Question from a Market Noob

As implied in the title, I'm a market noob. I have only used it to sell drops that I didn't want or to buy IO's that I wanted to slot on the spot, and since I'm an instant gratification type, I tended to overpay and undersell for the quick turnaround. I never really had the patience to study the market and try to use it to turn a profit.

Last Friday, I stumbled across a market guide (Fury Flechette's, I believe) while searching on other topics, and the principles were easy to follow, plus it had a couple of examples to start with. So I decided to give it a shot, and designated an alt as my "market toon". Following the guide, I made almost 120M from Sat to Tues morning just from crafting/selling,which I'm sure is small potatoes to experienced marketeers, but I was pleased.

The small downside is that I went through a bit of trial and error trying to gauge market demand, resulting in a bunch of unsold inventory. I probably did not factor in the weekend price fluctuations accurately. So my questions are:

1) Should I just wait to see if they move at my listed prices? And if so how long should I wait? Or just get rid of them at reduced prices, taking a loss on those items?

2) Generally speaking, is it better to craft a recipe for an IO that is in lower supply but has a fewer bidders (but still more bids than supply), or one that has many more bidders, but is in higher supply. Is there a certain number/ratio I should look for?

3) Since I'm a beginner, I've stuck to relatively inexpensive recipes/IO's (selling in the 10M-15M range). Is it worth gambling on buying/crafting some big-ticket items, or should I wait and see if get lucky on drops?

Thanks in advance.

It hasnt been said...so Im going to say it...the best marketing advice is to start a Supergroup of 1. Get enough prestige to put a storage rack in and store your IOs there when the market turns. If you buy too many of one thing and the market collapses, store them until it returns. It will return. You could move them for cheap but why?

I have all my marketing alts in an SG or VG with a guy I trust. (Although Ive never met him in person, we've been playing this game so long together inf is meaningless between us...of course thats easier to say on his side because he's always broke). I store IOs for an upcoming build, IOs for marketing, salvage I keep around etc in the base...then when the time comes I sell at profit

--Frog

Thanks for the helpful hints. While I plan to be more active in the market, I'm not going be hardcore… I basically just designated a little used alt to be a market toon, to buy/craft recipes, then sell offline I play other alts. Not really planning on running a lot of AE mishes or creating a SG base.

She started with 67M on hand, and is now sitting on 189M, plus 80-90M in listed inventory (but as I said, not moving). I will probably re-list half just to free up market slots. I'll take a hit on those items, but I will still end with a net profit.

Here's something I forgot to ask last time: with merging markets coming in GR, I would assume that there will be an initial spike in overall demand, and ensuing shortages (I don't play Redside a lot, but I hear the BM's stock is a lot leaner than WW's). I guess it might be a good idea to build stockpile on some common IO's and salvage?

I am with you Sir_Lionheart.

I too stumbled upon Fury Flechette's guide on Day 2 or 3 of his project. I recalled the name from years ago when he was offering to make builds for people sometime around I6 or so (long time anyway).

I think that was about six weeks ago now, because I immediately set out to try my hand at what he was saying.

For two years, I had been crafting memorized commons in a couple of niches making about 2 million per night. I was content because, in time it was enough to keep my new toons with some inf and decent if not high level builds. I rarely had time to farm as I only play about 3 nights per week for a couple of hours. Add to this the fact that I was too risk averse to seriously put my nest egg in jeapordy and I was being far, far too conservative for a very long time.

I finally had put together probably 400 mill liquid and saw his project and threw caution to the wind. I dove in head first those six weeks ago with a toon that had about 5 million inf on him. Now, about 3 billion inf later, I am on to my second 'truly Ebil' marketing toon (after hitting the cap on my first one) and can gleefully sing the praises of what you guys have probably been preaching for literally years. I am trying not to pound my head into the wall for what I was NOT making in the same amount of time grinding out commons for almost two years - just enjoying the new experience and being able to IO out some toons at a different level opens up the game some.

I feel like I am a testimonial blurb on some infomercial, heh. However, this approach works at a level I never though possible and I am still not really playing in the deep end of the pool at all, just the middle and low end.

EDIT: Forgot to say I had some of the same questions as Sir_L about how long to let something sit before relisting and so on. I had developed a little bit of a sense for how long I am willing to let something take up a slot (and it varies based on what it is), but it's nice to have some perspective on those.

Anyway, many thanks to Fury and the other Ebils who are generally encouraging folks in this forum who I now wish I would have risked taking their advice sooner.

