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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
As a former merchant on SWG I noticed a trend when browsing the Exchange - a lot of people are trying to sell items for a lot more than they are worth. The nett effect is that hardly anyone can sell anything and hardly anyone can buy anything. I went looking for a personal weapon yesterday and there was just ONE item out of maybe a hundred that was priced reasonably.
Here are some things to bear in mind when you post an item for sale on the exchange:
1.) In the bottom left of the item's description is an energy value - this is the energy cost as if you were purchasing the item from a vendor. While not all items can be purchased for energy credits, it gives you a guide as to the item's value. Do not price higher than this unless the item is very rare.
2.) Get to know the items for sale on the Sol vendors - if you are selling a Mk2 Phaser Sniper rifle there is no putting it up for sale for 5000 energy when I can buy it for a tenth of the price at the Requisitions vendor. - If you ARE selling something that's also for sale on the Sol spacestation, pick a value somewhere between half the item's energy cost and it's full price. That way you're making more energy than if you sold to your replicator but it's still a good deal for anyone who's shopping around.
3.) The items that came with your starter ship are NOT valuable. You would do better to sell them to your replicator for 2 energy credits than try to sell them for 1000 energy on the Exchange.
4.) Bear in mind how much energy credit people have. Look at your own energy credit right now - do you have thousands? Or maybe a few hundred? Think about the tier of player you are selling to and how much energy they are likely to have to spend.
5.) Loot - get an idea of the loot drops in game. If it's pretty easy for you to pick up a Mk1 Phaser array as a loot drop, then it's pretty easy for everyone else too. Just try the Sirius, Orion or any other patrol mission and you'll see how quickly you can loot good quality items for your ship. Same goes for certain ground missions for ground equipment. Keeping this in mind, don't overprice your loot. Again, if it's something you can buy on the station, don't mark it up above the full price. If you loot something that can't be purchased on station then you have the advantage and can sell it for a decent profit.
6.) Finally, and most obviously, check out the competition. If you're trying to sell a phaser rifle for 2000 energy and there are ten others up for sale for 500, it's very unlikely yours will get sold. For a quick sale, undercut the others and get the energy you deserve for being such a successful businessman/woman/thing.
I hope these 'rules of acquisition' will help you sell better and more often, and make The Exchange a place for people to pick up good deals.
Here are some things to bear in mind when you post an item for sale on the exchange:
1.) In the bottom left of the item's description is an energy value - this is the energy cost as if you were purchasing the item from a vendor. While not all items can be purchased for energy credits, it gives you a guide as to the item's value. Do not price higher than this unless the item is very rare.
2.) Get to know the items for sale on the Sol vendors - if you are selling a Mk2 Phaser Sniper rifle there is no putting it up for sale for 5000 energy when I can buy it for a tenth of the price at the Requisitions vendor. - If you ARE selling something that's also for sale on the Sol spacestation, pick a value somewhere between half the item's energy cost and it's full price. That way you're making more energy than if you sold to your replicator but it's still a good deal for anyone who's shopping around.
3.) The items that came with your starter ship are NOT valuable. You would do better to sell them to your replicator for 2 energy credits than try to sell them for 1000 energy on the Exchange.
4.) Bear in mind how much energy credit people have. Look at your own energy credit right now - do you have thousands? Or maybe a few hundred? Think about the tier of player you are selling to and how much energy they are likely to have to spend.
5.) Loot - get an idea of the loot drops in game. If it's pretty easy for you to pick up a Mk1 Phaser array as a loot drop, then it's pretty easy for everyone else too. Just try the Sirius, Orion or any other patrol mission and you'll see how quickly you can loot good quality items for your ship. Same goes for certain ground missions for ground equipment. Keeping this in mind, don't overprice your loot. Again, if it's something you can buy on the station, don't mark it up above the full price. If you loot something that can't be purchased on station then you have the advantage and can sell it for a decent profit.
6.) Finally, and most obviously, check out the competition. If you're trying to sell a phaser rifle for 2000 energy and there are ten others up for sale for 500, it's very unlikely yours will get sold. For a quick sale, undercut the others and get the energy you deserve for being such a successful businessman/woman/thing.
