MALAYSIANS Come chat! [update][Guide to gold]

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ZNationz Crewz

aku anak JOHOR!! wah! bangge siut!

[ZNationz Crewz]

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[ZNationz Crewz]

Guide to Gold


Welcome to my guide, a guide where those new and old can learn information about earning gold, but mainly vending in general, and vending in the new marketplace, otherwise referred to as Marketplace 3.0

What is vending?!1?!?1!
Well... vending is the buying and selling of items in the marketplace, where you buy low, and sell high (or in our case, marketplace price)
Vending is a great way for earning profits, and since the old vend is retired, and no new vend guides have been made, this is one with strategies, tips, and more. Many people have earned millions from vending, why don't you be one of them icon_wink.gif

TL;DR Guide Wrote:

Go here: http://www.gaiaonline.com/marketplace/vendsearch/?sortBy=91
Refresh until you see items under marketplace price. (Example: Item sells for 10k, and you see one for 8k) Buy said item, and sell it normal price. (Example: You bought that 8k item, and you sell it for 10k)

Take note that by buying and selling, you have made 2k.

That is the goal of vending.
The rest of this guide tells it more indepth, and gives you more tips and tricks regarding the vend.

To become speedier, read the guide, and use Firefox

[ZNationz Crewz]

Getting Started


Go to the Menu bar, hover over the tab called "Shop", and select Marketplace.



Another way is going through the World Map, but it really is a lot of effort, and pointless.
If you really want to, it is under Isle De Gambino, and in the middle of the map.

[ZNationz Crewz]

The Marketplace


Now that you're in the market, you see lots of information.
You're thinking, lets go and earn some gold.
Understanding key components of the marketplace is something you should understand though.



This would be the Marketplace Homepage. The usefulness of this page is very... VERY limited.

Everything else is virtually useless due to messed up prices. Even your wishlist prices are screwed up.

On the left column, you have a easy search. Moderately useful but you most likely won't be using this to search.
Then you have "Marketplace Snapshot". Only useful for the graph it has. It can help determine gold flows due to new items, etc. and has it's uses occasionally.
Below that, "Luxury Items". Essentially items sorted by Lowest Buy Now Price. Almost never used.
Below that "You Might Like". Random items apparently.

On the right hand column, you have an important "Trade" button at the very top. Looks like this. " Trade" Use that button to trade with people. A need to know if you plan on trading with anybody, or exchanging.
Below that, is a white space, where there should be an advertisement (removed).
Below that, it is your store stats. It contains Total Gold Earned (the amount of stuff you have sold, not what you have earned in reality), Total Transactions (the number of sales you have had), and Total Vends (the number of items currently selling in your store).
Then comes your "Wishlist" and links to their Item Search pages and prices (but the prices are usually incorrect).
Below is your "Watchlist" which is used for sales that you would like to keep a watch on. Used heavily for bidding, and for keeping tabs on someone's sales.
Below that is "Auctions Ending Now". Essentially shows sales ending soon, but it isn't very useful.

On the top of all Marketplace pages there is a navigation bar to help a person navigate throughout the Marketplace System.


On the navigation, you can see that you can go to Shops (normal Gaia stores), Marketplace (the Marketplace homepage), Item Search (Where you can search for items), All Listings (where you can see all listings and what vending primarily does), My Store (which shows you your store), and Sell Item (which directly sends you to sell an item).

Shops lead you to Gaia Shops, relatively useless for vendors.

The Marketplace button just leads to the Marketplace Home page, so it isn't very useful.

The Item Search page leads to a page where you can search items, and is generally VERY useful in finding what you want, and price checking.


In the "Search For" section, put in the item you want to search for.
In some cases, it will automatically turn to what you want, such as searching AFK will immediately link you to AFK Search. You can also search part of an item's name to get the same effect. Wed would go directly to Wed to Darkness.

But... in some cases (mostly in letters, or terms like Halo, Rose, and Armor etc. ) it will give you a choices of items with the word in it.


