The cheapest listing is cheapest for a reason, and there are about six of them. Only one
is a genuine bargain. Here is how to tell which you are looking at before you spend twenty
minutes finding out.
Everyone learns this the same way. You find something well under the market figure,
whisper the seller, get nothing. Whisper the next one, nothing. By the fifth attempt you
have burned fifteen minutes and could have bought it immediately from the sixth listing
at a price barely different from where you started.
That experience is so universal it is worth understanding structurally rather than
treating as bad luck. The bottom of a sorted price list is where the broken
listings accumulate, and the reasons are predictable enough to identify on sight.
A sorted list puts the best deals at the top. It also puts everything wrong with the
market there, and the two are indistinguishable until you whisper.
Six kinds of cheap listing
Ranked roughly by how often you will meet them. Only the last is what you were hoping for.
The abandoned listing
Very common
Priced correctly at the time, then the seller stopped playing. The listing stays public indefinitely because nothing expires it. By far the most common reason a price looks too good.
Tell: the price fits an earlier phase of the league, and the seller shows as offline or has not been seen recently.
Do: skip it. One whisper if you feel lucky, then move on without waiting for a reply.
The different item
Common
It shares a name with what you want and is not the same thing. A bad corruption, a low roll, the wrong league variant. The price is entirely correct for what it actually is.
Tell: compare the modifiers line by line rather than the item name. The difference is usually one number.
Do: re-read the row you priced from. Variants are listed separately for exactly this reason.
The stock clearance
Fairly common
Someone with forty copies pricing under market to move them quickly. Completely legitimate and often a genuinely good deal, particularly if you want several.
Tell: many identical listings from one account, all at the same low price, seller usually online and responsive.
Do: buy, and ask about a bulk rate if you need more than one. The bulk calculator handles the split.
The quick sale
Fairly common
A player who wants currency now, priced deliberately under to guarantee a fast trade. Common late in a league and just before a new one starts.
Tell: a single listing, moderately under market rather than absurdly so, seller online and quick to answer.
Do: take it. This is the ordinary version of a good deal and it disappears within minutes.
The listing that never sells
Occasional
Placed far below market to drag the displayed figure down, with no intention of honouring it. Most of this is caught by filtering before it reaches a summary page, but the listings themselves remain visible on the trade site.
Tell: a cluster of implausibly low listings from the same account that never disappear, however long you watch them.
Do: ignore entirely, and do not use it to argue a price down with a legitimate seller.
The genuine mispricing
Rare
Someone typed the wrong number, or did not realise what they had. This is the thing everyone is hunting for, and it is genuinely uncommon because other people are hunting too.
Tell: a single listing wildly out of step with everything around it, from an active seller, on an item with an unusual roll they may not have checked.
Do: whisper immediately. These last seconds, not minutes, and hesitating is the same as missing it.
The tells, in one place
Nearly all of it comes down to four observations. What you notice on the left, what it
usually means on the right.
If you noticeIt is probably
The seller has been offline for days→Abandoned. The price was fine when it was set. Nothing removes a listing when someone stops playing.
Several identical listings, same account, same low price→Stock clearance if they respond, manipulation if they never do. One whisper distinguishes them.
The modifiers do not quite match what you priced→A different item. The price is correct; you are comparing it to the wrong row.
One listing, active seller, moderately under market→A real deal. Someone wants currency today. Buy it before you finish reading this row.
What chasing them actually costs
The reason this matters is not the few chaos at stake. It is the time, which is invisible
because it never appears in a trade window.
A typical chase, costed honestly
Six whispers, waiting between each18 min
Saved versus the seventh listing12 chaos
Value of 18 min at 400 chaos an hour120 chaos
Net result−108 chaos
You won the negotiation and lost the evening. Substitute your own farming rate and
the arithmetic rarely improves. The trading
mistakes guide has a full break-even table for this.
How to pick a listing instead
Four habits replace the whole chase and take about ten seconds.
01
Skip the first threeNot because they are always broken, but because enough of them are that starting at the fourth costs you almost nothing and saves the pattern above.
02
Sort by price, then filter to online sellersThe single highest-value filter on the trade site. It removes the abandoned listings in one action rather than one whisper at a time.
03
Compare modifiers, not namesBefore deciding a price is low, confirm the item is the one you priced. Half of apparent bargains fail here. See the item prices guide on variants.
04
Decide your walk-away number firstPick the price you will happily pay before you start looking. It converts a search into a decision and stops the drift into haggling over trivial amounts.
When you are the cheap listing
The mirror is worth a moment, because it is where the actual money is. If something you
list sells within seconds, that was not luck. It was a signal that you priced it
below what someone was willing to pay, and the buyer knew it before you did.
That does not mean underpricing is always wrong — a fast sale has real value when
you want currency now. But it should be a choice rather than an accident, and the way to
keep it a choice is to check the variant carefully before listing. Listing a good roll at
a base version's price is the single most expensive selling mistake available.
Real bargains do exist
None of this argues that the market is efficient or that hunting is pointless. Genuine
mispricings happen constantly, particularly on items with unusual rolls that a seller did
not evaluate carefully.
Where the real ones are
Unusual rolls on ordinary items. Sellers price by name and skim the modifiers. An exceptional roll listed at the base price is the most common genuine bargain there is.
Items nobody has bothered to price. Thin listing counts cut both ways — if the market barely exists, some listings will be well under what a buyer who needs it would pay.
Right after a patch. Something that just became valuable sits at its pre-patch price until enough people notice. This window is short and it is real.
End of league. Players liquidating everything genuinely do not care about the last twenty percent, and there is nothing suspicious about it.
The difference between a bargain and a broken listing is almost never the price. It is
whether the seller is there and whether the item is what you think it is.
Check those two things and the rest of this page becomes unnecessary. Skip them and you
will spend a lot of evenings whispering into the void.
