The Pure Marketeer

[Andreah]

Are any of you "Pure Marketeers"?

 

A pure marketeer, as I define it here, would be a money-making strategy which did not act as value-added processing, but only as an arbitrage. Buy low, resell high. Not buying inputs, creating a more valuable product, and then selling it.

 

A pure marketeer might also farm, craft recipes, and do conversions, but only on things they acquired via missions and play, not buying purely for that reason. 

 

There's probably a better term for it.

 

Back on live, I was what I would consider a pure marketeer, and did pretty well with it. I bought and resold recipes, salvage, purple IOs, and a few other things. I never stockpiled them for later use, only to buffer my sales. Iirc, I could generally get a 30 or 40% margin on things, and there was pretty good volume. 

 

I think margins here on HC tend to be slimmer, which is a sign of a more efficient (less inefficient?) market. This may be due to a higher density of knowledgeable players, or just the bucketing of the market at work -- fewer narrow niches dominated by the stochastics.

 

The big advantage I saw was it did not require a lot of in-game activity; once you knew your markets and had things set up, it was a high profit/time and profit/mouse-click activity, 

 

So, again, do any of you do this, and how well does it work for you?

 

 

[AboveTheChemist]

49 minutes ago, Andreah said:

A pure marketeer might also farm, craft recipes, and do conversions, but only on things they acquired via missions and play, not buying purely for that reason. 

I generally fit this definition. When I started on HC I knew nothing of the market and tried most of the various strategies listed in the many wonderful marketeering guides on the forums. As my marketeering knowledge grew, and as I settled into a pattern of creating and playing alts, I found I derived the most enjoyment and more than ample income from crafting and selling those resources that I acquire via normal gameplay.

 

I keep all salvage drops, maintaining a modest supply in my base (periodically either selling off any excess or using that excess to craft common IOs that earn a modest profit). I only craft recipes I receive from drops, and even then I only craft those that don't require rare salvage unless they are PvP/Very Rare or can be sold for more than 2 million without conversion. I've recently also stopped crafting level 50 recipes due to crafting cost. I redeem merits for converters, and any enhancement that I've crafted that can't be insta-sold for 2 million gets converted to something that will net me at least 2 million. The only time I might have to go to the AH for resources is the rare occasion that I run out of an uncommon salvage type, but I probably don't need to buy more than 10 or 20 pieces of uncommon salvage a year to maintain my on-hand supply.

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 hours ago, Andreah said:

 

A pure marketeer, as I define it here, would be a money-making strategy which did not act as value-added processing, but only as an arbitrage. Buy low, resell high. Not buying inputs, creating a more valuable product, and then selling it.

 

 

This sounds perilously close to what the kids nowadays call "flipping," which is the scourge of Primal Earth, ad makes Ms. Liberty cry...

[Andreah]

I deliberately didn't use the "Flipping" term, because from where I've been, this is buying, fixing up, and reselling for a profit, generally in a rising market. So, if one buys, for example, IO's in certain sets, and then converts them more valuable ones in the same set, or into rarer sets, or uniques, this would be flipping in that sense. 

 

To me, buying something only to immediately relist it higher for a profit is speculation (time-arbitrage) -- buying in today's market where prices are relatively low, with the intent of selling in tomorrow's market where prices are relatively high. I'm more likely to call this time-arbitrage, because it's working with the spread over time of the typical seller's impatience to unload, even at a lower price, and the typical buyer's impatience to acquire the asset, even at a higher price. A time-arbitrageur is trading their willingness to hold onto an asset for a while for a cut of the spread, less a second round of market fees.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I kid, I kid.  

 

I wouldn't call it arbitrage, as that is defined as riskless and instantaneous (our old friend brainstorm ideas sometimes fit that bill).  I'd probably call it market-making, or speculation.

 

I'd say it's 1-5% of my business, and really only stuff that can't be converted.

 

For all intents and purposes, I buy converters in bulk at 50-70k and do the equivalent of selling them for a million each...

[Andreah]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'd probably call it market-making, or speculation.

The features of the auction in CoH are pretty limited compared to real world markets, and the terminology isn't always a good match.

 

I mean, what I wouldn't give to be able to short-sell Winterpacks in November. 😄

[Yomo Kimyata]

11 minutes ago, Andreah said:

The features of the auction in CoH are pretty limited compared to real world markets, and the terminology isn't always a good match.

 

I mean, what I wouldn't give to be able to short-sell Winterpacks in November. 😄

 

To be fair, even in the real world the nomenclature isn't really accurate.   But having "risk arbitrage" as your stated strategy makes it a lot easier to raise capital than calling it "merger speculation."

 

And in theory, you could.  Find a counter-party who owns a lot of winter packs and enter into a contract with them where you borrow the packs from them and promise to replace the packs plus a profit a month later.  The problem, of course, if finding that counter-party (and enforcing the contract).  

[iBot]

I can't say I'd fit your definition since I don't buy things on the AH to turn around and sell them.  I do however sell everything that I earn as I play.  All salvage goes on the AH and any set recipe that sells for more than I can vendor it as well though lately I've been lazy and just sell these on the AH as well for say 1000 inf.  All normal (TO, DO, SO) enh and generic IO recipes I vendor.  When I go to outfit a new character I just buy back what I want when I want it.  So ultimately I'd guess you could say I convert all my loot into a liquid asset that I then use later to acquire the loot I want without the messy need of storing all that stuff myself.  I let the market store it for me.

[Hew]

I buy attuneds on the ah to convert and sometimes sell, but mostly because something popped up worth a lot of money and lets me buy another attuned to convert to what i want

 

[Ukase]

On 5/9/2021 at 3:06 PM, Andreah said:

I think margins here on HC tend to be slimmer, which is a sign of a more efficient (less inefficient?) market. This may be due to a higher density of knowledgeable players, or just the bucketing of the market at work -- fewer narrow niches dominated by the stochastics.

 

So, again, do any of you do this, and how well does it work for you?

 

 

I think the margins here are slimmer simply because of population. I couldn't possibly remember what each server pop was back then, but my guess is Excelsior is probably as populated as one of the smaller pop servers back in live. And we only have 5 servers, as opposed to...what was it, a dozen? I used to try to amuse myself by trying to recite them by memory when I was doing mundane things like cutting the grass. I never could. Triumph, Guardian, Champion, Infinity, Virtue, Freedom, Justice, Liberty, Pinnacle..looks like I forgot about Vigilance, Union, Victory, Defiant and Exalted. 

But as to your question, I have certainly bought an item and flipped it for a slightly higher price, if that's what you're asking. But I certainly don't do that exclusively. It makes me feel bad to take something that's under-valued and relist it, even though I know it was sold too cheaply. I have tons of influence, and there may have been someone who wanted that item, and I got it instead of them. Now they have to pay more, because some fool thought an lotg 7.5% was only worth 5m, when it's clear folks are willing to pay 7m. 

[TheSpiritFox]

I was gonna say yes but then I saw your definition and I guess no I'm primarily a craft converter, 99% of my income comes from running TFs and using merits entirely to buy converters and converting until I get shit that's worth money.