In this case, it's armor. So choose which one you want and it should lead to a page similar to the Oculus Magica.
For All Listings, I will explain in another post, because it belongs more to vending directly than anything.
For "My Store" a store would look like this.

This would be your store.
As you see, nothing is in mine, but if you're selling something, then there should be an item listed, with a price, and a cancel button, and a Accept button if you do Both Bid and Buy or Bid Only as described in the next post.
The 5 buttons to the side have some importance.
My Store goes to... My Store, you're already there, no need to click.
Sell an Item sells an item, and that will be explained in depth next post.
Edit Store will edit the message of your store, that would otherwise occupy the spot where Welcome! is in my post, not very useful though.
Watchlist leads to your watchlist, because on items, you can watchlist them to see if they're still there or not. Useful for watching bids, but not sure if it actually works.
Store Log leads to your logs in the marketplace. Every single time you use the marketplace, there's a log, and every single log is stored in there. From the most minute trash, to the biggest purchase, it's all in there, and can be useful in proving a deal.

[ZNationz Crewz]

Selling Stuff
Marketplace 3.0 has a radically different method of selling items.
Instead of Marketplace 2.0's text based interface, we have a Graphical User Interface (GUI) system.
So you scroll to the page you want, and click which item you want to sell.

In this case, I want to sell an Oculus Magica, so I click, and it will automatically continue to the next page.

That is the page that you'll see.
You'll see various fields that you can fill in such as Auction Duration, Listing Type, Buy Now Price, Starting Bid Price, and Bid Intervals.

You usually should set your Auction Duration to one day or greater.

As for Listing Type, I find "Both Bid and Buy" the most useful, because if someone bids, it gets sent to the front page. But there is also "Buy Only" and "Bid Only"

For Buy Now Price, is should be the Lowest Market Price. Do not fool yourself into selling for the "Average Buy Price". Those numbers are highly inaccurate, and you could be selling your item for under.

As for Starting Bid Price, and Bid Intervals, those would only be useful in a "Bid Only" sale, which you'll have few. But there are advantages to bid only sales. In bid only, tough items may be seen by people, and they'll bid less than marketplace, thinking it's a good deal. Also, it's circulation is greater than in Buy Now. One thing you must be careful about though is not to let your bid go for less than you want. Try not to forget that you have a bid active, for many unwatched bids get sold for extremely low prices.

Now to finding the price you should set your item at.
The Average Buy Price is inaccurate, and you should never, EVER follow it.

As you see here, here are the prices of the item I want to sell, which is an Oculus Magica.
From this picture, it shows that the Lowest Priced Oculus Magica is at 40200. So you could sell for various prices such as 40100, 40000, 40200, 40199, or... if you're patient 41000, 41500, 41800, 41899 because there is a noticible gap between the lowest and second lowest. So you could wait until the lowest is bought then yours would be the lowest, and that could net you a possible 1000 gold. After you have set all of these, click "Next".

Then you come to your confirmation screen.

This is where you confirm what you're selling, for how much.
There are so many times where people accidentally choose the wrong item, or forget a number. In order to catch these mistakes, pay close attention to your numbers, and items, and make sure they match before pressing that "Next".


Now this is your confirmation that your item is sold.
Now if you still made a mistake, make a mad dash to the "My Store" tab, and try to Cancel that vend.

That should be all about selling your item.

[ZNationz Crewz]

Vending
The part you've been waiting for and reading for all this time. The main part of vending is buying low and selling high.
To get on the page which you will do this, you will click the All Listings button, and in the "Sort By" select "Date Added".
There you will see the vend which where you'll see deals that you want to get.

Although something that you should always consider is to decrease the size of your font.
As you can see, the text is all fat and huge and stuff.
By making the text smaller two times (may be more depending on monitor and other conditions, it makes it considerably cleaner and clearer.
To make text smaller go into "View>Text Size>Decrease", press Ctrl + - , or hold ctrl and scroll down.

In that picture, the vend is much clearer, and much better used.
Now, to vend you need to refresh. There are various methods of refreshing, such as F5, Ctrl + R, Reload Button, Go, and First.
Through my own informal testing, I believe that the First button is the fastest and should be used the most.
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, below Sort By and Goto Page, there's First, and it's essentially a refresh.


