Is being an ebil marketeer really this easy?
By
Brawlnstein,
Posted on: 2009-07-10 09:00 in The Market and Inventions
I think the answers are...
Yes.
Yes.
Move everywhere.
Yes.
Based on my own casually ebil practices,... Yes, right now with commons it is that easy, and you're in the wheelhouse. no need to move at all.
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It's that easy.
If you want to make 10 million a slot it is a little harder. And I don't mean that in any sort of ironic way. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is "that stuff from The Sting", you're going from about a 2 to a 3 or 4.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Fulmens, I am glad you responded to my thread. It was your signature that made me realize the way to "win" at the market was NOT to "buy it now".
Seeing as you are the unofficial but undisputed market guru, how do I make 10 million per slot? What kind of items do I need to flip?
Depending on how successful my marketeering becomes, I may take you up on the prestige matching for my Corporation on Virtue (redside).
EDIT: Do you have any other tips for the aspiring marketeer?
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
So you'll tell us all your secrets to making money, too? Fulmen may have some suggestions, but your average marketeer is only too happy to tell you "how," but slightly less enthused at revealing "what." That's something you have to figure out for yourself. Otherwise you're not turning 10M a slot anymore. 
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
Remember that you can get stung by flipping too. Most guides suggest you watch the price ranges on an item for a period of time before beginning to flip it. That way you won't get fooled by a one time spike when someone is urgently trying to outfit their PvP character and doesn't mind burning through 100's of millions to do it.
Personally, I get too nervous on flipping and don't care to take the time to trend prices accurately; so I stick to crafting and other areas where the results are more predictable (but therefore also potentially lower return).
Dumple is right, though. 
You have the basic idea. Find something you can buy cheap and sell expensive. But don't expect many people to come saying "Hey, everybody, try flipping ABCs! The margin is amazing!!!" After all, if everyone starts, the margin (and profit) dry up.
Bingo, and thank you for making my words sound more intelligent.
Also, good reminder on more predictable results tending to have a potentially lower return. That's where I feel more comfortable, myself.
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
Did the same thing on a new toon yesterday.
Picked a common item, bought 20 of them at 30k each and sold them all for 150k a pop later that same hour.
Repeated this throughout the day and earned about 8 million by just stopping at WW every time I passed through the zone while running missions.
Next step for increasing your profit per slot is buying recipes, crafting them and selling the crafted IOs. I'll blow my latest niche here just to give you an example.
Positron's Blast: Chance for +dmg L50 recipe. I bought a stack for something unbelievably cheap like 500k or less per recipe...I think I got a stack at 50k each on redside and a bit more on blueside. I crafted them at a cost of maybe 1-2m per recipe (price dependent on how patient you are buying the salvage). I sold them consistently for 5m-8m each. Make sure not to post more than one or two to the market at a time or you'll be hurting yourself.
I haven't used this niche in a couple weeks so no guarantees if it's still around and working as described. Do some research and find your own niche where you can pull this off.
I'm at the crafting orange (and lately a couple of purple) recipes myself. Since I'm not very patient on waiting for the salvage, I tend to invest around 23-25 million into making a level 50 Enhancment that sells for around 30-35. Netting me about 5-7 Mil profit per transaction.
I could do better if I were more patient. 
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I'm at the crafting orange (and lately a couple of purple) recipes myself. Since I'm not very patient on waiting for the salvage, I tend to invest around 23-25 million into making a level 50 Enhancment that sells for around 30-35. Netting me about 5-7 Mil profit per transaction.
I could do better if I were more patient.
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I'm not big on going by margins by percentage in this game because we have no economies of scale (making absolute profit per slot the big factor), but if I can make 4 mil by investing 1mil or make 5mil by investing 23mil, I'd sooner go with the lower risk option.
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Seeing as you are the unofficial but undisputed market guru, how do I make 10 million per slot? What kind of items do I need to flip?
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Oh, please. KeepDistance made a billion in 30 days from nothing, and documented it. There are LOTS of people better at this than me.
I buy, craft and sell (as mentioned). I get the easiest, fastest turnover items at max level of the particular recipe. Look for something you'd want to slot if you had more money.