Cheers

****Lights up a stogie and raises glass to the Vets here****

Jojo offered 100 million to people who would come up with a way to game the market that worked in the long term. (maybe a billion?) Eventually he said "I'll do the work, I'll put up the money, just DESCRIBE it to me" and still never had any takers.

I have been known to offer people 100 million if they'll shut up about how hard the market is.

I follow a very similar approach to Fury Flechette so most of what she said goes for me too.

Here comes a wall of text. (Waves at Frogfather.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir_Lionheart 1) Should I just wait to see if they move at my listed prices? And if so how long should I wait? Or just get rid of them at reduced prices, taking a loss on those items?

I concentrate on niches with fast turnovers. (Selling at least 5 IOs a day.) The prices in these niches tend to vary over the course of a week or two by -50% to +100% of the average. e.g. Usually sells for around 10m, sometimes drops to 5m, sometimes rises to 20m. I suggest you watch the stuck items for a week to see what happens. If you listed at the top end then re-list near the average to get rid of them.

If the stuck items don't sell 5 a day for several days in a row then I'd pull them and pass them to another alt and list them there at a low price.

Some people target niches with low turnovers. They buy very cheap, list high and check on their niches once a week. In this case I wouldn't re-list unless I failed to sell in a couple of weeks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir_Lionheart 2) Generally speaking, is it better to craft a recipe for an IO that is in lower supply but has a fewer bidders (but still more bids than supply), or one that has many more bidders, but is in higher supply. Is there a certain number/ratio I should look for?

All the good niches have some bidders; often lots. Personally, I pay almost no attention to the number for sale and the number of bidders. I'm only interested in the profit margin and how many IOs sell in a day.

Good supply is handy because it means you can get hold of the recipes easily.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir_Lionheart 3) Since I'm a beginner, I've stuck to relatively inexpensive recipes/IO's (selling in the 10M-15M range). Is it worth gambling on buying/crafting some big-ticket items, or should I wait and see if get lucky on drops?

Sticking to the cheaper stuff is an excellent idea in my opinion.

Funnily enough, there doesn't seem to be much correlation between selling price and profit margin. Lots of niches up to about 40 million have good profits but some of the best sell in the range you're using.

The niches in the 100m+ range can have little or no profit. The consignment house fee of 10% eats most of the margin. I tend to avoid them.

When you haven't got much inf it's a good idea to watch the niche for a week before trading. Find the prices that you can expect to buy recipes and expect to sell IOs. Buy one IO to start with and list at medium price that will give you some profit but not lots. It should sell within a day or 2. Don't let your listing price creep up until you're familiar with the niche. If you get stuck, re-list much lower and try again.

I avoid niches where the profit is less than 10% of the selling price however much it is because it makes re-listing so painful.

P.S. A base makes this much, much easier. It doesn't have to be fancy, just one workshop with some storage racks and a table to store IOs.

Here is a light sprinkling of Goatwisdom to top the bountiful salad of knowledge already assembled by my fellows in eeeebil:


IMHO the easiest way to 'learn' the market is just play the game however you like but pay attention when the time comes to offload your junk. Most of the of the best niches I've found over the years came from checking stuff I got as drops.

Always check the discrepancy between what a recipe sells for and what the crafted IO sells for. There is a world of inf to be made there. In my Goatrules thread I bought ten set IO recipes and all the salvage to craft them for a pittance, crafted them and sold the lot for a million plus each. This can be done with many, many, many IOs.

The two main routes to profit are low margin, high volume or high margin, low volume. The first setup is relatively foolproof- lots of sales generally mean a stable pricepoint for you to work from. The second is where the big scores are, but the risks are commensurately higher. Hold off diving into the deep end until you've mastered the basic strokes.

I also recommend that everyone interested in the market flip something cheap for a period of time. Observing what goes on will give you a better understanding of the forces at work than a million threads like this one, however insightful. I flipped Ancient Bones redside for a week, and I use what I learned there every time I open the market UI. Pick a relatively cheap, high volume common, place bids across a range of prices and do the same with your listings. Watch how fast things fill and how fast they sell, watch other players react to your "manipulation", and close up shop once you've got a good 'feel' for how it works.
You won't make a lot of inf, but the market wisdom earned is priceless.

I still love reading these "I-Am-New-at-the-Market" success stories!

It really is great. So much so, that I have returned to CoH--and The Market.

You have let some of the market change in the 15 months I was away--mostly for the better.

One thing hasn't changed; I see that you Ebils are still the most helpful lot in the game.



To Sir_Lionheart: I toast you and your success!