Winter Superpack - Boom or Bust?

[Bionic_Flea]

I just looked and found plenty of WIOs with last five sale prices of 10 million.  The only one with consistently high prices was Avalanche, and that one has always been among the most popular because there aren't that many great alternatives to slot in PBAoEs as there are for everything else.

 

At a sale price of 25 million, I can see players bidding up to a little more than 25 million for the convenience of getting exactly what they want and avoiding the gamble from the pack and then the converter roulette.  But there is a limit to what people will pay.  Too much more than 25 mill and people will just put in a patient bid, buy a different piece to convert, or roll the dice and buy their own pack.

 

I was more impressed by folks who bought up packs for 10 mill and are now selling for 20 mill.  Well played.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Bionic_Flea

[Ukase]

I should have been more clear - I was looking at the superior winter IOs. Add a 3-3.5 m catalyst and charge about 6-7m more than the regular version. 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

13 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

 

I was more impressed by folks who bought up packs for 10 mill and are now selling for 20 mill.  Well played.

I lucked out on this one.  I accidentally bought a lot since I never would have dreamed they would have dropped prices to 10mm so a lot of my bids got hit.  I spent most of the winter session trying to work out of them and was consistently making a good profit, but I only got rid of about 500 of them.  Opening 500 winter packs is a huge drag.  I'm trying to sell a few of them a day at 20mm, which would double the money I was willingly parking.  I mean, how do you NOT make inf in this game?!?

[macskull]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

I should have been more clear - I was looking at the superior winter IOs. Add a 3-3.5 m catalyst and charge about 6-7m more than the regular version. 

 

The superior versions seem to move a lot slower.

[NNDeepdish]

I didn't have enough $$$ to stock up on Winter IO's or Winter packs for current/future characters at the time before the event ended, and I'm feeling it now that the prices are spiking back up. Oof!

[nihilii]

22 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I was more impressed by folks who bought up packs for 10 mill and are now selling for 20 mill.  Well played.

This was the "masterplan" I selfishly kept under wraps as I read you all talking about opening the packs and selling the stuff. Figured the least competition, the more volume for me to sell.

Then one day after the event ends, they're already selling like hot cakes for 20M a piece. Ha!

Goes to show how little we matter compared to the population at large. Organic market activity dwarfs our various schemes. 🙂

[jshmoe1236123]

21 hours ago, nihilii said:

This was the "masterplan" I selfishly kept under wraps as I read you all talking about opening the packs and selling the stuff. Figured the least competition, the more volume for me to sell.

Then one day after the event ends, they're already selling like hot cakes for 20M a piece. Ha!

Goes to show how little we matter compared to the population at large. Organic market activity dwarfs our various schemes. 🙂

This is where I'm at.  I bought 100 of them at the 10m price and now I'm contemplating if I want to open them and see what I can make or just sell them back for 20m for a sure fire profit.  I'm leaning towards selling them back as opening and doing these packs may be too much tedious work than I care to do.

[Bionic_Flea]

3 hours ago, jshmoe1236123 said:

now I'm contemplating if I want to open them and see what I can make or just sell them back for 20m for a sure fire profit.  I'm leaning towards selling them back as opening and doing these packs may be too much tedious work than I care to do.

Why not both?!

 

 

[macskull]

5 hours ago, jshmoe1236123 said:

This is where I'm at.  I bought 100 of them at the 10m price and now I'm contemplating if I want to open them and see what I can make or just sell them back for 20m for a sure fire profit.  I'm leaning towards selling them back as opening and doing these packs may be too much tedious work than I care to do.

I ended up buying about 200 when all was said and done. I opened up the first 60 shortly after I bought them and I'm probably going to make way more off selling things individually than I'd make by just re-listing the packs.

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Why not both?!

 

 

I'm trying a bit of that, but it's tedious.  Why not double your inf quickly and easily rather than (maybe at most?) triple it with a lot of micromanagement and time?

 

The only thing I'm proud of is that I was able to pick up a bunch of Avalanches in the last few days of the winter event at between 3-4mm.  Finding the HOB without actually burning a sale can be marvelous!

[jshmoe1236123]

On 1/4/2020 at 5:33 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'm trying a bit of that, but it's tedious.  Why not double your inf quickly and easily rather than (maybe at most?) triple it with a lot of micromanagement and time?

 

The only thing I'm proud of is that I was able to pick up a bunch of Avalanches in the last few days of the winter event at between 3-4mm.  Finding the HOB without actually burning a sale can be marvelous!

Yeah the micromanagement and time is what I'm not a fan of.  More than likely, just going to make the quick buck.  It's all pretend money anyways, right?!?

[Texas Titan]

I bought 300 Winter packs when they were at 10 Million. I opened about 50 of them and stored or used what I could on alts. I sold 200 at 25 Million each the last week or so.  I still have 50 that I am thinking I may open a few here and there to not make it tedious. Or I may sell them and make the profit.

 

So I spent 3 Billion and made 5 Billion back so far. I have 50 more to go through or I could just make another 1.25 Billion selling them. Easy money for sure.

[Erydanus]

I was buying and opening packs on every alt every day pretty much all December. I got burned out … but I also tricked out a lot of characters either with complete sets or have sets sitting in their inventory for when I level them. I should probably log on to everyone and do an inventory but I think I made ballpark 2 billion not counting what I actually used on characters. Honestly I am taking a little break from the game now that the pressure to keep on top of my auctions is over, it was too much. (I did it this way because I try to have each character be self-sufficient and self-fund with their own merits and purchases, though I will help if one specifically is floundering.)

