Winter Pack strategy

[Ukase]

So..you've bought them. Some of you - a ton of them. One friend said he got 10 billion worth. His strategy - sell the winter Os at the going rate - which seems to be 6-12M, depending on time of day and which ones. 


It wasn't but a couple of months ago, even the Entombed, the red-headed step-child of Winter-Os (just an expression, no need for the red-heads to bash me) were selling for over 20m. 

I ask you - is the bird in the hand (the sale today or tomorrow for 10m) worth 20M 6 months from now? 

The market is a fickle beast. So many packs, so many winter-Os are not necessarily "in circulation", but are in player's email/base storage/ah slots. If HC continues to discount winter packs in December for the foreseeable future, are enough in circulation to keep the price as low as it is now? Only time will tell. 

Some of our more clever, sinister marketers are already trying to determine a winning strategy - loosely defined as that would be different for many of us. 

I think some are buying up these winter-Os at the current sub-10M price, hoping to double their inf 4-6 months from now. Not a bad strategy, if it comes to fruition. Others will keep a stash just to try to market pvp it a bit to keep the prices low. 

It's going to be interesting! 

 

[Coyotedancer]

FlyingCodeMonkey and I have just been picking up and opening packs or lowball bidding on Winter Os on the market with the idea of filling a storage bin in one of our bases.... Nothing too cagey or too complicated. 

 

Then again, we're not looking to turn a profit... We're just making a stash to equip our own potential alts. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[Crimson621]

My strategy thus far has been to buy a few dozen packs, impatiently sell the components, and then grumble that I'm only breaking even.  I'm not sure it's a strategy that I can strongly endorse at this time.

[Ura Hero]

I bought 200 and stored them for future builds.   I had thought to turn them around, but I realized I would just spend the influence on the same thing I sold in a few weeks.  Selling didn't seem to make much sense after some thought.

[EdgeOfDreams]

I started the winter event with about 200 mil, which is the most I've ever saved up. I've been buying Winter packs, opening them, and selling most of the contents for pretty much the whole event so far. Started out doing 10 at a time, then upgraded to 20 and now 30. The steady profit from that has brought me up to around 800 mil now. I'm thinking I'll probably hit 1 billion, then buy 100 packs to re-sell after the event. That should bring me to the inf cap for the first time, which is a fun personal achievement.

[Ukase]

It would seem that some are either desperate for inf, or are just trying to be strangely helpful. Or maybe they're dim-witted. Can't say. 

Several of the Superior winters are selling for less than the non-catalyzed. It's not just a one-off as far as I can tell. Several of them across all sets are selling for less than 5M. When I think about how much a catalyst sells for it makes me question the intellect of the seller. But, things don't have to make sense to me to be fun for someone else. I thought about buying them to see how cheaply I can get them, but I already have more than I need. I think it's only fair to leave something for the up and coming marketers. 

But I sure would like to know why they're selling them THAT cheap. 

Edited December 24, 2020 by Ukase

[Ukase]

The marketer in the real world recognizes Christmas to bring folks in the store to increase sales and profit. 
The marketer in CoH? I think they'd get more out of just dropping random Winter-Os and packs and inf on other characters in game. But...what the heck do I know? The more I think I know, the more I realize I don't know much at all. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

Well, it appears that prices have rebounded from their lows.  It seems to me there are a few simple ways to profit:

 

1. Buy pack, open now, sell contents now.  Seems profitable.

2. Buy pack, wait, sell pack after event is over.  
3.  Buy pack, wait, open and sell contents after event is over.

 

As I said in another post, I’ve been creating synthetic Winter packs: 1.2 WOs and 50 converters.  I’ve been replicating them for a well under 10mm a pop.  I also bought a thousand packs to consider for the future.  But I’m certainly not buying as much as some people!

 

I will say, I’m using WOs a lot more than normal.  For new alts under lvl 17-22, I’ve been using WOs until other set IOs come into play.

[EmperorSteele]

I'm gonna sell the packs at just below HC's price. Winter packs going for 20m? I'll sell for 17.5-19m, though i have to see what people are willing to pay while others are doing the same thing, and what others are willing to sell at. I'm sure a few people will dump a bunch for like 10,000,001 and eat the loss just for lolz.

[Yomo Kimyata]

46 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

I'm gonna sell the packs at just below HC's price. Winter packs going for 20m? I'll sell for 17.5-19m, though i have to see what people are willing to pay while others are doing the same thing, and what others are willing to sell at. I'm sure a few people will dump a bunch for like 10,000,001 and eat the loss just for lolz.

I’ve already set noob traps and will set more after the event!

[Ukase]

5 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 noob traps 

This amused me. 

[tidge]

15 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I will say, I’m using WOs a lot more than normal.  For new alts under lvl 17-22, I’ve been using WOs until other set IOs come into play.

This isn't a bad (gameplay) strategy at all; I do the same thing with Overwhelming Force and pieces of catalyzed PVP recipes. In practice, I'm unlikely to follow that advice for Winter pieces since I will usually use the ATO first, and then there aren't a lot of slots to invest in the Winters.

 

As far as market strategy: I'm staying out of the Winter pack market, except to

• buy up some packs for alts that (may) eventually want Winter pieces
• buy up cheap converters from the market

The converters are my long-term strategy: that's usually how I get 80% of the specific ATO, Very Rare and PVP pieces I want for builds, plus normal market-play of course.

[CrudeVileTerror]

My spouse is working with the regular Super Packs right now, and making an absolute killing!