I hope these 'rules of acquisition' will help you sell better and more often, and make The Exchange a place for people to pick up good deals.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
i got an item free, all I want to sell it for is something more than its scrap value, every cred above that is a bonus, I used to sell the items cheaper than the rivals prices, even if that rival then brought it and put it back on at a higher price, I was'nt bothered,
After all remember
Easy Come, Easy Go
You will not be able to control people there going to mark up items and somebody will buy them.
Best bet just refuse to buy items over priced making the seller rethink there pricing.
having played numerous mmo's over the yrs i've come to realise that while lot people use that thing called a brain, the majority of players are complete morons and think theyre being so clever marking items way above what they should be,shame really,its why the goldsellers are so active
When checking my email today I'm already getting ad-mails trying to sell me energy credits for real money. I.m used to it from playing WoW...yes I said it. I hope that Cryptic will as a Report Spam button in the game sometime soon. Also having that button auto ignore will be useful.
Blocking the energy farmers/dealers will greatly reduce the cost of items in the exchange.
Ferrengi sell common weapons so they are easy gotten for just slightly above value.
Uncommon items can be fairly easily crafted at Memory Alpha if you have the parts.
Don't bother putting any common weapons and devices for sale, use them or dispose of them in the replicator. But crafting componants will always sell.
Initially Uncommon (green) items will sell for a nice premium, but this will be short lived. Pretty soon they will not and get barely more than salvage price. Rares I think will sell for major premium a while longer, but soon those too will be scrap bate. The top of the line will go up and up in price, as people get more and more money these will go up and up and price. (please resist temptation to buy credits to get them, it will just drive the prices higher)
Hopefully players will catch on soon and the exchange will become a useful trading center rather than the haystack with few needles that it is now.
People will only spend what they think an item is worth. If a person spends 20000 ECs on a MkII phaser rifle, it's because he thought it was worth that much. (to that player, pssst fella...wanna buy a bridge? Sell it to ya cheap! It's in the ahhhh the Danubian quarter! Honest!). On the other hand, a player who wants a MkII rifle who sees it for WAY to much cash will walk away. If a vender maintains prices higher then anyone wants to pay, he'll soon have to lower his prices, or else have a virtual store that never moves product.
Great post Doc. It was chock full of the rarest commodity in the known universe....common sense.
The problem, at least for me, is that the Exchange currently is chock full of stupid offers that no sane person is going to buy. And since the search options are relatively limited (or broken, I cannot filter by item type for instance) finding anything is almost impossible. If I want a specific item I need to wade through hundreds of "Standard Issue Phaser Pistol, only 123.456 EC!" offers and miss any serious offer,
This makes using the Exchange very tedious and it seems not to be used much - I've put up a lot of my surplus gear for prices a bit above resale cost and haven't sold anything yet.
Is there an expiry date on the Exchange? I think that's the only thing that keeps EVE's contracts clean - that and the fee you have to pay when you set up an order. IMO they should add a fee to the Exchange as well so only serious offers are entered.
I can understand people wanting to make an easy buck ("Buyer beware" and all that, someone is always out to scam you), and I'm not justifying it, but the idiots who buy dodgy "gold" and buy this stuff at these prices are just as guilty if not more so.
**Inflation**
= aslong as someone buys it i dont care
ive never looked at the price
if its not white its 1k and above white 1k and below thats my methology
and im gonna inflate prices like crazy when the masses come later today
well with that in mind doc, i put a uncommon deflector dish mark II on the exchange... uhh not the positron one but the other one,... darn anyway, cost about 5,000 well i'm selling it for 4,000 but doubt it'll go, thinking about dropping the price to 3,500 but want to make something off it.
BTW what is the deflector dish used for. Most the Mark I and II disruptors i've been selling to the vendors, but I think I might try and put some of those on the exchange for cheap to see if Ic an pick up some funds.
even inflation has to give way to economics. an ancestor of mine once said if you eliminate the probable whatever remains however improbable must be the truth.... more items versus demand would mean that the prices should fall not rise if we're going by the book.... Regulation 22A no flag officer shall beam down to a hostile area without an armed escort.
This is a very good point that I didn't have time to write about (I was posting before rushing out to work, as I am today!). WIth all the crud on the Exchange we are in dire need of a better way to refine our searches. We need a way to differentiate between, say, a Phaser or Disruptor type weapon as well as a way to sort search results by ascending or descending cost. I know SWG had this and I'm pretty sure most other MMO's with an 'Exchange' have it too. Searching by order of cost will work wonders as you can simply scroll down until you reach your intended spend.
