Tips For Resetting A Market

Market Woes

We have all come across the same problem in some way or another.  The items we are wanting to sell are listed on the auction house, but for far less than we would like to see them listed at.  Maybe someone with no understanding of opportunity cost is posting foolishly low.  Maybe a new crafter is just liquidating items he grinded with the sole purpose of leveling his chosen profession.  Maybe a farmer thinks his goods were gathered for free and selling them for very low cost means quicker sales for him.  Regardless of the reasons, there are always times that we wish the market prices were better suited to our profit margin preferences.

Resetting A Market

Warning - Any attempt to reset a market is highly risky because there a many uncontrollable factors that can crash your plan to gain market control.  I almost never attempt to gain complete control of a market unless it is a market that I have very little competition in, and by very little I mean next to none.

The most common approach to resetting a market is to buy out all of the competitor's items (or at least all of them under the price you would like to sell at) and then to simply relist them at a higher price.  This is a Short Term market reset.  A Long Term reset is much more complicated as it would require the constant snatching of undercut goods and constant babysitting of the market to keep the prices up.  A Long Term reset is much more viable in a market with rare commodities.  Think of the scarcity of Khorium Ore / Bars.  Someone could easily dominate that market as Khorium Ore and Khorium Bars are rarely ever seen on the auction house.

In this post I am focusing on Short Term Resets.  Long term resets are a much more complicated process and rarely are sustainable over a lengthy time. 

When To Reset A Market

If you are planning on buying out all of the items to relist at a higher price, there are a few tips to remember when you make your attempt to reset the market.

1. Look For Low Volume - Wait until there are only a few items that you have to buy out.  This will help to limit your initial hit and will allow you to start profiting faster from your sales.
2. The Later, The Better - Don't try a reset in the middle of the day, you will be undercut by the end of the night.  The later at night you perform your reset, the better chance you have of being the last poster of the night.  This is how to take advantage of the overnight market, especially if you are selling crafted goods.  More players late at night and early in the morning are forced to buy those items form the auction house as there are limited crafters on late.
3. Competition Logged? - Many of us have our competition on our friends list in order to watch when they are logging in and out of the game.  The Remote Auction House can be used to bypass this, but you should wait to reset your market when your main competitors are offline.
4. Start Slow - Post only a few items at first.  If you flood the market, then you are asking to be undercut, then waste more fees cancelling and relisting.  In a market that requires good barking techniques, like the Mysterious Fortune Card market, when you bark you are also alerting your competition.  By only listing a few items at a time, you can prevent all of your items from getting walled in.
5. Post Higher Priced to Start - When you post your original batch, make the price a tad bit higher than you actually are willing to sell for.  That way if you do get undercut, you still have some room to cut the price lower and still be withing your expected sale value.

Try It Out

Are you looking for a market to try and reset?  Give the Black Vitriol market a shot on the weekends.  Try to reset on the weekends as that is when Black Vitriol is most likely to sell.  You commonly can find Black Vitriol for mere silvers.  Buy them all out and relist 2-3 for 25 gold each!  When one sells to a crafter, you will have made back your total investment from the buyout prices as well as made a nice profit.  Then all of the other ones you bought out will be pure profits and can be sold for even more profits.  With more luck the price will not be undercut down so quickly that you can move plenty at well above the original market value of the Black Vitriols.