Adventures in Backwards Marketeering

So, I'm playing the game on my shiny new Fire/Regen scrapper the same way I always do, just making random PuGs and running whatever I want to at the moment, which is usually TFs.

Then less than 3 months later, I find myself sitting at level 48 with a full build of level 50 common IOs, no desire for purples or sets.... and about 360 million influence just sitting around from selling ALL of my drops over time on the market for 1 influence apiece.

SO, what does the man that has everything (he wants) do with all this spare money?

Well, I could just give it away, but that's kinda boring. So I've decided to play with the market and see what I can do to it, just for fun.

Call me a random speculator that has no interest at all in making a profit. Call me the worst marketer ever. Hell, call me the Anti-Nethergoat, I don't care... but I'm just going to waste my money doing goofy stuff.

Day One:

So I'm sitting at 357 million looking at the market. What to do first with my hard earned money?

Well let's take a look at the Invention Salvage list for fun. Let's see, the last few sales of Ancient Artifacts are 555, 50001, 40000, 501 and 695. Well that's kinda strange, lots of fluctuations there. Hey look, there are currently a little over 300 bidders that want Ancient Artifacts, and there's a little over 300 people that are selling them for higher than what those people want to pay.

About the same number of people on each side? I've got an idea!

I'll be The Facilitator! I'll just buy up ALL the Ancient Artifacts that exist, price is no issue, and then just sell them ALL for 1 influence! That way everyone that's bidding gets what THEY want, and everyone that's selling gets the price that THEY want! Everyone wins and I can "waste" money being a the good samaritan and hero that I always wanted to be!

So I start buying off Ancient Artifacts. Since the last few sales included a few low numbers, I figured I'd go a little higher than the low ones. I post to buy 10 for 5,000 apiece.

....


....


... no sale?

Okay..... 20,000 apiece.

No sale. Huh? Where did all those sales for less than a thousand come from if no one is selling them for less than 20K? Oh well, I'm rich, let's go waste some money.

30,000 No sale
40,000 No sale
50,000 I bought a few, yay! So I buy up as many as I can at 50K, which is a few dozen. I immediately sell them for 1 influence each and rake in the dough! I'm rich! Oh wait... heh.


So I run out of those sold at 50K..... 60K?

Holy crap! Like 95% of all the Ancient Artifacts that were posting were being sold for 60K! What's up with that? Just one big owner, or is that where most people like to sell them at? I have no idea, but I don't care, I buy them all.

Now there's like 30 left out of an original 300-ish.

So I up it to 75K and buy almost all the rest. Down to about a dozen. Up it to 100K and buy all but two.

Upping it to 200K buys me those last two. I post them all for 1 influence and they all sell instantly.. except for about 30. Well that's fine, a few to spare, and look, I brought the price down from $60K to 10 influence, which is where a common SHOULD be if you ask me!

I caused deflation! Yay! Go me!

And the whole thing cost me... let's see, I started at 357mil, and I'm down to 287mil..... what? Just 70 million to completely wipe out all the bids and sales of a COMMON salvage? That seems kinda low. Oh well.

So that's my first experiment, and I'll be playing around for as long as I have money. What do you all think of my "ebil" scheme to not make money?

Do you all hate me for not trying to make a profit? Do you laugh at me for it? Are you the guy that had all those for sale at 60K and made a ton of profit off of my "charity"? Do tell!

I bought 36 for 10,000 each.
I listed them for 45,555 each.

Thanks for the tipoff.

Actually what really amuses me is that a a least some of those bids (both buying and selling) were flippers which means that you almost certainly bought out a flippers stock and then immediately proceeded to sell it back to him .

For what it's worth I don't hate or laugh at you for your "marketeering" activities, it's not something that I'd do myself but if it amuses you then I say go for it. The volatility of the market especially common salvage allows people to do silly things.

I did that a while back with Luck Charms, it was a hoot! and effected the market for almost a whole day.


... I say you try Luck Charms next, 33% more fun in buying all of them ....

1, 10, 100, 1,000,000....it's all the same to Smurph.

I only bought them to ensure those 36 weren't sold cheaply.

All 36 are now sold... 3 hours later. The last 5 all says 10,000 and there are merely 12 for sale and 122 bidding.

Flopping is the new black

A noble effort but entirely predicatable based on the Luck Charms same activity last year.

Next time if you really want to be an anti-marketeer you should buy the garbage set recipes where no one is bidding and 10 or more are for sale. You can probably get them for 1k each and make a lot of people happy to make the sales.

I was messing around with Guassian Synchronized Fire Control: Rech/End recipes redside, buying up all that came available. In 2 days I managed to push the price from 45ish mil to around 60mil, but couldn't keep the price that high, after all my bids filled the price just plummetted down to about 30 mil.

I'm now sitting on about 40 of the same recipe and down about 1.6 bil. It was fun. I'm not sure what to do with them all though. I really would like to see if any would sell if i put them all back up for sale at once at a ridiculously high price seeing there's never more than about 2 for sale at any given time.

I've always wanted to try something like this. Perhaps when I get rich enough, I will. In any event, I enjoyed reading about your experiences!

Blah... if you had fun, thats all that matters

I'd point you to the thread where I and a partner bought out every single ceramic armor plate blue and red but the purge ate that long ago..

Buying stuff out = fun.