I'd like to see the history of an item on the trading post

[Tanek.5983]

GW2 has one of my favorite trading post setups out of the MMOs I have played. I don't usually bother with the trading post/auction house when in games, but it is so easy here that I take part in it all the time.

That said, and not being familiar with the ins and outs of the economy, there is one aspect of the trading post where I always run into a problem. When looking at an item, I can see the buy and sell orders, but I don't have much in the way of useful information on either. How long has that sell price been up? Has anyone actually purchased it at that price recently? As far as I can tell, there is no expiration, so a price may have been up there for 9 minutes or 9 years.

Without knowing the sales history on an item, I am missing one of the tools that can help me determine the best prices for both buying and selling. Some pieces of armor have buy and sell prices so wildly divergent that I can't even guess what is going on (the other day I saw a low level shoulder piece with buy orders around a silver and sell orders closer to a gold 🤔). This is less an issue with items that are in constant motion like raw crafting materials, but it could still be useful.

I thought there were websites  that had this information (and there might still be ones I haven't yet seen), but it looks like they just list what the current top prices are, not what things actually sell for, so while convenient, they do not really tell me more than I can see in the game.

Are there any tools available to show the recent trading post sale history of an item?

[costepj.5120]

I don't use any myself, but they often appear in searches when I'm looking for more info on an item.

 

https://www.gw2tp.com/

https://www.gw2spidy.com/

[Tanek.5983]

15 minutes ago, costepj.5120 said:

I don't use any myself, but they often appear in searches when I'm looking for more info on an item.

https://www.gw2tp.com/

https://www.gw2spidy.com/

Thanks. Those are a couple of the sites I have looked at. Unless I am misreading something, it seemed they listed the buy and sell prices, but not what actually sells at those prices.

GW2TP was probably the best with the graph, but I'm not sure how to interpret those divergent cases. There are more extreme examples, but a quick glace got me this one:
https://www.gw2tp.com/item/10448-malign-chain-legs

The buy offers and the sell prices never get closer than a few silver to each other. Are the dips because things sold, or because the players removed the item/offer? Maybe someone with more trading post experience could get more from the graph. 🙂 

[ASP.8093]

15 minutes ago, Tanek.5983 said:

Thanks. Those are a couple of the sites I have looked at. Unless I am misreading something, it seemed they listed the buy and sell prices, but not what actually sells at those prices.

Try GW2BLTC. There's a separate set of "bought"/"sold" lines that depict that information a bit more directly. E.g.

https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/item/19976-Mystic-Coin

[Tanek.5983]

2 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

Try GW2BLTC. There's a separate set of "bought"/"sold" lines that depict that information a bit more directly. E.g.

https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/item/19976-Mystic-Coin

Interesting! I'll check it out. Thanks.

[Schimmi.6872]

1 hour ago, Tanek.5983 said:

Interesting! I'll check it out. Thanks.

Just keep in mind, that the numbers there also include removed offers and orders, and not only items that were really bought/sold.

[ASP.8093]

7 hours ago, Schimmi.6872 said:

Just keep in mind, that the numbers there also include removed offers and orders, and not only items that were really bought/sold.

In the Bought and Sold spikes? (As opposed to in Supply and Demand?)

[Sobx.1758]

59 minutes ago, ASP.8093 said:

In the Bought and Sold spikes? (As opposed to in Supply and Demand?)

Yup, pretty sure it monitors the quantity of items and changes in them instead of "knowing" when someone buys/sells them.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Rogue.8235]

9 hours ago, Schimmi.6872 said:

Just keep in mind, that the numbers there also include removed offers and orders, and not only items that were really bought/sold.

Beat me to it.  Definitely something to be aware of here.

 

I wish the TP had the same depth of information as EVE Online did.  I can spend all day perusing the data on the markets.  If someone finds something with that level of information please post it!

 

As for what to do for now, there's no level of analysis that doesn't involve speculation.  There just isn't enough information to be able to do proper extrapolations.  The best thing is to monitor market behavior in conjunction with gameplay behaviors that are trending.  Changes that ArenaNet makes can be a useful base because their designing things to incentivize certain behaviors.  Everything else that you can monitor is essentially lag indicators, so not much you can do for predictions.

 

Essentially, try to make educated guesses on what the player base, in general, will want to be doing in a given month and incorporate that into your analysis of market movement.  As for weekly, I'm not saying anything.  I figured out the business cycle and am not letting anyone in on that. 🙂

 

[Tanek.5983]

19 hours ago, Schimmi.6872 said:

Just keep in mind, that the numbers there also include removed offers and orders, and not only items that were really bought/sold.

 

10 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

Beat me to it.  Definitely something to be aware of here.

I wish the TP had the same depth of information as EVE Online did.  I can spend all day perusing the data on the markets.  If someone finds something with that level of information please post it!

As for what to do for now, there's no level of analysis that doesn't involve speculation.  There just isn't enough information to be able to do proper extrapolations.  The best thing is to monitor market behavior in conjunction with gameplay behaviors that are trending.  Changes that ArenaNet makes can be a useful base because their designing things to incentivize certain behaviors.  Everything else that you can monitor is essentially lag indicators, so not much you can do for predictions.

Essentially, try to make educated guesses on what the player base, in general, will want to be doing in a given month and incorporate that into your analysis of market movement.  As for weekly, I'm not saying anything.  I figured out the business cycle and am not letting anyone in on that. 🙂

I wondered about that when I looked at the site! The sell and buy price lines did not match up with the quantities of "sold" items. I mean, there could have been a run of instant buys that did not get reflected, but it makes much more sense that the numbers were just drawing from changes in the totals rather than actual sales. So thanks for the clarification.

As for making educated guesses and market analysis, it is my "skill" at such things that had usually kept me away from the auction houses in other games. 😛 For now it will likely remain a mystery to me when low level gear seems to sell for high prices, but I'll try to keep an eye on what is going on and figure out some manner of strategy.

[Rogue.8235]

11 hours ago, Tanek.5983 said:

 

I wondered about that when I looked at the site! The sell and buy price lines did not match up with the quantities of "sold" items. I mean, there could have been a run of instant buys that did not get reflected, but it makes much more sense that the numbers were just drawing from changes in the totals rather than actual sales. So thanks for the clarification.

As for making educated guesses and market analysis, it is my "skill" at such things that had usually kept me away from the auction houses in other games. 😛 For now it will likely remain a mystery to me when low level gear seems to sell for high prices, but I'll try to keep an eye on what is going on and figure out some manner of strategy.

 

If you enjoy logic puzzles, think of it that way if you're in the mood for one.  Then your essentially placing bets on if you figured out the puzzle.  

There is an overarching logic to it.  Sometimes the player base just does.... weird irrational things that makes me lose gold, but it's still fun to try to figure out what happened and why.