dollar.
There's an even worse form of "get it now": since many of the players that want to get their IOs right now don't want to be bothered with the hassle of crafting them, they'll pay a healthy premium to have someone else do the crafting. And when I say "healthy premium" I really mean "insane premium" like paying 2-3 mil for ingredients that costs 500K to purchase and craft.
The Secret Every CoH Market Billionaire Knows
Combine the concepts of cyclic demand with "get it now" pricing, and you get an interesting phenomenon. During peak demand (usually weekend evenings) there is a reliable flood of players who just want to buy their stuff ASAP and get back to playing. Prices surge. Off-peak those players are absent for the most part and prices sag.
So if you want to make a fortune playing the market or just want to avoid paying top prices, the secret is to have a bit of patience. Don't outbid peak weekend prices. Look at average prices on a Tuesday or Wednesday, put in your bids, and force yourself to wait a day or two for your bids to pan out. Buy recipes and salvage and do your own crafting instead of buying pre-crafted IOs.
The real kicker is that for every player who takes the time to read this and try it out, there will be hundreds who can't be bothered. And those will be the ones making you rich, Dear Reader. 
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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I meant I'm usual not willing to spend the time figuring out which salvage I need, buying the salvage for non-buy now prices, and crafting the item. Sometimes I just don't care enough for a small additional profit.
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I've been running into this a lot lately thanks to MA and bronze ticket rolls. I've gotten several recipes that would make over a million profit if I crafted them, but ended up selling the recipe instead simply because of the time needed to craft and sell them. The longer turnover time for crafted IOs also matters... I'd rather get 300k profit today and clear the slot on an active character than get 3 million next week and have the slot tied up... too many drops to sell and not enough space.
Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name
[u]Arcs[u]
The Scavenger Hunt: 187076
The Instant Lair Delivery Service: 206636
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I rarely buy and craft more than two of the same thing. I handcraft my fortune. If you do craft ten at a time, though, do not LIST all ten at the same time. The perception of large supply kills prices.
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I craft in batches of ten to save time, and fill up a storage bin with them. But I probably don't have more than 20 of any particular IO at one time, and I try not to list more than a few of each at a time. It might not matter much, though, because I tend to post at sell it NAO prices. Well, sell it within a day prices, anyway. I make my influence on volume.
I should probably switch some character over to purples or something else really expensive. Stacks of ten of purples. Now that sounds like fun. I'd think that the purple niches would be filled, but it seems like people keep making influence on them.
"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
So I recently obtained my first 50 villain (as well as 50 hero some months ago), and have joined this "marketing game." Specifically for IOs, what are the general rules with buying/selling recipes and salvage (considering AE).
Do you craft the recipes you get to sell them? Do you buy IOs crafted, or do you craft the yourself. I would love any insight into these problems, taking into account I'm not rich (about 80 mil on each 50), and neither toons are necessarily "farmers" (FF/Psy Def and Bot/FF MM).
Thank you!