How Much to Post for to avoid getting Lowballed?

[Generator]

Hi there,

 

So I figured I'd ask about something that's been going on.

 

My recollection from the Live era is that what's supposed to happen is that a given item gets sold to whoever has the highest offer at it above the posting price.  What I've had happen to me several times is, I'll see a given IO, and IDK, let's say the Last 5 are all in the 7-10M range.  If I post it low, there always seems to someone walking off with it for like 20K or some other ridiculously low number.

 

I feel like I must be misremembering some Market behavior from back in the day.  Any tips on how to prevent that while still allowing the item to sell reasonably quickly?

 

Thanks,

Generator

[Redlynne]

40 minutes ago, Generator said:

If I post it low, there always seems to someone walking off with it for like 20K or some other ridiculously low number.

Try posting for a higher number than the ridiculously low ones ...?

[Generator]

Just now, Redlynne said:

Try posting for a higher number than the ridiculously low ones ...?

I appreciate your taking the time to read, but that doesn't do much to help me toward an answer.  The point I was trying to make is that this never happened Live, so I'm trying to figure out what is the difference at work here.  Back then, I felt like whenever there was adequate demand on an item as measured in number of bids, one could post at 5 and basically be assured of getting at least fair market value.  What's at play here that is making the difference?

[Troo]

It did happen on live.

 

This is a function of looking at purchases rather than bids or listings. No one is gonna argue that it is perfect.

 

To answer your original question: Post the a bit below the typical price.

Example: Item seems to sell for 2M, listing it for 1.8M will put your listing before 1.9 and 2 listings and protect it from lowballers.

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Troo

[Sakai]

Post it for the very least amount of what you are willing to sell it for. 

 

If you are listing silly low in hopes of getting an instant sale at a high price chances are you will be sniped by lowball bids. 

 

All items that drop I list for 1 and accept what comes. Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose. Usually I don't bother to check. 

 

When I am flipping I run somewhere in the 60ish% range. Typically I get the market norm. Sometimes not. 

 

Items that I have converted, which I have finally started to do, I list at the same 60ish%.  

 

Works for me....hope it is of some help to you. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

It operates the exact same way that it did on Live, but there are a few key differences:

 

1.  There are a lot fewer people playing on HC than there were on Live, which means that the depth of the market isn't as strong.

2.  Thanks to fungibility, converters, etc., nothing is particularly expensive to make, so costs of things are much lower than they were on Live.

3.  Thanks to point 2 among other reasons, accumulating inf is extremely easy.

 

So you have lower cost goods, higher disposable income, and illiquid markets.  

 

This seems to lead to more/most/all people simply "buying it NAO" since they have plenty of inf and prices are low.  Think of what you do when you are looking to buy something.  Do you buy it NAO, throw in a lowball bid and hope to rip someone off, buy something cheaper and make it into something you want, or put in a reasonable but high-ish bid that you expect will get filled in the next 24 hours?  Almost everyone seems to do some variation of the first three.

 

When you are selling at a "sell it NAO" price, and hoping to get a genuine high bidder, it's probably not going to happen.  I tend to buy things at a "buy it soon(tm)" level which is much higher than the 20k you mention, but lower than the 7-10mm you mention.

 

tl;dr  If you want to sell for better prices, you need to offer at higher prices.  If you sell it NAO, you are going to have to get used to the idea you may reap sell it NAO prices.

[tidge]

Here is a hopefully helpful hint: If there a significant number of bids on the item but it has sold less than 5 copies on today's date with dozens of bids, there are almost certainly 'lowball' bids. That doesn't mean that there won't be more favorable (to seller) bids. I have some toons with outstanding IO bids far below the 'buy it now' price, but well above what the crafting cost would be at max level that remain unfulfilled. In some sense, those are lowball bids... but if I see that those IOs aren't selling in 24 hours, I have a sense that the posted prices are also probably too high.

 

Also, look at how many of the item are for sale. I'm always surprised when I drop an IO in the AH and see 2000+ already for sale, and the last 5 sale prices are 2M or less. I suppose this could be the AH database issue, but more likely is that players honestly think (or thought when they listed) that the value of certain IOs is more than the market does.

[Redlynne]

If you don't want an item to sell for ridiculous lowball prices, there's a very simple solution ... don't post it for ridiculous lowball prices.

 

This shouldn't be that hard ...

[MunkiLord]

On 3/29/2020 at 9:25 AM, Generator said:

Hi there,

 

So I figured I'd ask about something that's been going on.

