14.5 The Market
The MARKET is the place where you might place orders for refined and processed goods, offer your refined and processed goods for sale and where you might pick up orders placed by other people to fulfill them. The MARKET only deals with commodities that come from mining (see HELP MINING) and have been refined or processed at a refinery or autofactory (see HELP REFINING). If you wish to sell goods you crafted through tradeskills, loot you found in the world or any other type of goods and services, please refer to HELP TRADENETWORKS, the COMMERCE channel or the MERCENARY BOARDS. Simply doing MARKET will show you all the relevant syntaxes. If you plan to buy/sell frequently, you may also want to have a look at HELP OFFICES.
General MARKET commands
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MARKET LIST will list all the commodities that can be traded via the market, as well as how many orders and offers there are. To avoid confusion: OFFERS are people offering their goods for your marks, and ORDERS are people ordering your goods for their marks.
MARKET LIST <comm> will list all the orders and offers for the specified commodity. Your own listings are shown in green, while pink denotes market listings posted on behalf of your faction. You can also find your own market orders with MARKET LIST OWNED.
MARKET CANCEL <listing ID> will cancel your order and refund either the commodities or the marks back to you.
How do you sell something you have?
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You can either list your commodities for sale at a station or sell directly to an order. In order to list your commodities for sale, both you and the commodities need to be present at the station you wish to sell at (that is, if you’ve got the goods on your ship, you need to CARGO STORE <quantity> <comm>). After that, it’s as simple as
MARKET SELL <quantity> <comm> FOR <x>
With x denoting the amount of marks per unit (NOT the price for the entire order). If there is a market order at the same station buying the goods at the same price or higher, the transaction will be completed immediately, otherwise a new market listing will be created. You will only receive marks if someone actually buys your wares, otherwise the commodities are moved from your cargo to the market (thus not incurring storage fees for you) until they are sold or you cancel the sale with MARKET CANCEL <order ID>.
Alternatively, you can sell directly to a market order from MARKET LIST. This will require you and the commodities to be present at the location specified by the market order, then using
MARKET SELL <quantity> <comm> TO <order ID>
Selling directly to an order will immediately complete the transaction at the price specified in the order. You do not need to completely fulfil a market order to be paid, you will get paid even if you sell only 10 units to an order of 100,000 units.
How do you buy something from the market?
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Just like for selling, you can go either post your own market order, or buy from an existing one on MARKET LIST. To post a market order,
MARKET BUY <quantity> <comm> FOR <price> AT <destination|HERE>
If there is a market offer matching your location and price criteria, the transaction will complete, and your new commodities will be moved to your local cargo, awaiting pickup or further use. If not, your order will appear on MARKET LIST, and the marks for the full order will be withdrawn from your primary account. Just like with selling to the market, the price given here is the price per unit. You can also remotely place orders in other locations by using
MARKET BUY <quantity> <comm> FOR <price> IN <zone> [range]
This allows you to specify a zone to have your goods delivered to, or an area around that zone. If you really don’t mind doing the leg work, you can just
MARKET BUY <quantity> <comm> FOR <price> ANYWHERE
and people all over the sector can sell to your order directly, requiring you to pick up the cargo. Perhaps this is a good time to point towards HELP CARGO CONTRACTS. Note that the price is the maximum price - if there are cheaper offers at your designated location, those will be automatically bought at the lower price. Keep in mind that buying at a location forces the seller to move to that location or area.
You can also buy directly from an offer on the market via
MARKET BUY <quantity> FROM <offer ID>
Any purchases from an existing market offer, either done directly or by buying from anywhere or in a certain range, will be moved to your local cargo on the station the offer was listed. You can check CARGO CONTENTS ALL <comm> to see where you can pick up your wares.
How do I signal that I need some resources delivered to me?
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Sometimes, you will be in need of resources and finished goods and you simply don't have the time to do the legwork yourself. You may create a market order to signal that you are looking for a specific type of resource and that you want it delivered to a specific location.
To do that you have a few options:
MARKET BUY <quantity> <comm> FOR <x> AT <destination|HERE> -Buy commodities at a specific place.
MARKET BUY <quantity> <comm> FOR <x> ANYWHERE -Buy commodities anywhere on the market.
MARKET BUY <quantity> <comm> FOR <x> IN <zone> [range] -Buy commodities in or near a specific zone.
For those of you who want other types of deals, be sure to check HELP
BLACKMARKET as well.
The market and the ship forge
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Thanks to innovative commsphere marketing technology, buying ship supplies in the ship forge will also check the market for offers before paying the standard (and generally high) ship forge prices. Still, consulting the MARKET LIST might save you a small fortune.