There are different types of deflector you can get for your ship - positron, tachyon etc - and each has certain bonuses to certain modifiers, for example it may boost the strength of your emitters or your ship's hazard system. Certain specials used by your BOffs will use particular traits of the deflector dish. It seems to be common sense (ie the Tachyon Beam will be boosted by an increase on the Emitters) and you just have to work with the Treknobabble to work out what affects what. With the lack of any in-depth manual or guide I can't say all this with 100% certainty but it seems like common sense to me. If anyone has a link to a guide I'd certainly be interested!
If your methodology works for you, then that's just fine. Your successful sale of mine launchers is a good example of the right way to do it - you have something everyone wants so YOU have the advantage. However, by not looking at the suggested cost of more common items you're adding to the problem. If these items are sold each time you log back in, then don't change a thing. But if you want to sell them faster it only takes a few seconds to check the cost, consider whether it can be bought at the same location for less, and post a more calculated price. You have an unlimited supply chain in the form of loot. If you can't sell it as quick as you collect it then you're going to accumulate stock. You could lower your prices a little and move stock as fast as you get it, and show those little Ferengi biznitches how it's done!
Every time I log back in I've sold something. Right now I have 5 'private messages' telling me I've sold items on the exchange. My idea, and my methodology, is that this works while I sleep. When I log back in, all my unwanted loot is gone and I have a fresh new supply of energy credits to go shopping with
You would make a lousy Ferengi
Rule # 141 of the Rules of Acquisition: Only Fools pay retail.
The ingame Deflectors only affect Science powers. The easiest thing to do is to check what system your Science Powers of BO's Powers run off of. For instance, it should say "Tachyon Beam - Deflector" or "Scramble Sensors - Sensor Probe". The trick is being able to trace the system back to it's core system - it seems obvious but not always so. Take tractor beams for example - if you find a Deflector that gives a +10 bonus to all emitters, and a +7.5 bonus to Tractor Beams it **should** work like this when you check your totals in the space skills sections of your character - +17.5 to the Tractor Beam skill and say +10 to another emitter skill like Hazard Systems. Anyone that has more specific questions, PM me and I'll sort it out for you.
Hope that helps.
Most items I list are at about 60% value, slightly more then the replicator. I figure at the very minimum if they don't sell it's another bank area, and can be recycled at replicator if I need credits.
Only uncommon and Rare items I price at a premium with one execption.
Quantum Torpedoes.
Those things sell like hotcakes. I look before I list, and yesterday most of the basic mk1 were 20,000. I listed one at 15,000 and it sold immediately. I listed an uncommon one for 17,500 and it sold immediately as well.
I always look before I sell and undercut anything else I see.
IMO until the market becomes more hassel free, people need to realize that it makes more sense to sell items on the cheap - get yourself more EC than selling it to a vendor, but charge less than the vendor to sell in turn. That's just good economics.
Fed Station vendors buy at 50%
Replicator and Frieghter Captains buy at 40%
Ferengi buy at 30%
The sell price rounds down so for a 2 credit item you get 1 credit at the Spacedock vendors and 0 credits everywhere else.
Two points I'd like to make:
1) The Exchange is badly organized, it needs a name or price filter for search results. The search field needs some sort of auto-complete function. I don't know if there will be any real improvements since it's based on the Champions Online system.
2) I hate how the system tries to nickel and dime you for every last energy credit at the lower levels. Then there are other currencies floating around that you don't use much of. Merits are only used when dealing Bridge Crew, and badges of exploration require mission grinding in the exploration systems. You could try PVP but how fair are you really going to get starting with a light crusier and starting equipment? The words "Noob Chum" come to mind.
Very nice post, but I disagree with this particular point. Market value will be determined by the fluctuating supply and demand of the item or comparable items in game. The arbitrary value set to the item will have little impact (other than to provide a floor price due to replicator value.)
For example, I have sold several Dual Beam Bank for prices 10x higher than their listed "value" simply because there are not a lot on the market but many people want them. Two weeks from now, they may barely sell at all as many may have entered the marketplace.
I will, however, be posting a slew of items that should be affordable to many players, soon at least.
You know what they say... there is a sucker born every second. I guess they are hoping someone will double click a bit to fast on the wrong item.