Currently, supply of dust and pebbles exceeds demands on Bristlebane and prices have fallen some. For the time being, sales of any kind will be a bit harder to come by. Still, Sunshard remains a useful item and I’ve made some observations that might be helpful to suppliers and traders alike.
It is useful to note that this is one of the items commonly bought at full stacks. What I mean is that people commonly by-pass lower prices on short-stacks for the convenience of one stop shopping. If you don’t have a full stack it is a mistake to believe you can make an easy sale at the best price, or even by undercutting the typical full-stack price by just a tiny amount. If you want to be sure of a sale your price may have to be much, much lower than the full-stack price.
For example: A trader sold a full stack of pebbles recently even though there was another trader with nearly a full stack selling at an 11p lower price, and many more traders selling between 1-50 pebbles each at prices up to 80p lower. A savings of just over 1,000p, (or even much more if they’d snapped up all those 1-50s as well) just wasn’t enough of an incitement to that player seeking that full stack. It seems odd to those who are thriftier with plat, but it is truly a common thing to see on this type of item. I’ve seen this in pebbles, ore, dust, diamonds, bone chips, pelts, anything that sells by the stack, especially stacks of 50 – 100 or more.
That guy who lost out on a sale would be far better off buying just enough cheep pebbles to make a full stack. (he could have done this at the time and still made double his money back on those few extra pebbles) Then, if he raised his price to match other full-stack sellers, it would help mitigate his now higher risk and preserve the higher market price for his future sales of the same item.
Or, going the other way and becoming a supplier, he could cut his price drastically to make his 2/3rd stack more appealing either to bargain shoppers or to resellers. He’d choose the former for a more profitable sale at a longer wait, or the latter for a quick sale that frees slots for more sales of other items he may be holding in the bank. At this rate though, he could continue to hold onto his short-stack for a very long and unprofitable time.
So, when pricing this product you have to decide who you are trying to sell to…
People with lots of plat but neither the time or inclination to wait for the item to trickle in a few at a time…
Or to bargain shoppers who have more persistence than plat, and resellers who are willing to risk a lot of plat in hopes of a larger profit later, and who otherwise don’t have the option to farm or set up buyers to attain their goods…
You might want to consider how much time you have to set up as a trader too before you decide. If you only set up as trader for a few hours a day and never at peak play times, you have to keep in mind that full stacks may not sell for you as often as the guy who is on almost all the time. You have to be on and selling when the buyers are on and buying. However setting a lower price for resellers could provide you with a quick mover that makes you a lot of profit over time. Chances are you could easily sell 200 at 50p as they trickle in… but never sell one @ 200p. Which option is the more efficient use of a trader slot? In the least it’s something to consider.
If you want to get rid of the product fast, the first step is to check to see if anyone is buying over on the barter side of the bazaar. I’ve actually made a few thousand plat buying stuff in the bazaar and selling immediately to players in buyer mode. Which is why it’s important to check your trader prices against buyers as well as other traders as often as you can. The command is /barter. Then type in what you have to sell and see if anyone is buying and at what price. If the price is good enough, dump it there and save your trader slots for something else or use your new found freedom to actually play the game. If no one is buying, then make sure you honestly price for a quick sale if you really want to try being a supplier. Keep in mind that when items are sought in full stacks only bargain shoppers and resellers will bother buying in smaller amounts. If you don’t want the item sitting around for long periods then make sure the price is truly attractive to these people. Remember that resellers will want to make a nice profit because they could have that product sitting around a very long time while waiting for that full stack buyer. It’s scary to risk thousands of plat in the hopes you’ll make a profit later, often much, much later. They also risk being hit buy gluts and price wars that could destroy their ability to make a profit at all. Start low and sneak your price up ‘till you find out their limit, or just ask them what they are buying at. It won’t hurt and you might build a profitable relationship that will keep the plat rolling in while you get to actually keep playing the game. Their willingness to pay higher prices will go down or stall under glut situations of course.
If you go the full-stack rout, then be careful when undercutting current full stack prices. Keep in mind that under the best circumstances a single seller who is reliably on during peak times will wait a few days to a week on average to make a full stack sale, sometimes longer. You must be very patient. But the rewards are there, even if you share the floor with other full-stack sellers. (Just expect the wait to increase accordingly.) If you drop the price below standard however, you are less likely to increase your odds for a sale than you are to force the other sellers to drop their prices as well. After all, they have the same pressure to keep stuff moving as you do, and have paid the same or higher price to acquire their goods. You are hurting yourself just as much if you start a price war. Chances are you will still wait just as long for your sale to hit, but you will be making drastically less than you would have when it finally does. You also undermine your ability to profit well in the future should you acquire more stacks to sell. Once prices start falling in a price war it can be a long, long time before they come back up, if they come back at all. Only undercut standard prices when you absolutely must make a quick sale and you don’t plan on trying to sell that item regularly in the future, otherwise you are just throwing away your time and plat.
Before anyone complains that buyers are being ripped off… consider this. Bargain shoppers cans still get affordable pebbles at the same rate as ever before. It will just take them a few days checking the bazaar and buying the new cheep ones that come in every day before they get all they will eventually need and at the price they want to pay. They could set up a buyer as well, and get even better prices. Though it may take longer to amass what they need. Regardless it will take no longer to do that than it ever did. And those who just want to buy what they want and get it right now, they will have that option. They will not be forced to waste time farming, or shopping, and will get back to what they really want to be doing all the sooner. Which is playing the game.
In the last few months’ I’ve known people to sell full stacks (150) of these at 250-350p. Bazaar Prices range from 50p (rarely) to 600p. (250 - 300 average) No indication that they move for people at prices set much higher than average. They can often be sold at the bazaar to players (/barter) from 15-60p. Prices still seem to be on an upward trend, though it may be slowing down, it’s hard to tell.
Pebbles drop from basically all mobs lvl 45-55 in all zones on all continents.
They are used in jewelcraft and tinkoring but that is just the first step, the combined ingredient is also used in smithing and tailoring to make class and level specific armors such as: and and etcetera.
So by doing tradeskills with sunshard dust/pebble/ore, you actually get two different skillup attempts per pebble. Then since the final items have zero tribute, either sell in bazaar or else sell to vendor for about 75% of the components price.
Sunshard Pebble sells for 0 plat 0 gold 0 silver 9 copper when offered to Sateal Deirosap vendor in the bazaar by level 3 human monk with 143 cha... Current bazaar price 25 to 100 plat on Bertox server... I sold one to see the price...it never did show up in vendor inventory even when I bought several items I could use from the vendor ... other things I had sold showed up in vendors inventory... needless to say i did not buy it back... smile...
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May your life journeys in Norrath, Azeroth and on Earth be smooth.... be safe... be happy... be well...
Terrific... everyone has now made their pointless post after post after post after post where people got one to drop--which no one actually cares about... if you have one, you know where it dropped. Now what the hell is it used for, no one seems to have bothered with that information, or even asking!
Terrific... everyone has now made their pointless post after post after post after post where people got one to drop--which no one actually cares about... if you have one, you know where it dropped. Now what the hell is it used for, no one seems to have bothered with that information, or even asking!
It's used in the recipes listed above (if you're a Premium user).