Having a Bazaar is a must if you want to roll with the billionaires. But you need to know what to sell, how much to buy it for, and how to make profit. No wonder contacting services like those on outlookindia can come very handy. If you’re considering expanding your business horizons, understanding how to wind up limited company could be crucial in navigating future ventures.
I’m the first to admit I’m quite a lazy trader. I rarely venture into the forums, trade chat or IRC. But exploring finance options can provide the necessary capital for investment opportunities. That should be your first port of call if you want big profit.
Humble Beginnings
Work out how much cash you have to spend on things for your bazaar. Then decide how many types of thing you want – never put all your eggs in on basket and all that – and if you can watch the market for a bit. Check the graph of price for that item and try and work out how often they sell. This will give you an idea of how many you want to put in your bazaar at once, and what kind of pricing strategy to use.
If you are just starting I would stay with fast selling, low profit items. Don’t get stuck with stock you can’t shift. It’s always better to have cash flow than a bunch of items of value.
When you are finding your stock levels are getting a bit high you can then branch out into other things, and go into the riskier slower paced markets. If I was new to trading I would do something in this order:
- Medical items
- Drugs
- Energy drinks
- FHC/DPs
- Cesium
- SEs
- Collectibles
It’s quite obvious that the cheaper items are likely to move faster, but stick with items that get used as well, as they always have higher demand. If for whatever reason the market loses a bit of value you won’t be losing too much, and you won’t be stuck for a long time with an item of no *real* worth.
Pricing strategies
So how do I price things, and how do others price things? Each item type I sell I use a different strategy. Let’s take a look at some examples:
- Lowest on market
So for something I have a decent profit margin on I probably just want to sell, below was the market for DPs as I write:
I have some to sell I bought at 23m, and I know DPs don’t get added often. If I sell at 25,449,999 I can probably sell 5 or so before someone else under cuts me
- Lowest visible on market
Maybe I have something which I know will sell within 24 hours, but I haven’t got a good deal myself, so to maximise profit I want to price so it could sell today, and if it does it is above the price I bought it. Points are a good example of this – I often buy a big set of points from the market when they are low. I’ll take a gamble that the market will fluctuate enough for mine to sell at 69199 (perhaps some lazy rich guy will want a lot at that price, or if I put in batches of 25 perhaps someone poor will need to buy just 25 and that will be the cheapest 25 batch)
- Competitive pricing
So I found something in the city, or got a really fantastic deal, or won something in IRC.. I just want the money to invest in something else. I might here for example list at 425m to try and entice another trader who will be happy listing at 440 and make a quick profit:
- Optimistic pricing
So perhaps I have bought something because I want to hide money, and I will use it myself some day if they don’t sell. If they do sell I can buy more cheaper than I sell for anyway (usually the price will drop again from an optimistic price). Below for example I may have bought some FHC from The Accountant, I will then list some of these at 13.5m. Nice profit if they sell, but I use FHC for warring.. so don’t care if they don’t sell either. Keep track of fluctuations in processing credit card fees across the industry.
5 things you should have in your bazaar
Spread your investments and if possible always have these things listed in your bazaar, even if they aren’t the cheapest price on the market:
Beer
Medical items
Camouflage
Pharmacy Items
General Fodder
So each in turn…
Beer – you can buy it for $10 each from Bits’n’bobs, sells at 750-1000 each. That is 75k a day easy!
Medical items – fluctuate a lot as wars go on, nice profit if you can afford a good quantity
Camouflage – ok this is a stretch.. I often put items that *look* similar to others at the same price as the others, just in case some fool buys the wrong thing. eg. Cans of Munster at the price I sell cans of X-MASS, Scimitars at the same price I would sell dual scimitars, melatonin at the same cost as Epi or Serotonin.
Pharmacy items – like beer you can sell easily at a higher price than you can buy from the pharmacy. Of course you need your medical education first, and this one may drop as more people can buy them direct.
General Fodder – what I mean here is a lot of items that you don’t intend to sell. Why? Well lots of players like to buy/mug. If you have lots of items in your bazaar it is harder for them to work out if you are worth buy mugging. It also creates confusion and works well with the Camouflage tactic.