Trade Skills Becoming Useless for Profits

[Delores Mulva]

I see a lot of people trying to sell tradeskill items for amounts such that the final product sells for less than the sum of the components. Outside of skill path items, though, I don't see those tradeskill items ever actually sell. They sit on the Bazaar bot, rotting, until the price is dropped. I agree 100% with those that say if you can farm your own components, you can make money - especially on items with rare components, like the GVD.

There's a few other items out there that make money, assuming you're willing to put in the time. On my server, the Bazaar is frequently out of Kaladim Constitutionals because of all the people purchasing them. When they are in stock, they go for 20 pp or more. There's money to be made there. Just look for stuff in high demand, and see if the Bazaar is good at always having the items available to match that demand.

Delores Mulva
Lotus Cult
Quellious

[thrashette]

Your server.

Maybe on your server. There is not a single PoP level combine that can be profitable from

You might know me better as the person who once bought your entire inventory of heraldic armor and sold it later that day for 3 times what you had it up for.

There's a market.

[Tejaye]

Items

In Bazaar it seems Planar Oak Branches and Tea Leaves are rarely for sale, and if they are.....only 1 or 2 are for sale.

[Abazagaroth]

LOL, its impossible to sell heraldic at 3 times what I sold it for, at any point, from the 25k a sheet days to the 5k a sheet days. If you mean the thunderous heraldic I sold cheaply in one big set at one point, I was quitting the game and trying to get rid of it, not exactly a meaningful data point =P

Reselling certainly has no meaning to this debate anyway.

People could sit in EC all day long for months on end trading to make some plat with prices that only the desperate would pay, but that doesn't make it a viable option. The bazaar has made it easier for gougers, but its still doesn't make it an option many people would take. I enjoy making stuff. I don't make it for plat (I don't need any), but I won't make for a loss, and I won't make when the only option of *breaking even* is scrounging the bazaar ever hour of every day for 3 months to try 1-2 times at an item, then if you manage to succeed, have it sit on your trader for another 3 months at a price that makes it a poor buy, and rely on people with more money than sense to buy.

Gouging people certainly has no meaning to this debate anyway.

Feel free to buy up components for ANY PoP smithing stuff above hurricane and I will click for free. Once you have lost a couple hundred thousand plat on that, maybe you will get what is wrong with some tradeskills.

[Tejaye]

Ts

So basically do Tradeskills for fun and minimal profit.......or really make money by selling components.
The price for Griffon Feathers and Tea leaves is ridiculous. Up to 50pp each in bazaar. Planar Oak from POG sells for 150pp each.....if u could even find it for sale. I feel bad for folks wanting to make Blessed Fishing Rods if they cannot even Forage.

[Rewde]

So basically do Tradeskills for fun and minimal profit.......or really make money by selling components.
The price for Griffon Feathers and Tea leaves is ridiculous. Up to 50pp each in bazaar. Planar Oak from POG sells for 150pp each.....if u could even find it for sale. I feel bad for folks wanting to make Blessed Fishing Rods if they cannot even Forage.

I see Griffon feathers on npc vendors all the time, just expand your zones you search vendors in.

150 for Planar Oak is cheap. Come to my server, I generally have the cheapest price on it in the bazaar at 200pp each. The other people, when selling it, generally sell it between 350 - 500pp. So, you spend 150 on your server for the oak, say, maybe, another 50 for the dragon egg, thats 200pp spent for an item selling between 500 and 1kpp.

What about feeling bad for people who want to make jewelry who can't enchant or have jcm3?

[Koru]

Do what I do, do both. Keep some supplies for skilling up, the rest get put on a trader at the usual inflated prices to finance the skill. Once you get past the subcombines and consumables you're probably not going to see a lot of consistent low gather time high profit items that sell fast. I mean you're probably not going to find any item to make that takes 10 minutes of vendor buying, 5 minutes to combine and sells for 20k within an hour.

Which is fine by me, I'm ok with steady Platinum over Time rather than 1 big sale for most of my profits. I make quick drinks, kiolas and other low skill stuff and sell them fast for lower profit. These are my fast sellers, I'll probably move them in 1 day to 1 week tops. The plat made from them may seem piddly at first, but like a DoT it adds up over time since it's consistently selling and is less affected by market fluctuations. I have other higher end products that I sell slower but make me a slightly bigger profit per item.

Now I wonder if people are focusing mostly on the high end easy (relatively) things to make? GMing a skill doesn't mean you shouldn't also sell the lower end items if they will make you a profit. Especially in a non-decay economy where your items are probably steadily losing value. If I can move a lower skill item faster with less effort of course I'll make it. There's always someone out there looking to twink who can't afford the best but would settle for my stuff.

You'll have to excuse me Tejaye, I mean no insult with this, but it seems like you want a lot of affirmation that tradeskills are in fact profitable. They are, but only if you put some time and effort into them. It doesn't work out to you just doing them and automatically ending up with platinum. It also depends on what you consider reasonable platinum per time. What a newbie considers nice plat I wouldn't even stand up for nowadays. If I told you I started out with 400 pp and ended up with quite a few hundred thousands.. well that's a nice profit. But it took time to get there and there's probably a lot of AAs I could have gotten if I hadn't been stocking my trader. Could I get lucky on a rare drop and make more today from it than from my trader? Sure. But I'm unlikely to get lucky every day.

Look, it's completely possible to make profits making some of the higher trivial items, it's completely possible to make profits from some of the lower trivial items. As is making profit selling components. Different items sell at different rate. I wouldn't be able to sell underfoot armor as fast as I sell QATs obviously, so I adjust my inventory to suit the market. I think most of us mix and match to get the best results. There's no absolute here saying that the best plat is always from selling components or the best plat is always from skilling up and selling products. It depends, and you try it, sometimes you lose and sometimes you really hit paydirt. In the end the reason I keep trying is because I love doing tradeskills. I find them relaxing. The fact that they're proving to be so profitable and useful is nice, but even if they weren't I'd probably still do them.