Now for vending, for reals.
When you vend, you're mostly looking for things 1k+ off normal marketplace price, with some exceptions. With the new 2% Tax (You should go against it here http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/petitions/no-to-2-tax-petition-stop-the-fee-1900-signatures/t.31586729/ ) you should remember some key 2% values. Anything above 50k has a 1k tax, anything above 100k 2k, etc. So keep these values in mind, and you won't hesitate on buying because you have to calculate.
Now, you're vending, but you don't see any deals, but you have to keep in mind, not everyone wants to lose 1k-2k or even more, as most deals come from errors, or laziness. So you'll have to be patient. Just keep in mind that you may only be a couple of refreshes from catching a deal. Also, if you've missed a lot of deals and misprices consecutively, I'd suggest leaving the vend for a while. When you miss a lot of deals consecutively, you don't have morale, and that doesn't help, so I'd leave for a bit, then vend when you feel refreshed.

I need to add picture references to this part, but I'll begin basic speaking.

Now that you're on Just Added, your goal is to refresh until you see a deal, such as Mecha for 6k, Enchanted Strings for 7k, etc. A key part of vending is knowing the prices though. If you don't know the prices, you're screwed. So remembering prices is an essential part of vending. If you're new, spend a lot of time remembering prices. If you've been vending for a while, a lot of prices should be ingrained in your head, so all you need is a quick check up for some AI or deflation.

When you start vending, go into Full Screen, under View, or press F11. It will make your vending area bigger. Also, I STRONGLY suggest changing the font, as it's very large, and making it small is logical.

When you see a deal you want to go for, press the Buy Now button corresponding to the item.

After that, you're on Confirmation Screen, to check if you want to buy it.
Most of the times, you want to rush through, but if it's something iffy, such as a letter or such, spend a couple of seconds to think. Then press Buy Now.
For those who use IE6 or IE7, you have to type in or paste your password. Type your password in a non-critical area, and copy it. Then when you go to put in your password, press Ctrl + V. Firefox people should be fine, but if your password doesn't save, there's some info below on how to fix it.

After you've pressed the Buy Now on the Confirmation Screen, it will tell you if you got it, or you missed it up to someone else, or you errored (Erroring hasn't been confirmed what it does, as I have personally errored three times in a row, same item, and it seems a lot more common that TLs in MP 2.0, so it isn't understood yet)

After you have purchased your item for 1k+ under marketplace price. You go into your store, and sell for full price, or just below it.

That's vending in a nut shell. (Image References to come)

[ZNationz Crewz]

Tips and Tricks


This section purely pertains to vending tricks that will help you vend better.
There are a lot of tricks that will help you become a better vendor. Many of the more skilled vendors know these, or have picked them up.

The Browser

One of the most important things you will probably need is Firefox. Firefox allows for speed customizations, and is vastly faster than it's competitors. In my own personal comparison with about 10 different browsers, Firefox has proved the fastest.
It has a plethora or Add-Ons, and a useful password saver, in addition to it's speed.
- Download Firefox


* One of the better Add-Ons for vending is FasterFox, which helps pipeline, and in general, speed up Firefox a lot.
But Fasterfox tends to be un-updated so I usually use Fastererfox - http://www.untamed.co.uk/fastererfox/frame.htm .
Allow it to install into your browser. After it's installed, to into Tools>Add-ons and click options on Fastererfox set it to Turbo Charged. You will probably notice an immediate speed boost no matter where you surf.

* One more useful Add-On is Adblock Plus - http://adblockplus.org/en/
It helps you block the ads that load on Gaia. Ads use up bandwidth and unnecessarily slow you down. Using Adblock Plus, you will speed up the time it takes to load the vend, and it will also conveniently block ads on other sites too. Win-win situation. Watch the video to learn how to use it.