I think KeepDistance made most of his inf flipping 10-stacks of common level 50 recipes, but I could be wrong. It's been a while since I read his "how I did it" guide.
After I finish my "burnt 10 billion inf" experiment maybe I'll talk about what I learned. Right now I need the money more than I need to talk about how smart I am, and that's a pretty severe need for money.
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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I'm at the crafting orange (and lately a couple of purple) recipes myself. Since I'm not very patient on waiting for the salvage, I tend to invest around 23-25 million into making a level 50 Enhancment that sells for around 30-35. Netting me about 5-7 Mil profit per transaction.
I could do better if I were more patient.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not big on going by margins by percentage in this game because we have no economies of scale (making absolute profit per slot the big factor), but if I can make 4 mil by investing 1mil or make 5mil by investing 23mil, I'd sooner go with the lower risk option.
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Totally get that. I just happened to stumble on this range where I can consistently make 7M every 24 hours and sometimes as fast as 12 hours.
The thing I really need to do is figure out how long I think the niche will hold and try to stock up on some low-balled salvage and recipes. The sale price has been pretty consistent for 2 weeks; so to eek out some more profit, I need to lower the supply cost.
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Totally get that. I just happened to stumble on this range where I can consistently make 7M every 24 hours and sometimes as fast as 12 hours.
The thing I really need to do is figure out how long I think the niche will hold and try to stock up on some low-balled salvage and recipes. The sale price has been pretty consistent for 2 weeks; so to eek out some more profit, I need to lower the supply cost.
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Stocking up on low-ball salvage is never a bad thing. Even if this niche runs out, you can always use it for other stuff.
Stocking up on recipes is a risk, especially when they cost that much and the margin is already so tight (relatively speaking).
Also, you can store a metric [censored]-ton of salvage in your base, but you can't store any recipes.
Great points!
So maybe I'll stock up on some stacks of salvage and keep buying the recipes one by one. With the upcoming DXP weekend, the Ritiki returning, etc. things are bound to be a bit volatile this month.
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Dumple is right, though. You have the basic idea. Find something you can buy cheap and sell expensive. But don't expect many people to come saying "Hey, everybody, try flipping ABCs! The margin is amazing!!!" After all, if everyone starts, the margin (and profit) dry up.
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This is exactly why my first post says I was flipping [common salvage] instead of actually letting you know I was flipping ancient artifacts.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
without even reading the OP I'm gonna say "yes".
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Im new to this but one thing I have been doing is i have 2 bases on red and blue side. In one base i keep salvage i buy or earn and the other i put io's in. That way if I run into something that i cannot use at the moment i can store and either sell or use it later
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Dumple is right, though. You have the basic idea. Find something you can buy cheap and sell expensive. But don't expect many people to come saying "Hey, everybody, try flipping ABCs! The margin is amazing!!!" After all, if everyone starts, the margin (and profit) dry up.
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This is exactly why my first post says I was flipping [common salvage] instead of actually letting you know I was flipping ancient artifacts.
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So YOU'RE the one! Well, you're welcome for the Inf then. 
I was working on some recipes for badges that needed those. Was kinda irked that I couldn't pick them up on the cheap like I normally do.
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Dumple is right, though. You have the basic idea. Find something you can buy cheap and sell expensive. But don't expect many people to come saying "Hey, everybody, try flipping ABCs! The margin is amazing!!!" After all, if everyone starts, the margin (and profit) dry up.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is exactly why my first post says I was flipping [common salvage] instead of actually letting you know I was flipping ancient artifacts.
[/ QUOTE ]
So YOU'RE the one! Well, you're welcome for the Inf then. I was working on some recipes for badges that needed those. Was kinda irked that I couldn't pick them up on the cheap like I normally do.
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Actually, I was kidding about the ancient artifacts. I was trying to be funny by *accidentally* mentioning a specific salvage.
So much for text sarcasm/humor.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
I've spent much time lurking this forum, and have learned a lot from the masters. I've recently hit my first billion, and am quickly closing in on the second. Maybe it's all common knowledge, but I'm bored and in a typey mood and maybe I'll help someone else. So I'll share what helped me a bunch when I really got into crafting-for-profit, level 50 rare recipes.