 

My recollection from the Live era is that what's supposed to happen is that a given item gets sold to whoever has the highest offer at it above the posting price.  What I've had happen to me several times is, I'll see a given IO, and IDK, let's say the Last 5 are all in the 7-10M range.  If I post it low, there always seems to someone walking off with it for like 20K or some other ridiculously low number.

 

I feel like I must be misremembering some Market behavior from back in the day.  Any tips on how to prevent that while still allowing the item to sell reasonably quickly?

 

Thanks,

Generator

If the last five are in the 7-10 million range and I'm wanting to sell fast, I'll post for like 5,000,001 or something similar. I only post something for less than a million influence if I don't care at all what it sells for.

[Obus Form]

OP, as previously mentioned above, it did happen on Live.

 

As @Yomo Kimyata and @Redlynne mentioned, you may find more success posting it at a reasonable price than posting it at 1 inf and expecting the normal market price.

[Grouchybeast]

I don't think anyone has mention this yet, but the last five price display is very buggy at the moment.

 

There is a significant amount of cross-wiring going on, so the last five prices you see might well be from the actual item plus a completely unrelated one.  If you see something where some of the prices are in the millions, and some are in the thousands, that's probably the cause.  But if it's an item where the prices are the same order of magnitude, or where one items sells a lot more frequently that the other, the prices might look consistent but still be misleading.

 

Hopefully the HC team will be able to fix it at some point, but until then, buyer AND seller need to beware.

Edited March 30, 2020 by Grouchybeast

[Yomo Kimyata]

But what is a reasonable price to post?

 

[screws in monocle and begins to monologue...]

 

People seem to be uncomfortable in choosing the "right" price to post their offerings.  I think part of that is that dumping is instant and easy, versus choosing a price is more work and may take a little time.  I think the other part of that is that people are afraid of posting too high and eventually having to eat the 5% posting fee.  If it's the latter, my rule of thumb is to let my offer sit for a week before I repost at a lower price.  5% is a drop in the bucket versus getting on with your life.  Shrug your shoulders and move on.

 

I think there are four basic categories of offers.  In order from fastest to slowest (and from lowest price to highest price):

 

1.  Sell it NAO.  As long as there is a bid outstanding, you are guaranteed to sell your item instantly if you offer it at 1.  A lot of people offer their items at 5, in order to make sure that they at least break even on listing fees.  Speed:  instant, so long as there is a bid outstanding.  The problem is that you have no idea what that bid is.  If you sell something NAO, you need to make your peace with the idea that you may sell it at the price you listed it for.  

 

2.  Sell it NEXT.  This is a method you can use when you want to be the very next person to sell to a "real" bidder.  If you are able to figure out what the highest outstanding bid is, then you offer at a level that is just above that level.  Example:  last 5 trades are:  10mm, 9mm, 10mm, 5mm, 8mm.  That's not a lot of information.  There is a "low" bid that got filled.  If I wanted to be the next seller, I'd offer it at just over 5mm.  That way, I'm not feeding the lowball bidder, but I should capture the first real bid that comes in.  I call this being the lowest outstanding offer (LOO).  Speed: generally pretty quick.  You are relying on a "real" bid coming in, but you don't know when that will be.  In my experience, I'd expect that to trade in minutes to hours, depending on the item,

 

3.  Sell it SOON(tm).  This is what I use for most of my sales.  I try to capture the high end of the range, but I want to sell it within a day or so.  In the example given above, we see that there are buyers at 10mm, but fishers at 9mm and 8mm, and lowballs at 5mm.  I'd like to sell to some of those 10mm bidders, but if I offer at 10mm, I'm going to lose out to anyone who offers less than 10mm.  In this case, I would probably offer at something just over 9mm.  Speed:  generally less than a day.  Almost always by the next time I log in that character (I alt a lot).

 

4.  Sell it SPENDY.  I almost never use this method unless there are less than five of the item in question currently offered, and I don't judge that there will be a lot of supply in the near future.  Given the example last 5 trades, and assuming zero items for offer, I'd offer somewhere north of 10mm.  How far north depends on the item.  Speed:  totally depends.  You could post at 12mm and sell for 15mm in minutes, or 10 more could come in for offer at under 10mm, and you could potentially be sitting on your offer for a long time.

 

If you have to sell right now, you are being held hostage to whatever bids are already out there.  If you can want minutes/hours/days, then you have a lot more power in realizing higher sales prices.

[MunkiLord]

5 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

But what is a reasonable price to post?

