Guild Wars 2 Trading Beginners Guide

Is Trading even worth doing? Where do I actually go to get into Trading? In this Guild Wars 2 Trading Beginners Guide we'll be answering all of these questions and a bit more.

Trading is not for everyone and the point of this Guide is not to push people into doing things they're uncomfortable with. We just want to get more transparent information about this topic out there and let people decide whether to engage in it by themselves. 

Hopefully, we can address some misconceptions players have about Trading in Guild Wars 2 to help players get into Trading if they think it's a good fit for them and address safety concerns that some players may have about Trading. Let's get into it. 

This Guild Wars 2 Trading Beginners Guide was summarized from a YouTube Video made by Abree. There might be some things you find hard to understand in this Written Guide, you can check the YouTube Guide Video and leave a Comment to let us know about it.

Table of Contents

How Does Trading Work?

Where Can You Trade?

Is Trading Safe?

Is Trading Even Worth Doing?

Reasons For Trading

Reasons For Not Trading

Trading Tips

Final Verdict

How Does Trading Work?

Guild Wars 2 has no direct Trading feature as some games do. Because of this, player-to-player Trading transactions typically occur using the Mail System to exchange Items or Gold back and forth. 

As there's a cap of 500 Gold per week that can be withdrawn through your received mails, many Traders prefer primarily to exchange Items of value like globs of ectoplasm, Mystic coins, or Legendary weapons. 

The practice of player-to-player Trading through the mail is comfortably within the bounds of the terms of service and your account will not be affected by it so long as both parties agree upon the exchange and nothing of real-world value is exchanged. 

This exchange does involve a trust system because one party has to send their mail first. We'll cover navigating that aspect in a bit.

Where Can You Trade?

The Overflow Trading Company Discord is the only place that we would recommend Trading. There are a couple of subreddits that used to be used for Trading but they're less active than Discord and they're significantly less safe. 

The Overflow Trading Company Discord has a lot of instructional Trading resources, several safety features, many other players to interact with and learn from, and several affiliated communities, and content creators both inside, and outside the scope of Trading. 

Even if you don't have an interest in Trading, we would recommend joining Discord because you can meet some really great people there. 

Is Trading Safe?

The short answer is Yes and we wouldn't be making this Guild Wars 2 Trading Beginners Guide if it wasn't legitimate or if there was no point in doing it. But, the concern is warranted with the way Trading works in Guild Wars 2. 

Someone has to send their mail first and if you're the newbie that person will be you. In the Overflow Trading Company Discord, the rate of scams is somewhere in the range of about one per 1000 successful Trades. That's not too bad but we will be sharing some safe Trading tips a bit later. If you follow, we'll make that already small chance nearly zero. 

Is Trading Even Worth Doing?

Besides the flexibility of being able to pay for an Item instead of Gold, there are three major reasons Trades occur in Guild Wars 2, and two reasons that you might want to stay away from Trading. 

Reasons For Trading

Save or Make More Gold

The first is to save or make more Gold versus using the in-game Trading Post to carry out your transaction. For example, at the time of making this Guild Wars 2 Trading Beginners Guide listing 200 Mystic coins on the Trading Post would yield about 162 Gold. Selling them to another player would yield approximately 180 Gold, that's a pretty noticeable difference. 

Save Time

The second reason is to save time versus using the in-game Trading Post to carry out the transaction. A good example would be a player attempting to buy the Dawn Precursor to craft the Legendary Greatsword Sunrise. 

They could spend many hours or even days in a bidding war on the Trading Post before they finally get their Dawn. On the other hand, it's possible that another player would sell them the Dawn in a matter of minutes and they could move on to Crafting their Sunrise sooner. 

Mitigate Risk

The third reason to Trade is to Mitigate Risk an example of this would be someone who has crafted a Legendary weapon to sell for profit. If they are listed on the Trading Post there's a fair chance that they could get buried under other listings and not sell for weeks or even months. 

They would need to de-list the weapon and then they'd be out 100 Gold from the listing fee. Selling the Legendary to another player with more working capital and more tolerance to take on that risk could be a great way to ensure that they won't end up in a losing situation. 

Reasons For Not Trading

Not Having Value To Make It Worthwhile

First, it's definitely not worth your time to get into Trading if you're only worried about Low-Value Items or Low Volume. For example, the 200 Mystic Coin Trade we discussed earlier is probably worth taking the time to do but a 5 Mystic Coin Trade definitely would not be

Similarly, it could be really hard to sell a specific Item like an individual Black Lion skin. The chances of finding someone who wants a specific Black Lion skin are usually pretty low and the extra Gold you make from selling it to another player directly will likely not be worth the time or effort versus using the in-game Trading Post. There Are None Other Methods Of Gold Making.

Don’t Have Other Methods Of Gold Making

Second, it's not worth getting into Trading if you think that Trading alone will make you a lot of Gold. There are cases where purchasing things from players and reselling them to other players could be profitable, but it's rare that a significant amount of value is gained from doing that alone.