I had 2 level 50's that I used for the operation. My corruptor started with the 200 mil or so that I had made from running tf's and flipping salvage. The widow had her 40ish mil from the road to 50. The corr was my crafter, the widow my seller. Everything in this post was done on redside, which I gather is more expensive but moves slower. I haven't messed with the blue market in a long time, but I think the info helps on either side.
I would place bids on 10-stacks of orange recipes that seemed to move quick; Devastations, Posi Blasts, Mako's, Scirocco's. I aimed for recipes that most every build could use at least one set of, for the goal of faster turnover. Farmers are everywhere, and they love their aoe's, targeted and pb, so those move quick. Once I picked the 7 or 8 recipes I was going for, I placed lowball bids on stacks of the rare salvage they would need. Getting Prophecies for 650k each rather than 1 mil is a nice feeling when the goal is profit. As the recipes started filling, I would drop more lowball bids on needed salvage, then eventually grab whichever recipes had 5 or so hits, and craft them.
The key to keeping this machine moving was the fact that I would go to my base with my corr, craft them, and drop them into an anhancement bin. Then I would switch to my widow, and have her retrieve them and put them up for sale. This way, I wasn't tying up the corr's slots with enhancements for sale. He is the factory, she is the storefront. Every once in a while, I would grab a friend to help transfer a couple hundred mil back to the corr to continue his purchasing. Maybe this wouldn't be necessary blueside where things move quicker, but it made the whole operation 10 times smoother for red.
"Before there was Rock, you only had God."
Playing on Protector
Heroes - BurlyTorch, Johnny Tectonic, BurlyFrost, Maridon, Soul Doubt, ProtoTorch
Villians - Matt Daemon, IceLuge, Incendere, Mugwort, Vedova Mortale
It's really quite funny and cool how Marketeering has evolved into a subculture.
Yes, it really is that easy. Here's what I do:
Find a popular IO set that lots of people use, like Red Fortune, Titanium Coating, Doctored Wounds. For any of these sets, the most traffic is at the highest level so the most IO recipes of this set are being bought and sold at that range. This also means the prices for this resource will vary widely as supply and demand waver in and out of sync.
Set out a few "feeler" bids for a particular IO recipe, like Crushing Impact Acc/Dam/End. I might bid 10x 455,000, 10x 522,000, 10x 611,000. The spread depends on watching the market and knowing the range that these sell for. Set these and forget them for a few days, usually Sun, Mon, Tues, when supply is riding higher. Come Thurs, Fri, Sat, when demand picks up with people leveling, log back in take whatever I've bought, and list it all for whatever I feel the market will bear. On a Sat evening, the demand tends to be pretty high, and a lot of IO recipes will be sitting with many open bids and no products. I'll go back and list them all for 1,777,000. After marketing fees that can net you over 10m per slot, but it takes a week to clear. I'm ok with that because I don't have much time to play these days.
Lately, inflation made everything go nuts, and I came back to find I'd made 30-80M per slot, but that's pretty much a one-time thing I suspect, since my buy prices next time around will all be much, much higher.
The trick is that pretty much everything on the low end of the market varies in price by about 1000%, because sums of money like 200,000 or 2,000,000 don't matter to many players. They'll list it for 1, they'll bid 2M, they just want what they want NAO!
I have my fingers in many pies, so to speak. I flip salvage, I craft set IOs, I run normal content and sell stuff. I typically find niches from seeing how dropped recipies sell, recipe vs IO. There are a lot of hiden ones, and it's not uncommon to find something that the IO sells for 10 or even 100x the recipe.
So I figured I'd try my hand at flipping. I pick [common salvage], which seems to have a "buy it now" price of 50k. I place 10 bids for 15k. I come back to the market later to find I had bought 10! I re-listed them for 50k each, and within an hour they were gone. I couldn't believe how easy it seemed!
So I tweaked my numbers. I place 2 sets of 10k bids of 10 items. Re-list for 70k. They still sold! Wow, this is too easy.
Is this really all there is to it? I've made a few million in just a few days, and as a level 14 that's plenty, but I want more! Do I just move on to uncommon and rare salvage? Then where do I go from there?
Am I being ebil?
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.