4 Questions on the Trading Post

I've been swamped with work lately. Just to give you an idea, I'm currently working on the following projects besides this blog:

Diablo 3 Gold Blog
So You Think You Can Blog
Super Secret RPG I'm Designing From Scratch (80% Done!!!)
The Traffic Blogger

That's the highest level look at what I'm working on, not including all the details like paid guides, emails, management, etc. Speaking of emails, let's take some of them and answer your questions publicly!

Q1.  Andrew wrote: "Hey Markco. So I've been following your site for about a month and I must say that it has given a much better understanding of the trading post. However, I do have a few questions. I was wondering how to deal with constantly being overcut(?) when trying to buy items. Do you just leave your money there and wait, even if the order prices totally change? Or do you take it down and place a new order? Reversely, what about when I list something and I get undercut by dozens of people and it seems like the item has no hope of being sold? I may just be a impatient but I am extremely scared of losing gold as I do not have much to spend. So any advice on this would be appreciated.
Thanks."

A1. Getting overcut is no where near as detrimental as being undercut. With an overcut, you can either let things play out or withdraw the bid to then rebid or use elsewhere. It's nothing to panic over, and quite often I keep placing larger amounts of buy orders for a single item UNTIL I do see an overcut. That gives me an idea of how much I can play the market before others start interfering. Do not invest all of your gold into the trading post. Play 10% of it at most, so that you aren't so worried about waiting for things to sell. I try to cancel listings after a week of not selling, so you must be willing to let your gold sit. Otherwise you will take a killing over time with the cancellation fees.

Q2. Ben Asked: "Hey there. Been enjoying your Guild Wars Trading Post blog. Learned a lot about flipping. I had a question, didn't see anything on it on your site, but perhaps I missed it.
What's your experience on flipping more expensive items from around 2g and up? Have you noticed a fairly quick turnaround? I'm attempting to flip an item listen for instant buy around 4g and the orders were around 2g40s. I know that playing the GW2 market is most a fairly safe thing to mess around with, but I was wondering what your experience was in doing that.
Thanks again for the tips on the blog and stuff."

A2. My experience is that they take way longer and are therefore not worth entirely focusing on. A few sought after rings and amulets are usually worth it but not all your money.

Q3. Anonymous Wondered: "Hey Man I'm just wondering. U said lvl 80 rares are good right? I see the margin for 1 is around 5~10s but u have to pay like 20s to get supply for 1 while u can do the same with low lvl weapons. Do u think it's worth doin?"

A3. I would much rather you invested in the level 35+ rares and not the level 80 ones. They have the highest competition and are therefore the hardest to succeed with. That being said, boots tend to have the highest profit margins. It has to deal with their vendor price being less than all the other items, as well as some supply and demand rubbish I don't feel like writing a few paragraphs about haha.

Q4.  Raffael Inquired About: "Hello Markco! First of all, let me thank you for your splendid blog. I already learned a lot from reading your articles! One thing that bothers me though is the fact that I have... well... too much money (yeah, you can never have enough but I'll get to the point ;) ). My problem/point is: Flipping works well but I havent found any very valuable items yet i could do it with. Flipping the cheap stuff works great for 20, 30 gold imo. But I got around 200g in my bank and it just takes up too much time/too many things I'd have to find that I can flip to invest a reasonable amount of my money. Most of my money just isn't working for me, sitting in the bank. Do you have any tips how to let more of my gold work without speculating too much? I for one beliefe that mystic coins will go up to 20 or even more silver a piece for several reasons and think it would be worth buying them. But that assumes ANet wont alter the economy (e.g. give more Coins for the monthly because they think Mystic Coins are too expensive) which they have done before. So, speculation is not really my thing because I feel like Anet is just too much of a risk for a longterm investment with a lot of money on the line. Any suggestion how I could invest a bigger amount of money would be very welcome. Thanks again and keep up the good work!"

A4. One simple solution is to increase your volume drastically. Instead of bidding on 30 different items with one buy order each for the purpose of salvaging them, you could put down 30 bids on each of the 30 items. I know it sounds silly, but volume is your best option. You can also throw more gold at mini's and expensive level 80 trinkets. Speculation for future patches, holidays, and currently weak markets should also be a solid 25% of your investments. Finally, you should keep around 25% at all times in case of a massive opportunity. I like the mystic coin speculation, and I too see them increasing in value over time.