Trading Post Basics

Guild Wars 2 Black Lion Trading Post agent

You have two options for selling items in Guild Wars 2: Vendors and the Trading Post. Vendors are straightforward, but the GW2 Trading Post can seem intimidating at first.

Loot Note: It’s worth learning how to use the Trading Post! This is how you maximize your profit.

Vendor prices are fixed. But the Trading Post is an open market with prices that change based on player transactions. ArenaNet acts as a go-between for all transactions, so you have no contact with the player (buyer or seller) on the other side.

Click O (as in Oscar) to bring up the Trading Post in game. After you buy or sell something, go to a Black Lion Trader to pick up your item or coin. Traders are located in each of the cities, and in several other maps as well.

Each time you list an item, there is a 5% fee, which is taken from your account immediately. Each time you sell an item, there is a 10% fee, which is taken from the profits from the sale. There is no additional fee to buy an item.

Guild Wars 2 Black Lion Trading Post interface with listing and exchange fees highlighted

To list the item pictured here, the fee is 25s 51c. When the item sells, ArenaNet will take a fee of 51s 1c.

The easiest thing to do is click Sell Instantly to sell your item.

Guild Wars 2 Black Lion Trading Post interface with the Sell Instantly button highlighted

The column on the left shows the current highest bidder price (called the “buy order”), which is 5g 10s. The column on the right shows the current lowest seller price (the “sell order”), which is 6g 99s.

Guild Wars 2 Black Lion Trading Post interface with the current buy and sell prices highlighted

If you click Sell Instantly it will sell the item to the highest bidder. In this case, for 5g 10s.

Guild Wars 2 Black Lion Trading Post interface with the highest bidder highlighted

The Trading Post also lists the vendor value, right below the item’s name.

Guild Wars 2 Black Lion Trading Post interface with the item's vendor value highlighted

This is the price you would get if you simply sold the item to a standard vendor. This particular item cannot be sold to a vendor, so its vendor value is zero.

Trading Post Strategy

For most items under a gold, it’s usually worth it to Sell Instantly. Considering the listing and sale fees, it’s rarely worth the hassle to place a sell order (and wait, and possibly be undersold) for such a small profit margin.

Guild Wars 2 Black Lion Trading Post interface with the top buy and sell prices highlighted

However, in this case, as you can see, the difference between the buy order and sell order is almost 2 gold. The listing and sale fees amount to about 75s, so the profit margin is about 1g 25s. That’s definitely worth the time to list it with a sell order.

Loot Note: Sometimes there’s a HUGE gap between the buy order and sell order. Like, suspiciously huge. Be wary of these big gaps… there are a lot of reasons why they happen, but long story short, you usually end up not selling your item for that crazy high price. And then you’re out the listing fees.

Trust your instincts when selling on the TP. If a sale looks too good to be true, it probably is.

If you list something with a sell order, your item will wait in limbo until someone clicks Buy Instantly to buy your item. Note that your sell price goes on a list, and it’s commonplace to be undersold by other sellers. So there is a bit of a gamble involved in placing a sell order.

Leave a Reply