How To Make Money Trading At The Auction In Entropia Universe

When I first started in Entropia Universe, I thought I should be able to make good money by buying and selling stuff at the auction. But I found the auctioneers rather unfriendly in that they charge a minimum of 0.5 PED per transaction and since my typical transaction would be about 20 PED, I believed the transaction costs to be too high to be profitable trading at the auction.

I have since revisited the possibility and found that I was a little too hasty in deciding that the auction cannot be profitable. However, if you were to simply buy at a low price and try to sell it off at a higher price, you might not do too well. I will outline below what generally works well for me, and you can use it as a guideline for profitable trading at the auction.

Auction Fee

As I mentioned above, there is a minimum auction fee of 0.5 PED per transaction payable by the seller. The formula for calculating the auction fee is as follows:

Auction Fee = 100 - 99.5/(0.00050548 * M + 1)

where M = auction price - TT price
(Note that M cannot be less than zero. If it is, then it will be set to zero.)

Choosing The Item To Buy

I would normally deal only in the more common ores, enmatters and other stackable items. Their price would tend to be more stable and there will be more buyers and sellers.

The idea is to buy a larger quantity at a lower price and sell for a small profit a smaller quantity at a higher price. As a general guide, I would suggest buying larger quantities of 100 - 500 PED, splitting it up and selling in smaller lots of about 25 PED each with a profit of 0.25 - 1.0 PED for each smaller lot.

The guidelines I would follow when choosing an item to trade would include:

• At least 3 or more pages of auction listings indicating that there are ample buyers and sellers.
• No sharp increase in the auction price in the past couple of days.
• Only larger quantities are listed at the lower buyout prices while the smaller quantities are listed at higher buyout prices.

Buying the Item

I would normally buy the item at the buyout price. If I were to choose to place a bid, I would select an item in which the buyout price is too high to be sold at that price. I would also place the bid at a price just slightly lower than the fair price, so as to maximize the chance that I would win the item. Also, I would be more inclined to place the bid if there is not much time left to the end of the auction.

Selling The Item

As mentioned, I would price the item so that it would sell for a profit of 0.25 - 1.0 PED. I would set the number of days to the maximum, leave the opening bid at the default and set the buyout price to the price that I want to sell the item.

Some Tips

Some auction tips that you might find useful:

• Always set a buyout price for your auctions. Any auctions without a buyout price, or with too high of a buyout price, would probably sell for lower than the fair price.
• Bid for an auction without a buyout price, or with too high a buyout price, as such auctions typically sell the item at a lower than fair price.
• Stackable items at larger quantity would sell for a lower price as compared to the same items at a smaller quantity.
• Non-stackable high TT value items would normally sell for a lower markup as compared to the same item at a lower TT value. For example, an Abrer Laser Sight with a TT value of 110 PED would normally sell at 2 or 3 PED higher than the TT value. But the same laser sight with a TT value of 20 PED would sell for 5 PED or more than the TT value. Note that this is true only for unlimited items. The reverse is true for limited items.
• Invest in a good refiner like the T-105 Transformer and look for ores and enmatters in their unrefined state. They are usually priced lower than the refined items even after you take into account the decay of the refiner.
• If you have the time, you could buy items directly from miners, hunters or crafters for resale at the auction. You would normally be able to get items at an even lower price than at the auction, but I find it rather time consuming and not worth the extra profit.

Entropia Universe Resources

1. Making Money In Entropia Universe - A set of guidelines on how you can play Entropia Universe and make money.

2. Figuring out the decay of items - A way to find the exact decay of items when the decay is in the fractions of a PEC.

3. Entropia Universe Glossary - A glossary of terms usually encountered in Entropia Universe.