After the guide for gathering professions comes one for the marketplace, as one can never earn enough Gil.

Whether it’s gold in World of Warcraft or Gil in Final Fantasy XIV, you can never have enough of this currency. After all, you need it for various activities, whether it’s for repairing equipment, funding a raid night, or acquiring prestigious mounts. This inevitably raises the question of how to earn a lot with minimal time investment.

The Basic Rules

If you’re not interested in farming for items, you can generate some income through the marketplace. This approach is usually more effective since it takes less time and yields higher returns. However, the risk increases, as you will occasionally make erroneous purchases. The following tips are quite general and can be applied to other games. The numbers are for illustration and can vary by server.

Know the Prices

The most important rule is to know the prices. By observing a product over a longer period, you can determine how much fluctuations there are. It’s useful to know if an item trades between 200-500 Gil over several days. You wait to purchase until it reaches the lower value, stock up, and sell it a few days or weeks later. However, this requires a longer preparation time, as only then can you be sure the price will rise again.
It’s important to distinguish between normal items (referred to as NHQ) and HQ items. The latter are recognizable by a specific icon and are usually significantly more expensive. However, there are occasional deals on HQ items at NHQ prices. It’s wise to buy without hesitation and potentially resell at ten times the price.

Manipulate the Price

Instead of waiting for fluctuations, it’s possible to create them yourself. There are also safe and risky ways to do this. For instance, if you know the price fluctuates between 200-500, you can buy almost anything and set it for 500. This method is relatively safe, as the items will likely sell sooner or later. It’s worth trying to drive the prices even higher and ask for 600 or 700 since you are the only seller at that moment. And if it doesn’t work out, you can revert to the old price with a lower profit margin. Here, the risk is more about time than money.
Alternatively, look for products with low supply and existing demand. These usually involve HQ products. For example, HQ Yew logs. You gradually increase the price to 2400 Gil, while buying it for under 800. Since there are always people offering the HQ version at the NHQ price of around 200, the profit margin can be quite high.

Have Patience

It is not advisable to constantly undercut everyone. Not only is this very time-consuming, but it also leads to significantly lower earnings. There are always people who ask for not 1 Gil but 10, 100, or even 1000 less. Those who know the prices don’t need to take less. If the competitor’s price is low enough, just buy it yourself.
Also, consider the day of the week. Tuesdays usually reset the raids. The price for Buffod may be higher that evening than on others. Many only buy items when they need them, and right before a boss fight, they have no choice but to purchase your overpriced product immediately. On the other hand, we can wait before buying.
On weekends, especially in the evenings, more players are likely online than perhaps on a Wednesday at 5 AM. You should keep this in mind, as more players mean higher demand and thus a bigger wallet for us.

Less is More

Raw materials are often sold in stacks of 99. This is sensible, since the price of a single item is quite low, so you trade in larger quantities. However, there may be goods where there is simply no interest in such a high quantity. If someone only needs 5 HQ Yew logs, they won’t buy 99.
Instead of lowering the price, it’s advisable to reduce the quantity. Offer groups of 5, 10, and 25 and then compare whether demand has increased. You might even be able to slightly raise the price.

Unlock Merchants

The Beast Tribes sell numerous products when you improve your reputation with them. It’s recommended to compare these prices with the marketplace. Often, other players don’t have this reputation or don’t feel like traveling to the vendor right away. Others may not even know that the merchant exists. This way, you can sell some products profitably. For example, you can buy Yew logs for 60 Gil and sell them for 299 Gil.

In Self-Experiment

Apart from mere theory, a small self-experiment took place. I wasn’t familiar with the prices and the starting capital was 150k Gil, not particularly much. The time invested was about 5 minutes a day and the trading was done extremely cautiously to avoid risks as much as possible.
In the first days, I focused on monitoring the prices. Fortunately, I had a small overview of some types of wood due to previous farming as a gardener. Among others, Yew, Ash, and Elm logs. So, I started buying them. I continuously noted everything down so that I would know in the future how much I paid and at what price I sold the product. Even if I hadn’t intended to write this article, my notes would have been similar:

• Buy 99 Elm logs for under 200, sell for 370
• Buy 152 Ash logs for under 100, sell for 188
• Buy Yew logs for under 100, sell for 299

In retrospect, I should have included a date. In any case, I continued my business and expanded. I purchased leather for 20-30 and sold it for 75 after I bought up the market. This was not effective; the earnings were too low. I just wanted to test how well prices can be manipulated this way. I did the same with Allagan Snails, but the demand was too low here.
Products I monitored were similarly noted. For instance, the Antelope Horn in HQ, which seemed to be worth 4k. Unfortunately, I was a bit hasty and waited only a few days. I bought horns for 2-3k and wanted to sell them for 5k. Ultimately, they were only worth 1.5k, resulting in a loss. That happens.
After 2 weeks, my 150k Gil had turned into 650k. Another two weeks later, it was over 1.6 million. Compared to other farming opportunities, one might have earned better that way. The advantage of the marketplace is the time investment: at 5 minutes a day, this amounted to about 2.5 hours for a month. And surely, with more effort and higher risk tolerance, one could earn much more.

Interesting:

• Final Fantasy XIV: How to earn Gil quickly with gathering professions.

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