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Path of Exile | 2022 Complexity Of Item Pricing And Trading
This game has a lot of systems within it that either make things harder or try and make things easier to do. Because of this there no simple straightforward way of doing things. There are a plethora of ways of going about achieving the same goal.
Unlike other modern day games, Path of Exile has an old-world feel towards it when it comes to player trading. There is no in-game auction house for you to list your items and have another player to buy of theirs.
Instead, you have to list items in a way for the API to pick it up so then it is listed on a third party site or the games external trade page. The buyer and seller then have to meet up and exchange items. There are other methods such as a listed item in trade channel or trying to find a buyer or seller on the forms. Using the API is the method I use and there are a couple of ways to do so.
The first step is acquiring an item to sell. You can either do this by looting or buying an item that you expect to resell at a higher price due to market speculation of the value of the item.
Next, you need to do research if you are uncertain of current economic conditions. There are so many items and stats on them have such a high range of rolls. It can be very hard to find a perfect comparable when trying to determine a price.
In this instance, I will be using The Dancing Dervish which I looted a few days ago but have been unable to sell and need to adjust the price.
Next, I’ll be searching for comparable trying to price this item for softcore bestiary league. If I was playing something like hardcore this item would be worth quite a bit more. SAince when people die there, the toon and gear it had equipped are moved to standard league. Thus creating an upward pressure on price for many items.
I’ll be using Grinding Gear’s Website to search the database to come up with a new price. My old price was 3 Chaos Orbs (6 Orb of Alchemy). That was a few days ago. I also came up with that price during non-peak hours with less competition and thus It overvalued slightly hoping for a sale during those hours.
So we got back 861 matches for this item. It is no longer such a luxury good as it was a couple of days ago. I’m also searching going into peak USA time zone and with EU peak ending shortly. This search only includes those online and not offline. Depending on the time zone(s) that plays a major role in supply and demand.
The first couple of entries are not for very promising for this item any longer. I usually skip over these people as they are either resellers listing items they are not selling trying to snipe at a discount or they are looking for a quick sale and discounted the item.
After moving down only a couple of items I can see the base price is 1 Orb of Alchemy. Next up I need look at what adds value to the base of this item and what does not. Also is there anything that would have a negative impact on the price?
All The Dancing Dervish have the same extract values for the following:
Normal set values with no range in stat rolls:
- 40% Increased Accuracy Rating
- 5% Increased Movement Speed
Specific to this item and reason why someone would be buying it for a specific build:
- Rampage
- Triggers Level 15 Manifest Dancing Dervish on Rampage
- Manifested Dancing Dervish Disables Both Weapon Slots
- Manifested Dancing Dervish Dies when Rampage Ends
Differences in stat range rolls and sockets:
- Increased Physical Damage
- Increased Attack Speed
- Number of Sockets
- Color of Sockets
- Number of Linked Sockets
Negative impact on the price:
This item, in particular, is a Unique meaning you cannot roll extra stats on it using a craft Master. However, the buyer would know this going into this kind of purchase since they were searching for this exact Unique in the first place (or presumed to be.)
Such an example would be this 6-linked chest. I looted it and it was corrupted. That means you can’t change the socket color, links, add stats, or even increase the quality of the item. Thus I discounted it based on that knowledge. People often buy things not understanding what “corrupted” means then get angry and claim you scammed them.
No, you bought a deeply discounted item for a fraction of the price. Thinking I must be a fool who did not understand how to price it or simply type in the wrong value. If they act like a flaming blank I just say all sales are final have a nice day. No need to be nice to a nasty person and do a refund. The item was sold in good faith and nasty people I blocked for vulgar language making it not possible for communicating anymore.
I myself do not know what build would want to use The Dancing Dervish. It’s also not priced at a point where I would want spend time trying to better understand it.
My Item itself has 2 green linked sockets. With only 2 out of 4 sockets (max of 4 for this item) someone buying this would more than likely be rerolling for more sockets or has no need for them. As such I will disregard that. We are also more than a week into the league and the price of creating three linked+ sockets of the color someone is looking for is not as hard as it was at the start. This will only play a factor if there are others with 3-4 linked sockets at the base price and thus the opportunity cost of trying to sell it might not be worthwhile.