[Hedgefund]

Though I don’t take any measures to earn inf (other than plopping a brute in the middle of an asteroid while I make breakfast) I can’t resist an easy arbitrage so I did spend about 75% of my liquidity on winter packs.  I wasn’t going to settle for 20m and it hasn’t taken long to be able to sell for 25m.

Not sure what I’m actually going to do with them though.  I recently made a brute heavy on winter-os and it was kind of fun to fulfill the 24 pieces I needed via 24 packs and converting so I’ll hang on to them for now.

 

[Tidbit]

I bought 1900 during the sale.  I plan to open 400 of them and have been selling the rest back at $25 mil.  Over halfway done with that. 

[MunkiLord]

9 hours ago, Tidbit said:

I bought 1900 during the sale.  I plan to open 400 of them and have been selling the rest back at $25 mil.  Over halfway done with that. 

I'm super jealous and wish I would have done that.

[Tidbit]

1 hour ago, MunkiLord said:

I'm super jealous and wish I would have done that.

I have to admit I was a little nervous that this would blow up in my face.  I even thought I might have to wait a couple months before I could start selling.  It will be interesting to see what happens next year.

[Ulysses Dare]

12 hours ago, Tidbit said:

I have to admit I was a little nervous that this would blow up in my face.  I even thought I might have to wait a couple months before I could start selling.  It will be interesting to see what happens next year.

That was me as well. I bought ten, figuring I could survive the hit to my pocketbook if things went sour. Sold all ten for 25 million within a week of the price returning to normal. Guess I should have dreamed bigger.

[EmperorSteele]

5 hours ago, Ulysses Dare said:

That was me as well. I bought ten, figuring I could survive the hit to my pocketbook if things went sour. Sold all ten for 25 million within a week of the price returning to normal. Guess I should have dreamed bigger.

 

haha, same, Kinda kicking myself for not going all-in.

Still, now that this is an obvious choice, I wonder how much that's going to affect things. Like, it's gonna take a lot longer to sell the packs if there's tens of thousands of competing postings. Maybe some people will be patient and post them a few months after the event ends instead of immediately?

[Tidbit]

5 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

 

haha, same, Kinda kicking myself for not going all-in.

Still, now that this is an obvious choice, I wonder how much that's going to affect things. Like, it's gonna take a lot longer to sell the packs if there's tens of thousands of competing postings. Maybe some people will be patient and post them a few months after the event ends instead of immediately?

Assuming the sale happens again next year, there will probably be a bigger glut on the market afterwards as I think more people will take advantage.  For me, I'll just be resupplying my personal stock.  Now if we can get a special rate on the ATOs . . . 🙂

[Erydanus]

On ‎1‎/‎21‎/‎2020 at 7:22 PM, EmperorSteele said:

 

haha, same, Kinda kicking myself for not going all-in.

Still, now that this is an obvious choice, I wonder how much that's going to affect things. Like, it's gonna take a lot longer to sell the packs if there's tens of thousands of competing postings. Maybe some people will be patient and post them a few months after the event ends instead of immediately?

That's what I meant up thread. My point was it was better to open packs and sell for immediate profit right up to the end of the promotional period thus filling your wallet. And then right at the end of the promotion stocking up. Though I personally just didn't bother doing that and when the event ended I had normal 8-10 mil priced IOs on the AH. I felt like I had made enough money as it was.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I’m having a hard time reconciling supply with demand.  Let’s look at just two items:  Winter packs and a generic Winter o.

 

you could buy infinite winter packs at 10mm, and you can now buy infinite at 25mm.  Anecdotally, people who have posted in this forum bought over 10,000 of these packs during the sale.   I think the total number was much much higher.

 

Lets’s look at three options and three time frames:  1. Sell your winter pack; 2. Open packs and sell the basics (for me that’s enhancements and winter os, converted sometimes); 3. Open packs and sell everything, including merits; a. During winter event; b. Soon(tm) after winter event; c. Later(tm), but before next winter event.

 

1a is off the table, but I have been doing 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b like crazy.  And based on my observations of winter o flow, I’m really concerned that there is a shit ton of pent up supply.  I’m estimating that under a thousand winter os trade per day, and I’m buying a goodly portion of the ones getting dumped on the market.
 

Just curious what you see and think.

[seebs]

In retrospect, the simplest/fastest way to make money off winter packs is probably (1) buy absolutely everything you can at the very end of winter event, (2) list all the packs at 24,999,999. You now get every sale except if other people do the same thing but cheaper, and the AH auto-stock doesn't get sold until you sell out.

[Shinobu]

I bought thousands of packs and opened them all immediately.  I guess the resell idea is a pretty profitable one that I didn't consider, but I like having between 30 and 60 of every single Winter IO in e-mail should I need it.  ^_^  That's more valuable to me than another billion or whatever, I can outfit a new character instantly, and I can repeat that pretty much as often as I want (which these days is not too often).

 

 

[Gremlin]

FWIW I bought a stack of 10 Winter Packs on Saturday. I sold everything without converting or creating any superiors. The average value of each pack after sales tax was a little under 26 million. That would have been an excellent return if I'd bought them for 10 mm but I didn't!