* Another useful Add-On would be NoScript - http://noscript.net/. It helps remove Javascript from sites to protect you. In addition, NoScript helps you vend because Gaia tends to be quite Javascript heavy and using NoScript will vastly increase your page loading speed. But some people feel that NoScript lags. To get the same advantage of disabling Javascript, go into Tools>Options... In there, select the 3rd Content Tab, and uncheck Javascript. Javascript is now disabled and you will vend faster! To turn on Javascript, just go back and recheck it. (You will need Javascript to sell items, and many other sites require it.)




The Vend

Regarding the vend, there are useful tricks that can help you too.


* The First button. Its closer to the buy now buttons, and it tends to load faster than the other methods to refresh (F5, Ctrl+R, Refresh Button).

* Changing the text size is also very effective and should be used often because by changing the text size, you put more on your screen, and it helps you scan faster. Be wary on certain similar looking items, because reading the names will be harder.

* Price checking is great to help you get the smaller, more unsure deals, but is pretty slow the normal way, but there is another way to price check. Say you need to Price Check an item while vending. Click the item name, and it will lead you to the item search page with prices sorted. There you can check if it's a deal or not, and move quickly to buy the item. It's an easy way to get smaller deals, and it's much faster than going to Item Search and typing out the full name and searching.

* Skim the page for the more expensive items. Generally, no matter how cheap flowers are, you wouldn't buy them. Look for the expensive items, and their prices. They'll help you realize what are deals faster, and vastly increase your speed.

* Vend camping will help you sometimes net some easy deals. Vend camping is when lets say you notice someone is selling a bunch of items for 1g, or really cheap. To get the deals faster, you go to their store, and press My Store. It loads faster than other refresh methods, and it shows you the incoming items before they may refresh onto the Just Added page. Although this technique only works if they're planning on selling stuff cheap, or if they're selling lots of stuff cheap.

* "Slow Down Ban" (SDB). SDBs are very disruptive to vending, and if you get one, it might take a while. The first SDB is 30 seconds, which slowly goes up to 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 3 hours, etc. They prevent you from doing anything on Gaia. They also tend to reset on Midnight PST. There has been no conclusion if continually getting SDBed will actually perceive you as a bot, To circumvent SDBs, refresh about every 6-8 seconds. Good refreshes will also help you get deals.

* Having gold is very important. Lack of gold will prevent you to get deals, and if you're selling a lot, you may not have enough gold for deals until your stuff sells. So ideally, try to keep a lot of gold, but balance it between what you want, and how much gold you want.

* Mules are a valuable asset. It helps you keep your funds safe if you get banned. They also help you avoid SDBs by allowing you to vend even if your main is SDBed.

* Bookmark the page where you will most likely be selling stuff (the last page). It's an annoyance to go through 10 pages or more to reach the item you want. So if you keep it bookmarked, just go to your last page, and sell what you just bought easily and quickly.

[ZNationz Crewz]

Common Vend Problems


What do I vend with X amount of gold?
A very common question repeated over and over again.
Time and time again, the answer is "Vend the Front Page". Go to All Listings, and refresh Just Added. Pay attention to the items.
Specializing in a particular item does you little good, as very few deals on a particular item happen, and it's very easy to get bored.

Should I vend X?
Of course, there are some items you don't want to vend, like really tough selling items, but most of the time, you want to vend everything you can get a deal on. As long as the prices are low enough, buy it, don't restrict yourself.
Things that are tough to sell would be the Bammi, Hammi, Pajamas, Mantilla, Arachne, G-BOT, Ice Tiara, Sun Staff, ZONY, etc. For those items, I'd go for at LEAST 15%-20% under. It isn't really worth going for 1-2k profits on these items generally, as they fluctuate pretty often.

Why don't I see any deals?
The fact is, deals don't pop up every second. Not everyone wants to lose gold willingly, so the only way to vend successfully, is to be patient. You have to wait and refresh until you see that deal, and get it. I remember it took me personally 2 months to catch my first real misprice, albeit, I learned by myself, and joined like after 1 and 1/2 months of vending by myself, with no guide, it shows that it takes time and effort to get a misprice. Usually, after you get your first misprice though, it gets easier. You see yourself getting more and more, and you can become pro vendor. The key is being patient though, without some patience, you'll go no where.