Trading gives its greatest value when you integrate it with other Gold making methods like Farming, Crafting, or Item Processing. If you're not doing any of those things it may not be worth the effort for you. 

In case you don’t want to indulge in Trading or can’t find any other way of making Gold easily, you can Buy Cheap Guild Wars 2 Gold from renowned sellers gw2sale.com.

Trading Tips

Now, we'll move on to my tips for new Traders. 

Tips For Safe Trading

First, we'll cover 1 tip centered around safety. The most obvious safety concern with Trading is the chance of being scammed. You send off your Items to the other player and then they just ghost you and they keep what you sent them. 

Because you're a brand new Trader you'll be expected to send your items to your counterparty before they send stuff back to you but this doesn't mean you can't do anything to prevent that counterparty from scamming you. 

Find Traders With Established Reputations

So, our first piece of advice is simply to only send your Items to someone who can't afford to scam you. The easiest way to do this in the Overflow Trading Company Discord is to check the Trade Reputation of the person that you're Trading with and make sure their account isn't on the black list for scamming someone before.

Experienced Traders know that you get more benefits from Trading legitimately in the long run. So, it's extremely rare for someone with a high Reputation to scam. Target your first Trades sports players with at least 100K in Rep so you know they're reliable. 

Members of staff or community partners are generally a pretty safe bet getting a referral from someone that you trust is also not a bad option.

Using A Middleman When Necessary

If you can't find a partner that you can trust as a Middleman. The Overflow Trading Company Discord has approved Middleman that anyone can contact to facilitate their Trades safely they charge a 2% fee on the estimated value of the Trade for this service. 

If you hate paying fees you might prefer to see if a reputable Twitter or prominent community member is willing to facilitate the Trade for you for free. Abree, the creator of the Video Guide offered Middleman Trades free of charge for the Guild members and for people who consistently participate in Voice Chat. 

If you want to use a non-approved Middleman you need to make sure to choose someone that both you and your Trading partner trust. if you're conducting a Trade without a Middleman there are two things that you should do; 

• First, Record The Entire Process Of The Trade. This covers you in the event of a scam, mistake, connection loss, or anything like that. There are several free programs that you can use for screen recording and our personal recommendation is to use a display capture in OBS Studio.

• Second, you want to get an In-Game Confirmation of the Trade agreement from the person that you're Trading with before you send off all your Items. Any Discord DMS you have with the person won't matter to arena-net if you report them for scamming. Arena-net will want to see in-game proof of the agreement that was violated and quick confirmation of the Trade beforehand is the easiest way to get that. If you're not screen recording at least screenshot this agreement so that you're covered in the event of a scam. 

Tips For Effective Trading

Now we will go over some tips for effective Trading 

Don’t Be Intimidated By Bigger Traders

First don't feel pressured to accept the first offer that you get or to accept an offer from someone just because they're a well-known Trader. A lot of new Traders fall into this pitfall, it's OK to say no thanks or ask for a bit more time to consider an offer. If what you're offering is worthwhile you'll get multiple opportunities to make a deal. 

Price Check

Next, double-check the prices of the Items that you're Trading to make sure that the price that you're getting is fair. You can search the reviews channel in Discord to see what Items are typically Traded for or ask more experienced Traders for their opinions of the offer that you've been given. 

In the image above, you will find some prices for Items that are commonly Traded but these prices aren't set in stone so just use these as a rough Guide. Some Traders will give you bad offers trying to make some easy money on your Items. It's up to you to make sure that the Trade that you're taking is right for you. 

Recognize The Leverage In Negotiation

Finally, learn to recognize who has more leverage when you're negotiating a Trade. This concept is a bit more nuanced. Leverage is basically the amount of power that you have to negotiate the details of a Trade. Another way of putting it is leverage allows you to feel comfortable walking away from a negotiation. 

If you're offering a desirable Trade and nobody else is offering you'll have a lot of leverage, several people will want to Trade with you, and that gives you the power to negotiate for a particular method of payment that you prefer or to even bump your price up slightly. 

On the other hand, if you're selling an Item that many other people are trying to sell you'll have very little leverage and you may have to accept a payment method that you don't like as much or lower your price a bit. 

Having an excess of Gold materials can also give you leverage because you won't feel a sense of urgency to make a deal as soon as possible. Understanding this concept is not a requirement for Trading but it can make you a more effective Trader than most people. 

Final Verdict

So, this Guild Wars 2 Trading Beginners Guide covers all the information you need to know to start Trading. If you think it's right for you, remember you can always join the Overflow Trading Company Discord, get a feel for the Trading community, and hang out without having to actually engage in Trading.

Either way, we hope that this Guide was interesting or informative for those who aren’t well known for Trading in Guild Wars 2. If it was, feel free to support the Author of this Video Guide - Abree. We Thank Abree for making this exceptional Guild Wars 2 Trading Beginners Guide to help the community.