Question : Should you go off the Buyers and Sellers or the Price suggestion?

[Durphin]

Hey, this is my first forum post on the Backpack forums and I'm fairly inexperienced in trading. When trying to find the value of my unusual's a lot of videos say I should go off Price suggestions but lot's of other trades that I have come across via trade servers have told me that I should go off Buyers and Sellers, I hope this question isn't completely retarded and forgive me if it makes me sound like an absolute scrub. But I just wanted to know. Thank you!

[Flamadin]

Buyers and sellers from classifieds are the upper and lower bounds of value.

 

A recent price suggestion could have a good suggestion for actual selling price too.

 

Steam Community market is also useful, but not so much for unusuals since you can't tell what effects were selling for the charted prices.

[Alecto]

It's a matter of putting together what information you do have and using what experience you have with the market to understand which parts are the ones that make the most sense (and when the information isn't useful). Some examples, ranging from easy to difficult:

https://backpack.tf/stats/Unusual/Noble Amassment of Hats/Tradable/Craftable/19 Circling Heart Noble Amassment
Lots of these floating around, lots on the market. Reasonable hat with reasonable effect. Sellers starting at 23 (though mostly at 25) keys, buyers starting at 21.3 keys. That's already such a small range for an unusual that I'd consider the price suggestion irrelevant especially seeing as it's 2 years out of date on an unusual with so many out there. Either compete with the guy at 23 (some people don't like these quicksell bots because you have to add them, others dislike them because they'd rather support human to human trading) or hope his sells soon and go for 24.

 

https://backpack.tf/stats/Unusual/A Handsome Handy Thing/Tradable/Craftable/161 Vexed Volcanics Handy Thing

New effect so no suggestions, not even pending.

Sellers at 22, buyers at 12. Buy orders are often somewhere around 50% of what a hat would sell for when it's a slow seller. 22 sounds okay, ugly all-class hat with mid-tier effect from the same case as the hat (so more of them can be unboxed.) 

 

https://backpack.tf/stats/Unusual/Dragonborn Helmet/Tradable/Craftable/79 Darkblaze Dragonborn Helm

Price is 5 years out of date. Buy order at 165 keys (and well above suggestion), no sellers.

In this case the only info you have is that buy order, so you'd have to check classifieds and see what other Dragonborn Helms/Darkblaze Heavy hats are on the market for.

Other relevant Dragonborns: Poisoned Shadows at 250, Harvest Moon at 270, Stormy 13th at 300, Something Burning at 500. Considering the other prices I'd expect the Something Burning is more a placeholder price looking for offers than a buyout price, so we can somewhat ignore it. The buy orders on Harvest Moon are only 10 keys away, they're quite similar tier effects, so I'd base it around the seller on that one and list at 270.

 

https://backpack.tf/stats/Unusual/Globetrotter/Tradable/Craftable/168 Distant Dream Globetrotter

I'm the only one selling it. 1 of 1, will remain that way forever unless one comes out of a private backpack/steam community market. There is a suggestion pending at 50 keys, but 1) that's the only sale on the hat 2) it's the price I bought it at expecting to be able to sell it for more. Remember that 'buy orders often close to 50%' thing I said earlier? The buy orders at 20 are more than likely based on the pending price suggestion.

Other effects on the hat that are priced cap out at 82.5 keys, with Fragmented Photons coming in 2nd at 73.5 which I'd consider somewhat comparable with the 'Aurora' theme the effect provides. I'd like to think mine should be worth more based on rarity (and I like Distant Dream a bit better, but it's the Buyers opinion that matters, not mine!)

Comparing it to other all-class hats with the same effect (and Divine Desire, the sister effect) (besides those from the same case as the effect) we've got a Yule Hog listed at 75 (not very popular hat), Handy Thing at 85 (not very popular hat), and a good few more from 100+. That all said, I think the effect fits very well with the hat when adjusted to the right height, it's a nice mid tier hat which I could easily see people building cosmetic sets around, so i could probably list it a bit higher than 100 without it looking too overpriced. The fact that it's a 1 of 1 also helps a bit - people like the idea of a hat that is specifically 'theirs'. Reasons I haven't listed it over 100 are that I'd like to see it sell and find a new home, where it sits now in the market  and that price suggestion is going to hurt any potential interest in the hat.

 

Hopefully that gives you an idea at least how I try to work out prices

[Durphin]

@Alecto

Thank you so much! This genuinely helped a lot!

 

I was thinking that it would be safe to list my circling hearts noble amassment of hats 1 - 2 keys more than other sellers because of the spell. 

[Alecto]

4 hours ago, Durphin said:

@Alecto

Thank you so much! This genuinely helped a lot!

 

I was thinking that it would be safe to list my circling hearts noble amassment of hats 1 - 2 keys more than other sellers because of the spell. 

Ah, didn't notice yours was spelled. I can't say I know a lot about spells, you may be able to get a couple of extra keys out of it - though it would take a bit more patience