Is the market dead?

blacksghost

The prices for jewellery drops so fast that no sooner have you listed it the price is dropped and you are over charging. Only bait seems to have risen in price. Mats stalled but are picking up again volume wise if not price.

I seriously can’t see how anyone sells 3mil per week the time involved farming that amount of stuff to sell consistently is just insane.

WuffyCerulei

Ya gotta keep up with market trends and whatnot. Certain things sell better each patch. Things like rarer motifs, gold mats, popular alchemy mats (spell/weapon power, columbine, bugloss, etc.), rare recipes, popular sets (Necropotence and Mother's Sorrow), and XP pots sell pretty well.

LadyHeloise

The market isn't dead, it's just changing because of jewellery and Summerset. Sets aren't selling much but jewellery is, as are the usual ingredients/mats. I'm finding furniture is still selling, though not as much unless it is the new stuff of course, and recipes etc are doing ok too. The guilds I am in that have spots in the usually popular places have had lower sales since Summerset as people are still focused there. This will all even out in time, when people finish Summerset and go back to other areas again. Prices on some motifs especially are dropping rapidly, so you need to be prepared to keep a regular eye on prices and adjust accordingly.

Chaos2088

My sales have gone up since Summerset......No idea what I am doing different.

MLGProPlayer

Some possible reasons why:

1. Your trader location sucks
2. You're overpricing your items
3. You aren't selling in-demand items

Asardes

I usually discount gear at MM average -10% to 20% and I have no problem selling it. I don't flip, just sell what happens to drop and I don't need, and it has the prospect of selling higher than the component materials I would get by deconstructing. I even sell low level materials I get from writs, and quite a lot of them. Generally I aim to sell lots of items at low prices. For example one week I've managed to make 300K sales in a guild, selling 150 items, so an average of about 2K per item. There's money to be made if you price them right.

I always sell the low value items first and keep the more valuable ones, especially if they are materials and I can stack them in my craft bag for periods when I don't have any of the cheap stuff. For example I have plenty of legendary upgrades and some stacks are reaching the tipping point (1K) where I start selling them; also I have a few hundred motif pages from the event and I haven't bothered to sell them yet because prices are still low. I will probably start selling the latter in about a month. The Worm Cult ones I won't sell till maybe October-December since they are seasonal and the further the drop period is, the more expensive they become; same with Dubious Camoran Throne recipes. Right now I'm selling purple jewelry for 2-3K and using the lower quality one to level the craft on some characters; it will be slow but I also don't have any reason to hurry since tier 5 writ rewards aren't much better than tier 1, and also tier 1 is almost infinitely sustainable since it requires few pewter ounces, almost the same you get back at the end. But I do profit from other people's eagerness to level the skill, I suppose they purchase the purple ones for deconstruction. I can get plenty of purple upgrades deconstructing BoP drops from dungeons, and gold from trials so it's a good deal for me.

In the end I really don't allot much time to trade - hence no flipping - since most of my needs are met. I'm pretty much independent and only make very specific purchases when needed. I buy refined materials regularly to keep writs going while stashing the surveys for longer periods and getting them when I've stacked multiple I've had up to 20 at the same location. I also buy missing motifs once I'm done farming for myself, also some blueprints. Buying lots of items in bulk saves time and money, since doing so I can afford to go to less popular traders and get a discount - it takes a couple of hours visiting all kiosks in the open. But in the long run those purchases barely make a dent. I don't make spectacular profits in the short run, but they do add up in the long run, with minimal effort.

TheCyberDruid

Prices are dropping on PC EU which hurts item flippers the most. Had a lengthy discussion about it yesterday in one of my guilds. I still make decent money as I'm farming things myself and don't mind adapting to the lower prices.

JumpmanLane

Money can be made flipping jewelry mats. Jewelry too, to a degree. On pcna, buy low everywhere, sell high in Rawlka. Use Master Merchant and awesome guild trader. EZPZ.

Skullstachio

not as easy for guild traders in Vvardenfell, if it is anything like the market stock exchange, it always fluctuates according to these:

• Consumer Demand.
• Prices.
• Rarity of said goods.
• popular/semi-popular area that players frequent guild shops when needed.

I'm pretty sure there's more than I am letting on, but each to their own.

fred4

What surprised me was that Worm Cult motif chapters fell as soon as the event was extended and never picked up again, thereafter. No matter. You just use MM to figure out what sells and what the trends are.

Hakeijo, gold materials and, especially, the purple jewelry temper are all pretty steady, on PC EU. Chromium is falling, but only very gradually. The Triune material is also pretty steady and, finally, gives us a way to convert AP to gold at a decent rate, without having to wait for the weekend vendor to sell an in-demand item.

I find it is hugely important to the speed of your sales that you are in the very best guild. On PC EU that's Tamriel Trader's Guild (TTG), with The Travelling Merchant probably the next best one. Both are typically located on the front row, in Belkarth, which is the prime sales spot on PC EU. This differs by platform. I sell in another guild, which is on the rear row of traders and the difference in turnover is marked. I also sell in a guild in Windhelm, and the difference is night and day.

To sell in TTG you need to sell 100K+ every week (at time of writing), but that really is no big deal, if you have some working capital. A lot of people don't like the RNG from refining, so they sell raw materials. Refine those and sell what you get, especially the gold tempers, and you can keep up a steady sales volume, even if you have nothing to sell that you make a real profit on. Do your daily crafting writs on multiple characters (if you have them) for a chance at more gold materials and the occasional expensive writ. Writs tend to sell for around 500 gold per writ voucher. Jewelry writs won't sell, though, since the material prices are still disproportionately high.