Seems with so many people migrating to the Winter Packs during the sale that the regular Packs have been left relatively "unguarded."

Don't mind spoiling it now since there's only about a week left.

[Yomo Kimyata]

17 hours ago, Ukase said:

This amused me. 

I use the term to refer to setting lowball bids on something that someone spent a lot of inf on, but is willing to sell for a ridiculously low amount of inf.  I used them to pick off a few lvl 53 HOs; I bought a lot of WOs that way; it still fuels my ATO-traders.

 

I should probably come up with a nicer term, but people willing to spend 10+mm on things really shouldn't offer them at prices lower than they are willing to accept...

[wjrasmussen]

20 hours ago, Krimson said:

I'm giving entire sets to friends. 😂 

That's why we love you.

Merry Christmas,

Your Friend.

[dopeninja]

I have um... a few packs sitting on a market toon. Don't really need the cash, but had it to burn. I'll hock the packs later or crack them and sell the bits and pieces. I make money either way. At the beginning I opened probably 100 or so and tossed the IO's on the market for around 10m, converted Brainstorms into salvage and hocked all of those. The insps went too. Some sold for more than others. I'm sure I'll make plenty over the next 6 months and be ready for next year.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I have begun to sell off some of my WOs.  I figure a 8-10mm profit is sufficient.

[Sakai]

I was curious how this was going for you guys. 

 

I am glad to see the items I dabble in going for stupid prices on the weekend again. 

[Ukase]

I did a test batch of winter-o's, selling 10 of them for pre-sale price. It took 9 days, but they all sold for more than my asking price at 26M (superiors). They all came from the 10M winter packs, so it was a nice, warm & fuzzy feeling. And the display suggested that someone had listed some for far less. I couldn't even see the ones I sold in the history. 

Also, I didn't make a note today, but for 3 days, I did. 
 

Winter pack count		3-Feb-21	3498
Winter pack bids		3-Feb-21	2479
Avg. Price			19.5M
Winter pack count		2/4/2021	3269
Winter pack bids		2/4/2021	2480
Avg. Price			19.5M
Winter pack count		2/5/2021	3203
Winter pack bids		2/5/2021	2470
Avg. Price			15.3M

 

Thought some of you might find that interesting. The "count" doesn't include the seeded 10M packs the devs seeded. Those are player packs listed for resale. 

 

[FrauleinMental]

I've been doing a little of each.  I spent nearly all of my spare inf (10B) on 1,000 Winter Packs.

 

I resold 100 Winter Packs last month for 15M each just to get back a little seed money (after the listing fees I had less than 100M inf left).  I resold another 100 last week for 19M each, and I have another 100 still listed on the market for 24M each (figuring they'll sell eventually but I don't need the inf right now).  I still have 200 Winter Packs in my inventory, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with those yet.

 

So I've opened 500 Winter Packs (yikes!) and most of the winter-o's have been selling for around 15M each (except for the Entomb set, which I've been converting).  I'm about halfway through the sales of those.  I'm at about 5B inf liquid, plus 2B I've already spent on other stuff, plus 4B worth of stuff posted for sale, plus 3-4B worth of stuff (once it sells) still sitting in my email.  (Frighteningly, AH fees have hit 1B inf...)

[Troyusrex]

I just started selling my Winter-Os in bulk. I went a little (ok... a LOT) nuts this winter. I spent all my considerable fortune buying and opening winter packs. Then I sold every scrap of inventory and bought winter packs. Then I pulled the enhancements out of some of my alts an bought yet more winter packs. I even took all the reward merits and brainstorm items I got from opening those packs, made sellable items, sold the items and bought yet more packs. What I didn't sell too many of was the Winter-O. 

 

Until now... 

[Yomo Kimyata]

The silver lining to this supply deluge is that people started selling into my noob traps again.

[JustRyan]

I invested 3 billion in December. I'm sitting on 5 billion right now. I still have a bunch of winters for sale, but I would say the strategy works if you're patient.

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

I have now sold about half my supply of WOs that I've picked up on the cheap, but have not dipped into the 1k packs I picked up.  Although I think it is possible that prices on WOs go up from here, it's a sweet enough spot for me. 

 

Ironically, I've been buying winter packs in the secondary (not in huge numbers, but enough) for two reasons:  1. I started a second account and I wanted to seed the Character Items inventory with merits (for when I don't feel like buying converters in the AH) and 2. It may not be cost effective, but if I have an alt that needs a WO set, I'd rather just buy packs until I have the number of WOs that I need and convert them until I have exactly what I want.  It saves me from emailing myself or spending the time buying it in the secondary market.

[Black_Assassin]

This winter pack round is my first round dipping into it, purely because last year I was a bit brain afk but also didn't have the spare capital at the time or inclination to build it. 

 

This time round I had enough to purchase 1k and have a very small amount of change spare, and selling that on has left me in a comfortable position now till next winter sale. (33B currently in liquidity at a rough estimate) 

 

I don't play enough (only weekends sometimes) to really need to aggressively market/convert like I used to when I was in the building stage and played way more often. So now I simply keep a vague eye on things and only really do some fiddling here and there that nets me profits but with the minimal input. So mostly for me its big item converting and straight flipping in a few areas.

 

It works for me, as I doubt that I will ever significantly deplete the nest egg. Just need to wait on when the devs work out how to convert Influence to IRL monies, as I wouldn't mind 33B quid. 🤑