pls no bulli

July 30, 2019

A few days ago I put my newly found East 222 key on the Flea market thinking it would sell quickly because I was generous enough to make one of the two offers below 700k. Instead the price rapidly dropped by 200k. Once I got it back, I tried selling it again, making sure I had the lowest price by a neat margin this time. Again, the price dropped by more than 100k and currently my offer is the most expensive one.

Now I'm afraid to try to sell it again because I feel like if I undercut the other prices by another 100k, I'll still end up getting it back.

How does something like this even happen?

July 30, 2019

This is economy @_@ Or just bad karma, dunno.

You just need some luck that noone will dump you intime while your Key isn't needed.

a tip: also check the price from 226. Those rooms are connected. Some players know this to and they are going to buy the cheaper of both. Or just make your money out of it, since there is a tetriz in 222 or some optamolscopes in 226.

July 30, 2019

@Wurfy

I can explain this. I buy and sell on the market a lot: about as much as playing the actual game some days. The first thing you need to know is that economics in RL apply to the tarkov market. Now this is going to be a bit of a long ramble, but it might be interesting if you want to make money in the market.

The answer here can be explained by four things: supply and demand, target demographics (or target market), pricing bubbles, and price flexibility.

Supply and demand is self explanatory: more people are selling, while fewer people are buying. This can change due to a number of reasons like time of day, day of the week, chance, and quest progression in the playerbase. Keys are good examples of this: factory keys for example will sell between 250-350K. If there is a shortage, they can sell for as much as 400-500K. Sellers will charge pretty much what they think they can get away with. If 100 people want a said key, and only 10 are for sale, sellers will try to put it at a price just high enough to exclude or deter about 90 people. The people who buy those ten keys are the ones willing to pay for than the other 90% of people. If 20 more sellers show up all of a sudden, they will probably set their price to only exclude/deter 70 people. If nobody else is selling, you can pretty much charge whatever you want. It is quite possible that the key in question actually sold out, and you saw sellers banking on the supply shortage to try and demand an absurd price. Even if you were undercutting them, charging say 20% less than someone who has an absurd price still makes your price absurd.

Next, you have to look at your target demographic, IE: who buys the key. Think of the factors that go into why someone will buy a key. For one, people generally only buy a key once. If one hundred people want a key, and the top 10% buy keys, you can't change prices the 10% would have paid if the remaining buyers are in that 90% bracket. You also need ask if this key an essential item like a quest key? Or is it a luxury item like the Kiba key? If you need the key for a quest, you can only put off buying it for so long: a player will need to buy it to unlock more quests, or might have a time window in which to play with friends. If a key is for a quest, price will be related to how many people have the quest, and how many people have completed the quest. Many plebs in this game buy a key, use it for a quest, and then immediately sell it. If you sell it on say friday or saturday when they be quest stomping with friends, the price can go up quite a bit. Come sunday or monday when they are done quest stomping with friends, they might sell off their keys, progressively pricing to sell. "Luxury" keys on the other hand are different: the buyer can very much use a "I'll get it when I feel like it" mentality. Because there is no rush, people can for the most part wait until the price goes down, or put off buying it until they have more money.

The next thing you need to understand is that pricing bubbles are a thing in tarkov. If the price for an item keeps going up, it may be because people are holding onto an item as an investment, waiting for a higher price before they sell. The goal here is to sell it as high as you can, but also selling it before the bubble pops and the price crashes. With the a bubble, the rise in prices comes from a shortage in supply due to increased demand. This shortage however isnt actually real: there are plenty of keys, people are just hoarding them. People hoard them because the price is increasing, as long as the price increases, people will buy lowering the supply. Eventually however, the price reaches a "criticality" of sorts, where buying slows creating a price drop. This price drop causes some people to try and cash out, lowering the price, which causes more people to cash out..... The result is a runaway effect where there is a huge oversupply, and everybody is trying to sell. Basically, it means that within a days or even a few hours, something stupidly expensive can become pretty cheap.

Fourth is price flexibility. Basically how much cost comes into consideration when making a purchase. I pretty much covered most if this in the other sections (the target demo section in particular). But if you want me to clarify this concept, consider this analogy: if you are buying medical supplies in the market and you see a bandage for 20K, you will probably buy a cheaper bandage or a salewa. If you are in the woods bleeding to death, and your buddy is a jerk.... you are going to pay that 20K. Apply this to your target demo and the specific key in question: If you need that key for a quest, tough luck: you pay what it's listed at, but if it is a "luxury key", the only people who are willing to buy it don't care about money. Basically, the question you need to ask regarding this is if there is a significant change in the rate of sales when the prices are different.

Again, I am sorry if this was rambly and overly long, but it's not something you can easily cover. I also expect some places will probably need clarification.

If you want to sell the key, my advice is to do one of two things. Your first option would be to add it to your wish list and try to find a trend in price fluctuations. List it during a price uptick, and avoid listing it during a decline. Your second option is to just declare the item to be cursed and price it to sell. Yeah, the second option sucks, but if you keep misjudging the price..... you actually loose more money with expired listings.