IC key fragments have pretty steady prices. Pyandonean bottles also look pretty steady so far (but not my thing), as is the old Perfect Roe. Alchemy ingredients fluctuate a bit, but are always good to sell. In fact, they have been the best way to convert Tel Var to gold, on PC EU, if more labor intensive than selling Hakeijo. You want to make potions and craft prismatic glyphs for a small extra margin.

Sorry, if my post is mostly PvP-focused. It's because that's what I do most.

peacenote

I have found it difficult to flip since... yep, I want to say Homestead. Might be just me but literally just the amount of items in the market seem to make the whole "mini-game" more complicated.

Things got even worse after the last anniversary event, which I enjoyed but made the motif market extra complicated.

I still sell things, and am actually doing well in Summerset, but on boring stuff, like cheap furniture patterns, cooking patterns, and all the white intricates. Crafting gold tempers are commodities and there is little margin.

What I think is happening is that there is a wide gap in the playerbase. There's a chunk of players who have been around FOREVER and most of those folks can buy whatever for any cost and don't care. Then there are lots of new players. Really inexperienced players. And they need the basic stuff. That's why I think I am able to sell boring items but flipping isn't working as well. Experienced folks have everything and newbies aren't in that market yet. The gap between newbies and experienced folks is so large that most of the newbies don't get to mid-range, which is when people start collecting motifs, gathering BIS armor for alts, etc., because they give up and quit before then. ZOS keeps introducing new features that require a large grind, like jewelcrafting, which also just doesn't play in the newbie crowd and frustrates everyone except the most experienced, where the market taps out quickly because the experienced folks have almost unlimited resources.

My two cents, largely from running dungeons in Group Finder and my own personal sales history. Your mileage may vary.

bigdeal15

Katahdin wrote: »

The motif market fell through the floor with the anniversary event so now everyone is farming the new stuff because its the only thing that reliably sells.....for now. Competition and volume will kill that too in short order.

So true....so true.

Brrrofski

Yeh, just wait until the jewellery market crashes and people will start buying other stuff again. Everyone's just fixated on that currently.

Brrrofski

Also, the World Cup is on so if you're EU server, a lot of people will be spending a lot less time in game. Something else which may make a difference.

Asardes

Leveling jewelry crafting takes ~2 week w/o grinding, just questing normally and maybe doing a few dolmens along the way and deconstructing what jewelry you get. That allows you to fully spec research & refine passives, which means you can research faster. Research for the most important traits takes maybe 1 month, and then you can just transmute dropped jewelry if you want to do some more unusual builds. Also you can craft your own jewelry and upgrade it to purple without much of a difficulty. The only really grindy/expensive part about jewelry is upgrading it to gold. Which is not that important anyway since the difference between purple jewelry and gold is negligible and won't make any difference in your DPS output - it's something like 25 spell/weapon damage buffed if you upgrade all 3. And I'm not kidding, just check here by moving the slider: http://esoitem.uesp.net/itemLink.php?itemid=137529&summary

Lysette

Narvuntien wrote: »

Obviously people are playing in Summerset instead of traveling around in the base game or even Vivec. So the popular trading cities aren't popular whille everyone is parked in Summerset.

If you are just questing you have no need of powerful sets you can quest in a paper bag.

I have also made no sales but that's because my trade guild can't win a damn trader

Did you realize that there are so many new folks playing the game now - I have always a problem to get enough low level mats and jewelry stuff. A whole lot need these lower level items and you guys sell mostly high level stuff, which this crowd has no need for yet. Sell more lower level stuff and you will make your sales.

With lower level stuff I mean level 15-35 stuff. There is plenty of the 1-15 stuff, but there are just low quantities for level 15-35.

Mayrael

Introduction of jewelery crafting and possibility of retraiting existing jewelery opened new build options thus some sets became less popular, other became hot stuff. It's nothing unusual, there are things that sell always good. I'm earning hundreds thousands of gold weekly without even trying. No farming, almost no PvE. So if it goes for me, nothing changed, I have more gold than I need.

Lysette

Mayrael wrote: »

Introduction of jewelery crafting and possibility of retraiting existing jewelery opened new build options thus some sets became less popular, other became hot stuff. It's nothing unusual, there are things that sell always good. I'm earning hundreds thousands of gold weekly without even trying. No farming, almost no PvE. So if it goes for me, nothing changed, I have more gold than I need.

Certainly, the basic business rule is - adapt or die - you seem to adapt quite well then, whereas others don't.

raviour

Pop is noticably down EU PC due to nice weather and holidays etc, therefore sales will be lower.

I also know the lack-lustre 'new' end-game content we are being given and the lack of attention the PvP community recieves is sending people to other games.

The last cool thing PvE recieved was vMoL. Last thing Cyrodiil got was the return of forward camps. BGs are fun and stuff but Cyrodiil really needs something to bring the life back to it. Hardcore players are turning to GTA it got that dull. Housing was a nice addition and good for guild traders but its only a small few that take it seriously.

People that keep the market flowing are the end-gamers. Summerset brought another wave of newbies to teach or kill but nothing for old players. Hence less interest and an overall drop in trade. Would be interesting to see TTC stats post and pre Summerset.

Enough of the 're-hashed' motifs and mounts each season and bring us interesting content like Craglorn again, mix up the way Cyrodiil works and boom!!! sales will be up both of the game and in-game.

RodneyRegis

I don't know a great deal about motifs as appearance has never really bothered me, but haven't uniforms destroyed that market somewhat? People have decked all their ALTs with a uniform and dyed it for a hefty sum, so motifs are less in demand? Sure a lot of people want to improve their uniforms with new styles but a lot must have stopped bothering.