Will add more as they come.

[ZNationz Crewz]

Vend Morals


Yes, even vendors have morals, and even an unwritten code. Sometimes, when you get a misprice, and they seem to notice their mistake and are polite, then give their item back for cheap. Also, donating misprices back to vendors or friends is also a nice thing to do.

As for the unwritten code, it's generally, "If you're a friend, I will give it back.", "If you're a vendor, I will not beg for it back."

I've given misprices back to friends who've made mistakes. Most of the vendors also don't beg me to get their misprice back, as it seems low and hypocritical for vendors to act as such.

Note: None of this is solid, and you can develop your own, it's just things I've observed and what I use, and think it's good policy, but develop your own. You don't need to necessarily follow mine.
xp

[ZNationz Crewz]

Exchanging


This may not be "directly" into the category of vending, but it is somewhat.
With the tax created, you most likely want to sell your big items in the exchange. So understanding basic concepts of exchanging is necessary.
Also, exchanging earns more gold after a certain point, so eventually you want to switch to primary exchanging.

Exchanging is where you go into the Exchange forum ( http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/the-gaia-exchange/f.22/ ) , buy for lower than marketplace price, then sell for marketplace, or to circumvent the tax, or sell tough to sell items.

With lower gold amounts, exchanging profit margins are INCREDIBLY low. I would only exchange with large items, such as 03s.

A key factor is PATIENCE. I used to be impatient with all my items before, but when you exchange, patience is literally required. Selling in the Exchange is tedious, but can yield great profits.

I personally am not a fan of exchanging, because I can't really get the deals like some can, it's boring and a lot of bumping, and you have to deal with idiots more than you do with vending.
mrgreen

[ZNationz Crewz]

Hoarding/Investing


Another key aspect of earning gold. Hoarding or Investing is buying up items for future profits. With subtle differences
But... there are some misconceptions you really want to avoid as a hoarder or investor.
Your goal is to earn the most percentage of gold, not the most gold.
For example, using older values of items.
CoCos were at 100k, they rose up 150k, 50% profit over that amount of time.
But... if you take the Oculus, which near the same time, was at 12-15k, it is 250-300% profit.
Another example, the Ninja Band may have rose 300-400k maybe in the past 6 months, but it actually rose only 60-70% or so. So Oculus are still better in that respect.
Your goal is to take in the largest percentage, be it MCs, or Event items.
A noticeable trend seems that good event items rise much faster than good MCs. But you must keep in mind that you want to be able to sell quickly. So you don't want to buy a million 1g events and try to sell them off for 500% or more profit, as it would take forever.

Hoarding is only slightly different from in that you have much more volume of items, and hold it for much, MUCH more longer time.

In order to hoard efficiently, you usually want a large amount of gold to purchase whatever you want to hoard. If you only have one or two of an item, Hoarding is not the most efficient way to earn gold.

[ZNationz Crewz]

Sniping


Sniping is essentially going to the Expiring Soon page, and waiting until you see an item that is about to expire for cheap, and bid lower than marketplace for it.
Sniping is mostly dead with the 1 minute add-on time for every bid in the last minute of the auction. It is slightly helped by the inability to cancel bids after 5 minutes, but not so much. It's not the best way to profit, and it's not easy to profit. It really only works if it has a weird expire time where people won't outbid you.

Tricks for Sniping


* Watch for bid intervals, if the bid interval is 1 million on a 500k item, be the first bid, and no one would outbid you.

* Be careful how much you bid! I've seen many misbids, like 100k for an ORLY Hat, because they misbid. It's similar to a misprice, and almost as bad.

* Investigate and know the person a bit. If you see a big ticket item that is about to expire, maybe in 1 day, or more, and they haven't logged in for a week, keep an eye on it, because most likely, they won't get on just to cancel.
BlueFlame90's Candy Striper Helm snipe is an example of foresight, by checking, and confirming the person hasn't logged in for a while, then sniping it. Secured a large deal, and earned a lot of profit.

[ZNationz Crewz]

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