[Tejaye]

Profit

Good points Koru. I just had gotten a bit frustrated when my buddy gave me full access to a lvl 65 Chanter with 250 GM at Jewelry. I quickly found out that the components needed for high end items will cost me more than what I would sell the item for. I then had to camp the components which were rare. (ie-Bloddmetal Earrings if i spelled that correctly). I figured by the time I got components, I could camp other high end items worth more.
But I do like Tradeskills and will stick with it. The usual exp grind just got boring after 4 years in game.

[baody]

My skills are 246 tailoring, 218 smithing, 250 brewing, 241 jewel crafter (should bring that to 250 sometime), 205 potter, and a 200 fletcher.

I agree that saying that trade skills can make you money if you farm your own stuff is false economy; if I farm pelts and sell them off and make the same money there was no reason to spend the time combining them, other than the chance of a skill improve. That said, there are things that I make and sell at 5k profit for every hour of work I put into it. There are people who troll the bazaar for bargains or camp loot mobs who make a lot more money than that, but a lot of people make a lot less than that when they go and farm cash.

Baody.

[Cerpicio]

I'm sorry, I just find it very ironic that people come here and ask how they can make money from trade skills and everyone chides that saying, "You can't make money from trade skills you dolt!"

But as soon as someone complains that they aren't making any money from trade skills everyone still shoots them down and tells how they are making tons o' plat a week.



-- C.

I'm just pointing it out, that's all. I'm a GM in two skills, and 200 in all but tailoring, so I know there's a lot of work involved in TSs. It isn't a get-rich-quick endeavor. I had 100+ in the bank mostly from selling items over a period of time. Sales from one trade skill helped pay for supplies for the others. I just got a kick out of the sudden change of opinion.

[Silverfish]

Making Money versus Making MONEY

Cerpicio wrote:

"I'm sorry, I just find it very ironic that people come here and ask how they can make money from trade skills and everyone chides that saying, "You can't make money from trade skills you dolt!"

But as soon as someone complains that they aren't making any money from trade skills everyone still shoots them down and tells how they are making tons o' plat a week."

I think the disparity comes from the method of requests. Often, when someone comes here and asks about how to make money on trades, that person has no tradeskills to speak of and is looking for a method to turn a profit quickly. As you know, that's just not very likely, and the community tells them that if they're looking for fast money, they're better off going out hunting for it, since if you don't have the skill you're going to have to spend a lot to get it.

Now, turn around and max a few skills, blowing mass plat in the process. Now you have a valuable set of skills, and with attention and luck you can turn those skills into a profit stream. There are a lot of folks who have gotten their skills up for Aid Grimel or for the fun of doing it, but because of a weird server market or lack of analysis they can't figure out how to make money. They come here and bemoan the fact that they can't turn a profit on GM skills, and those who are doing it correct them.

So, the real difference between being able to make money and not is having high trade skills. If you don't have them, it's not a good pursuit to get them just to make money. If you got them for the fun or challenge of it, though, you can then put them to good use creating plat. It's not really a reversal of opinion, just a change in the underlying skill set.

Silverfish

[baody]

Buh.

I did 210 to 248 in Tailoring, in the last 6 months, with no skill-up goods being sold at a loss and little farming. Most of what I was selling was reinforced acrylia armor. When it trivialed at 242 I started selling arctic wyvern. My mark up is probably 10 percent over what it costs to buy the supplies in the bazaar.

I went from 188 to 212 in smithing selling LDoN armor and making a profit on each item. The best sellers are gothic (for melee types) and sand blasted (+wis for clerics and possibly paladins). The stuff to make the tempers was dirt cheap.

I can make money doing skill ups on two of the harder skills because most people aren't patient. A lot of folks have a bucket of pp that they throw at trade skills, buying everything they can in the bazaar and making the farmers very happy. If that's how you get enjoyment out of the game, then have fun. For me the fun is buying the supplies, making the trade items, and selling at a profit.

Things that I've found that seem to have a good mark up...

Items for the PoP armor quest recipies (ie, ethereal silk swatches, cured ethereal armor).

Some items for the Solstice Earing Quest, especially the blessed fishing rod, which isn't on anybody's skill up path.

Food and Drink, which is a great way for a newbie to raise some money. Juding from some of the prices I'm paying, trade skill farming isn't a bad way for a newbie to raise money either.

Tinkered goods seem to sell for a good profit.

There are some high end tailored items, like Ice Burrower caps and Velium Mastadon fur cloaks, that sell for good money. I don't sell a lot of them, and they don't seem to sell at a super high mark up if I buy the supplies, but they don't take a lot of time to make, so I might as well keep a few in stock.

Baody.

[Ngreth Thergn]

I'm sorry, I just find it very ironic that people come here and ask how they can make money from trade skills and everyone chides that saying, "You can't make money from trade skills you dolt!"

But as soon as someone complains that they aren't making any money from trade skills everyone still shoots them down and tells how they are making tons o' plat a week.



-- C.

I'm just pointing it out, that's all. I'm a GM in two skills, and 200 in all but tailoring, so I know there's a lot of work involved in TSs. It isn't a get-rich-quick endeavor. I had 100+ in the bank mostly from selling items over a period of time. Sales from one trade skill helped pay for supplies for the others. I just got a kick out of the sudden change of opinion.

MOST of those responses ARE to people who want to get rich quick with tradekills... or make a fortune while skilling up. Neither happens. Though you can get rich with tradeskills... it takes some initial investment

[Hibashira]

Tradeskill can make money as long as you are not the one doing it.