 

[screws in monocle and begins to monologue...]

 

People seem to be uncomfortable in choosing the "right" price to post their offerings.  I think part of that is that dumping is instant and easy, versus choosing a price is more work and may take a little time.  I think the other part of that is that people are afraid of posting too high and eventually having to eat the 5% posting fee.  If it's the latter, my rule of thumb is to let my offer sit for a week before I repost at a lower price.  5% is a drop in the bucket versus getting on with your life.  Shrug your shoulders and move on.

 

I think there are four basic categories of offers.  In order from fastest to slowest (and from lowest price to highest price):

 

1.  Sell it NAO.  As long as there is a bid outstanding, you are guaranteed to sell your item instantly if you offer it at 1.  A lot of people offer their items at 5, in order to make sure that they at least break even on listing fees.  Speed:  instant, so long as there is a bid outstanding.  The problem is that you have no idea what that bid is.  If you sell something NAO, you need to make your peace with the idea that you may sell it at the price you listed it for.  

 

2.  Sell it NEXT.  This is a method you can use when you want to be the very next person to sell to a "real" bidder.  If you are able to figure out what the highest outstanding bid is, then you offer at a level that is just above that level.  Example:  last 5 trades are:  10mm, 9mm, 10mm, 5mm, 8mm.  That's not a lot of information.  There is a "low" bid that got filled.  If I wanted to be the next seller, I'd offer it at just over 5mm.  That way, I'm not feeding the lowball bidder, but I should capture the first real bid that comes in.  I call this being the lowest outstanding offer (LOO).  Speed: generally pretty quick.  You are relying on a "real" bid coming in, but you don't know when that will be.  In my experience, I'd expect that to trade in minutes to hours, depending on the item,

 

3.  Sell it SOON(tm).  This is what I use for most of my sales.  I try to capture the high end of the range, but I want to sell it within a day or so.  In the example given above, we see that there are buyers at 10mm, but fishers at 9mm and 8mm, and lowballs at 5mm.  I'd like to sell to some of those 10mm bidders, but if I offer at 10mm, I'm going to lose out to anyone who offers less than 10mm.  In this case, I would probably offer at something just over 9mm.  Speed:  generally less than a day.  Almost always by the next time I log in that character (I alt a lot).

 

4.  Sell it SPENDY.  I almost never use this method unless there are less than five of the item in question currently offered, and I don't judge that there will be a lot of supply in the near future.  Given the example last 5 trades, and assuming zero items for offer, I'd offer somewhere north of 10mm.  How far north depends on the item.  Speed:  totally depends.  You could post at 12mm and sell for 15mm in minutes, or 10 more could come in for offer at under 10mm, and you could potentially be sitting on your offer for a long time.

 

If you have to sell right now, you are being held hostage to whatever bids are already out there.  If you can want minutes/hours/days, then you have a lot more power in realizing higher sales prices.

This is a good breakdown. For almost all non purple and PvP drops, I go with option 1, because it's easy and I'm lazy. If I'm converting or flipping for profit I'll generally pick number 3. Except for Numina's unique, that just sells slow and I'm not willing to go lower, so those sit for a weeks at a time.

[Gremlin]

I definitely saw low ball bids on live as well.

 

I've come to the conclusion that the best way to think about the market is "how well am I doing on average". If you're listing very low in order to sell very fast then you're going to give someone a bargain from time to time. Does this really matter to you? If it does then list at a higher price.

 

FWIW if you just want to sell something by tomorrow then it doesn't really matter if you list for 1 inf or 1/2 the going rate. It'll still sell.

[Ukase]

On 3/30/2020 at 11:39 PM, MunkiLord said:

This is a good breakdown. For almost all non purple and PvP drops, I go with option 1, because it's easy and I'm lazy. If I'm converting or flipping for profit I'll generally pick number 3. Except for Numina's unique, that just sells slow and I'm not willing to go lower, so those sit for a weeks at a time.

I guess I need to raise my prices. Mine sell daily. I convert and probably sell 10 of them a day and seem to always get about 10% more than what I ask. 

[MunkiLord]

11 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I guess I need to raise my prices. Mine sell daily. I convert and probably sell 10 of them a day and seem to always get about 10% more than what I ask. 

Numina is somewhat intentional on my part. I like craft and convert in batches of 30-150. While the margins are good at the price I post for, they aren’t good enough for me to do it everyday. Also it’s been like six weeks since I actually did Numina, so the price may be higher or lower.