Lesson 1 - Price Manipulation

How to avoid:

Ever wondered why you couldn’t sell items for the same price you bought at like 1 day later? What I can tell you is, you probably paid the manipulated price of an item. Price manipulation is the deliberate attempt to interfere with the market or prices of items by creating artificial, false or misleading prices. This Trade tactic has started to become popularised and mainstream where if you haven't already noticed prices of “Item of the Months” have skyrocketed, one you are very familiar with “Growscans”. These prices just did not change naturally, but were influenced by smart rich players. In this course I’ll teach you how to exploit, but not fall victim to Price Manipulation. Let’s start with how to not fall victim to Price Manipulation. For me personally, I use a set of Trade strategies, or ‘checklist’ to determine whether a price is being manipulated.

Tip 1: Dummy offers

I first ask the specific price the buyer is willing to sell for. Say for example an Emerald Pickaxe and the buyer wants 20dl for it. The next thing I do is called “giving a dummy offer”. Dummy offers assist buyers who have no knowledge of items to not get extremely ripped off or regret buying items for an artificial price. Dummy offers is an effective way to identify if a price is being manipulated or just marked up too high. It is basically just giving a lower offer based on the original price, and depending on the reaction of the buyer, you can determine if a price is being manipulated. Yes, in some cases there could be desperate sellers, but the majority of the time people are ALWAYS making a profit on their item. So for educational purposes, say I wanted to buy an Emerald Pickaxe but I don’t know the market price. I see a seller in BUYGHC but his billboard says 20dl which he originally bought for 18dl. I go up to him, even though his billboard says 20dl, YOU MUST STILL ASK FOR THE PRICE! He says “20dl” then here comes the critical part. You give a “dummy offer” saying “How about 19dl?” if he immediately says “Trade” or “can little more?”, then I guarantee you the price is artificial and upsaled.

Tip 2: Pretending to sell an item

Sometimes when I’m at BUYGHC or SEEDS I pretend to sell the items buyers are looking for. For example, a random player just entered BUYGHC, and he is looking to buy a Emerald Pickaxe. I then go up to him and ask him, “Are you buying an Emerald Pickaxe?” just to be polite as well as for confirmation. If he replies yes, I then tell him “Oh great! I’m actually selling one, how much are you buying for?” (note being polite is the best trait when trading. Players feel more inclined to negotiate prices)

There are usually two scenarios after me telling the buyer that I’m “selling” the item he wants. They either ask me to SHOW, in which I just RUN AWAY or leave the world, or they state the price they’re looking for. Now you may ask, WHY or HOW do I benefit from ‘Pretending to sell an item’, well it is simply this. By me pretending to sell an item, and them giving me a price, I am informed of the MINIMUM price I could buy it at later on from a potential seller, which I could get for cheap and resell for more. I am able to AVOID the possible MANIPULATED price of items. Like I said before, sneaky players can exploit this technique, through asking their friends to “FAKE BUY ITEMS AT HIGH PRICES” so that they could sell it “cheap” but not really, to players seeking to profit. So be careful!

Anyhow, I just described strategies to avoid manipulation on a small scale, but there are other tactics players use like getting their friends to fake buy, causing desperation or fake competition.

How to exploit:

Moving on to how you can exploit this tactic. Price manipulation may be unethical, but its better to understand both sides of the coin. Take the manipulation of Growscans for example. The price was extremely volatile and players began purchasing it at 300wl. Ten trades later, the price “coincidentally” rose in value to 350wl. Within 3 hours, the price had reached 400wl. BuyGrowscan became full, players began super broadcasting to buy Growscans for absurd amounts to try and boost the price. 

Exploiting price manipulation isn’t that hard at all, as long as you know what to do, when to buy, sell or hold, and how to do it properly, in a way that makes it believable. We will first start by exploring how to profit, and when to buy investments.

Tip 1: Invest early (Short-term gain)

Short-term gain is basically profiting off an item in the short-term, either on newly released ones or manipulated ones. Like the example I gave before with growscans. Those who knew about Short-term gains and market manipulation would have invested in a few very early on when it cost 300wl. The price of growscans had jumped by 100wl within 3 hours, and the hype skyrocketed. Everyone thought that this was gonna be the new RAYMAN/MAGPLANT so excited ready to buy, spamming “it gonna rise like magplant etc.”

Tip 2: Snowball effect

Profit off hype. This is what I call the “snowball effect” where everyone just began working with one another subconsciously but really were all just puppets. Those who bought in early at around 400wl sold at 800wl knowing the price would rapidly drop once the original manipulators sold. This is when chaos hit the roof. The manipulators started selling 50-100 growscans each at 12dl. The price dropped rapidly in value, 100wl per 10 minute, players were just panicking, especially those who bought in at 1200wl thinking it would rise more. This is because the supply outweighed the demand. The original manipulators weren’t buying any more and just selling. No one was buying anymore, everyone was just panic selling.