Trading
 

I have delayed writing this article as prices in the Auction House have been depressed since the release of the Team of the Year (TOTY). It would appear that the chance to obtain TOTY players in packs resulted in a mass sell off of player cards to fund pack purchases. The result of this was that player trade values were much lower than previously and this presented a few difficulties for those of us trying to make additional coins by trading

In the last few days though, the market has appeared to return to normality. Although prices are not reaching there pre TOTY levels (with a few exceptions) the increase has been sufficient for the smart trader to make a profit.

When we first started building our coin fund, we were looking for players that we could use the quick sell function to sell at a small profit. However this process is slow but necessary in order to build or coin fund to allow us to move to the next stage.

We are now going to look for players that regularly sell for higher than there quick sell value. Because of this we are taking a risk that if we cannot re-sell the player at auction, we will make a loss. Because of this, it is vital that we do our research to ascertain the correct market value for the player before we start to buy.

When we were bidding on players at below the quick sell value, you will have noticed that there were players that we would regularly be outbid on. These are the type of players we should be looking at to start with as we know they regularly sell for more than the re-sell value. I will not be naming individual players to go for as that would very quickly distort the trade price making this advice less effective, but I will advise on the types of players you should be looking for.

Ideally you will have built a fund of around 20,000 coins to trade with, however if you have more coins than that, you can start going for higher value players where greater margins can be made (although the risks are greater too)

To start with I would be looking at Gold Rare cards rated high 70’s to low 80’s, full internationals, with high profile clubs. Attacking players also tend to offer better trading opportunities, although these are just some loose guidance to help you find trading opportunities. Once you find a potential opportunity, I recommend watching a number of auctions on that player to find the range of prices the player sells for.

You need to find a player with a good range of prices as we are looking to buy at the lower end of the range and sell for more. We also have to take into account the 5% EA deduct from every Auction House sale. If we sell a card for 1,000 coins we will only receive 950 coins as the other 50 will be deducted.

So having watched a player, we can see the range of prices. For example, we may find a player that always sells for at least 800 coins, but will often sell for more, and regularly sell for over 1,000. This presents our trading opportunity

Although there are factors that influence player value such as formation or number of contracts, there are sufficient gamers that will buy there player they want irrespective of formation, and this is where our potential to make a profit arises.

We have found our player and decided that his lower value is 800 coins. We now do a search on the player and bid on every card available at 800 coins (depending on the player I sometimes don’t bid on players who have no contracts left as these can sometimes be harder to sell). We bid on every card at 800, and if we are outbid that is not a problem.

With a fund of 20,000 coins we could make 25 bids of 800 assuming there are that many cards available in the auction house. If we have done our research correctly we should win a handful of these auctions. If we win most of them, we have clearly overpaid for the player and will struggle to re-sell at a profit. Likewise if we do not win any of the players, we have undervalued that particular player

Assuming we win say 5 of the 25 auctions, we have probably got our pitch just right. We should then list these vehicles at the Auction House at a higher value. Again look at the cards that you have been outbid on to see what price these should be re-listed at. If you list them too high, they may not sell, but you can always re-list slightly lower until the do go.

For our 5 cards that we bought at 800 coins, I might list them at a start price of 1,000. If a couple sell but the rest don’t I wouldn’t worry too much, just re-list them at the same price. Even if it takes three or four auctions, I would expect them to sell eventually.

As we may have to list these items more than once, I would only put them on a 1 hour auction, as this allows us to re-list quickly if they fail to sell first time.

Although we have a start price of 1,000 it is possible that they could sell for more than that but assuming they all go for 1,000, that would be a profit of 150 per card after EA deduction, and a total profit of 750 over the five cards.

As you can see, if you find the right players, this is a much more effective way of making coins quickly, providing we choose the right players in the first place.