As a result, I’ll focus on the 2 other stats: Increased Physical Damage (caps at 190%), and Increased Attack Speed (caps at 30%). As such I apply a search filter with these two things in it. I’ll run a couple of quarries’ to see how prices are for below and above my exact stats and see how big of a difference it makes in price.
This brings down total results from 861 to 86 to 166 depending on how exact of a match I look at. If someone looking save a little bit they might choose something for 1 orb of Alchemy that is 5-20% difference on my stats I have. After bypassing some prices that are lowballing.
Closer matched comparable to what I have are starting around 1 Chaos Orbs (2 Orb of Alchemy). After skipping what look like lowball offers or resellers. There is however not many between 1 Chaos Orb and 3 Chaos Orbs (6 Orb of Alchemy). This will change over time as more people are online during peak hours.
Now I could take the risk and invest further into this item by spending currency trying to make this 4 linked socket item. While the prices are slightly higher it’s not worth the risk as I suspect I would be upside down and taking a loss on this item. I also, however, do not have anything that would guarantee a 4 linked item at this time and it’s not worth the gamble.
I happen to know it’s not selling at 3 Chaos Orbs. As such going into peak hours for time zones I’ve listed above I’ll start by reducing the price down to 2 Chaos Orbs (I value this currently slightly overpriced but I’m in no rush to sell.) I have no way of knowing if other people are just resellers or lowballing. So I will let this item sit at that price for a couple of hours. By then it will be towards the middle to end peak playtime and thus I’ll lower my price down to 1 Chaos Orbs.
If it does not sell by tomorrow I’ll switch the price to 2 Orb of Alchemy. Then a further down to just 1 Orb of Alchemy till it sells or I can fill the space with more cost-effective per slot item.
This particular item is taking up 8 slots in my perineum stash tab. I do not wish to run the third party application that many f2p players do to increase my sales slot by utilizing more of my stash tabs. I simply don’t want to find the download, have to quarry an update to scan my stash tabs I’ve marketed it to check, price out the items in that tab in the program, have it update so it makes a trading post on the forms wait for the API to scan my trade post and update its listing. Then, after making a sale go in and remove the item from the program and update again to have it removed from the post and being listed.
Instead, I paid the convenience tax of a couple of bucks to buy a perineum tab from where I can place items in that tab (it also supports this f2p game and keeps the cash shop rather fair to the players. So it’s a win-win for everyone I think.) I put the item in there, I set a price, it auto updates the rest including when that item is no longer in that tab. Much more convenient! I’m also lazy and rather be running more maps than playing item seller all day.
Up next someone will have to search for that item. Compare if they want to pay 1 Orb of Alchemy for lower end ones. 1-2 Chaos Orbs (2-4 Orb of Alchemy )for medium to higher end stats if those people are even selling at 1 chaos orb. They could also buy a near perfect or perfect one if there is one for sale starting around 4 or more Chaos Orbs (8+ Orb of Alchemy).
The buyer could also luck out and find someone who just slaps up one for sale for 1 Orb of Alchemy. However, some resellers and people wanting to buy at the price point will be running a live search hoping to snipe it at that price. Creating competition and a bunch of people spamming some poor guy within moments of each other hoping to get it.
If someone does find my item to their interest or is unable to find one within a reasonable amount of time that is cheaper (lower value items are less likely to interrupt a players map run. Some also prefer just doing a bunch of lower end trades in at once.) I myself will not sell items for less than 1 Orb of Alchemy as I do not value it worth the opportunity cost.
The search form has a button you can click to copy a message and then you paste it in game. I would get a message such as “Hi, I would like to buy you The Dancing Dervish Reaver Sword listed for 2 chaos in Bestiary (stash tab "Sell"; position: left 10, top 9).
I would then invite this person to my party. I would portal to my hideout. They would then join my hideout and I would open up a trade with them for us to exchange the items after I pulled the item out of my stash tab.
Barring any scam like behavior the trade goes off without issues and I’m a little bit richer with more space in my sells tab to offload more items! They are the proud owner of some item they wanted for their build that fills whatever role they needed it for.
I did wait a couple of minutes before posting this to see in that final part happened with anything I have for sale currently. Alas, it did not! I have been lazy and not redone most of my prices in 24 hours. I also have been offline for most of the day.
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Screenshots taken and content written by @enjar.
Screenshots from Path of Exile a free to play game developed by Grinding Gear Games.
