If you are already a master economist in games, these things might not be as beneficial to you. But I get asked so many questions within the realm of these tips regularly in my trade guild, my channel or by new players. That I wanted to give a solid breakdown, whoever can benefit. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExGoxCjddok

To master the economy in The Elder Scrolls Online (and similar MMOs), you must shift your perspective from simple farming to strategic wealth management. Below is a structured guide based on my personal obsessive experience in video game economies.

1. Optimizing Time and Opportunity Cost
Calculate Your Worth: Determine how much gold you earn per hour (in the best farms you know). If you need an item that takes one hour to farm but costs less than your hourly wage to buy, it is usually more efficient to perform a more lucrative activity, sell those items and simply purchase the item and have the rest of the gold left over.

Avoid "Free" Traps: Many players waste time performing manual tasks to "save" small amounts of gold. Always consider if the time spent on those tasks could have generated significantly more wealth elsewhere. So if you can farm 1,000g in 1 minute (extremely easy to do even more) then running to a Wayshrine to save yourself small chunks of change is often NOT a good investment. Similar can be said for deconstructing 1g trash gear due to it's low material drop rates, or even vendoring something instead of searching prices and listing it on the TP for slightly more.

2. Viewing Inventory as Assets
Everything is Gold: My advice? Stop seeing items as just gear or materials; view your entire inventory as a future liquid asset. Every object has a market value, when you get a drop it can definitely just be whatever item it is. But I find it farm more beneficial to think "Oooo nice! That mob just dropped 30,000g for me!, That Urn just dropped 2,000,000g!!"

Net Worth vs. Cash: Real wealth is often found in the value of your stored goods, not just the gold in your purse. Make sure to check your stashes and see if you are holding onto secret valuables which could be getting you to your financial goals.

3. Capitalizing on Market Inefficiencies
Garage Sale Shopping: Regularly visit various guild traders to find underpriced items. You will very often find materials or items you recognize and can make use out of, for far cheaper than they usually go for or cheaper than your time to farm them. You can also flip these by listing them at a proper market price in high traffic Trade Post hubs.

Provide Missing Services: Players often pay premiums for convenience. Perform the "boring" labor (like gathering rare materials or grinding specific drop rate items) that others are too impatient or lazy to do themselves. Unlike real life, your hard labor and determination can literally be the difference between rich and poor lol.

4. Strategic Selling and Timing
Sell at Peaks: When new content is released, demand for new items (motifs, patterns, furniture, new materials etc.) are at their highest. Sell these items immediately while prices are inflated, and repurchase them weeks or months later once the market cools down to keep the profit. Some players, especially rich players, whales etc don't want to wait. They want the items and collectables immediately. But if you are short on coin, and have patience. This is the method I would recommend for financial efficiency.

5. Mastering Trade Locations
Know Your Trader's Value: High-traffic locations: >Mournhold<(#1), Vivec, Wayrest, Elden Root, Solitude, Alinor and such) command higher prices because of natural foot traffic, historical trade hierarchy/culture and popular spots to hang out.

Adapt to Your Location: If your guild trader is in a "niche" location, accept that you will need to offer deeper discounts to attract buyers who search via third-party tools like TTC (Tamriel Trade Centre). Your lower prices act as a service to your guild by driving traffic to their location, so you definitely can still sell. But usually not at the highest premiums you would at say, Mournhold.

Weekly Trade Post Costs: Many players, especially new ones are quite confused about the bidding and cost aspect to trade posts for guilds. And especially unsure about the donations or required dues many guilds have. So I just wanted to touch a bit on the vague cost brackets for trader locations. On PC-NA these days, the cheapest Trade Post Locations tend to be Near 1 million when lucky, these spots are off in the boonies, in trade dens and by themselves with low natural foot traffic. Larger cities which are less popular than the main spots climb into the 1.3-2.5 million range. More popular spots fluctuate into the multiple millions 2-7+ million or so. And Mournhold I believe is still in the tens of millions even in the current economy. But there were times in the past, when those locations reached into 100-200 million for ONE WEEK. It is a far different bracket of trade post zone.

The final thing to note: is that every item sold at a trader has a 7% tax. But 3.5% of it is sent to the shadow realm. And the guild only receives the remaining 3.5%. So if all of your guild sells enough items in a week to equal 5,000,000g. The guild will have only got 175,000g in taxes. So a small fraction of the weekly trader dues. The smallest and least visited trader costing around 1 million, would need to sell 29,000,000g in items within 1 week to come out in the green for that week with zero donations or dues. My guild for example, has no dues and has some kind souls who donate weekly. But even with donations & taxes combined, I usually run the guild at a major loss out of my pocket by -80-90% or more on a slower sale week. And has done for years.

The second to last one (Weekly Trade Post Costs) is a bit taboo in the Trade Guild world, and I did not get overly specific for the same reasons many don't talk about it at all. Which is that competition is cut throat lol. But that should at least help you understand a little bit about what is going on there, what you could be getting yourself into if wanting to start a trade guild. And the financial demand of each guild maintaining one.

Hope this helped some folks! ^.^
GL HF out there & happy selling!

-ESO Feanor