How Are You Making Gil?

Sitting on 100k here, and didn't see a forum topic about it. What are you guys doing to make your gil in your worlds?

Gathering is the easiest. Shards alone work. Other than that, take time to see what's selling, make a list of 5-10 things that sell for enough to make a profit, keep 3 of each up until someone else crashes the market under cutting.

As a side note, I'm getting super tired of having something sell for 5k and all of a sudden seeing someone list the same item for 150g.

If I see someone being silly like that, I will buy them out and resell. I will also use my second retainer to sell at a slightly lower price to convince people they're getting a good deal.

I gather. I take the gathered mats and make HQ base components for each item in my current block of crafting. I make 1 HQ of each item in the block, take what I want for my DoL/DoH, and put aside about 25% of the remaining materials. Then, I take the rest of the materials from that block and sell them on the market in lots of 20 or less. Then I price out the HQ items I made that I don't use, and put them up as well.

Just the second tier of gems where you make a piece of jewelry from each stone netted me almost 50k in profits. All I did was sell one of each in that block HQ at a reasonable price that I didn't need for my BLM.

Really, its about understanding the market and not dicking over your customers. If you sell bulk, price it low to move, so the resellers will pick it up. If you sell HQ, be reasonable. Know what the NPC cost for a NQ of that item is (lots of what we make is out for sale in the world as NQ or as Quest rewards). I price at roughly 60% of NPC prices to start, and 50% of the value of the coin pieces given as a quest reward choice versus the NQ item rewards in that quest level range. HQ versions I charge 100% to 150% of NPC prices depending on demand.

This is a big issue where people post NQ items for more than you can buy them at an NPC or get for free from a quest reward. Entice customers to buy NQ items that they may be getting from quest rewards by undercutting them. If you price them right, they will sell because people will be able to use them probably about a level or 2 earlier than they would get them from the quest reward. Or they will be ahead of the quest rewards and be looking for gear NOW instead of waiting for the rewards from that block. Honestly though, I don't post much NQ stuff unless its smaller lots of materials from gathering. Its just not worth the slot to put up a NQ item unless its in the upper 30's and you can make it cheaper than the NPC.

And I don't want to say how much I have. I had... plenty, and still do, but my vice is to rush sometimes and then I make purchases I shouldn't. Like picking up 50 HQ silver ore when I could have gone out and mined that myself in about 30 min.

I'm at L43 goldsmith/L36 miner/L38 white mage and have about 400k gil so far (While still spending a fair amount on equipment, teleports, and donation to the FC bank). I've been able to occupy a fairly comfortable "2nd wave" niche where I've generally been a step behind the uber hardcore crowd (who are now 50 and doing end-game craft) and I end up occupying the markets they leave behind after they progress while still staying ahead of the casual folks who flood the market with stuff to the point where it's less profitable to sell a crafted item vs. selling its ingredients.

So yeah, there's more bases than I can cover and I can leave my two retainers with 20 items each on the market and 24 hours later come back with only a handful of items left on them (mainly stuff I've been undercut on or I'm experimenting to see if there's any demand)

I don't want to give away too much but I am at 875k gil, and have spend over 250k on various modifications to my gear, donations and materials.

Never ever quick synth. Always craft with purpose. Always try to HQ as much as you can before finishing a synth. Always watch the market for shards and keep an eye out for special materials you know you will need for yourself or peers to make things for you with at higher levels. Get friendly with members of your other crafts, and do try to be reasonable with those also a part of your craft. Your goals should be to build up the value of what you do, not tear it down by flooding the market and cutting prices. Keeping the community informed is important too.

Keep this in mind: Those lv3 materia everyone is going NUTS over, are produced in mass by converting soul bound equipment. Not a lot of players are informed as to how the materia system works and how they can socket gear! Keep your buyers informed.

I don't know about the higher level crafts, being new rather than a legacy player, but I think that selling things like Iron Ingots or Elm/Yew logs/lumber has potential, especially if you sell the HQ versions in small lots at prices that are reasonable rather than extortionate. This is particularly applicable for people who are, say, leveling smithing in Limsa but need iron. If you make it worth their while to just hop over to the market and buy your iron ingots, HQ or NQ, rather than airship to Ul'dah and mine/craft their own, you should move some, even if it won't be a billion gil overnight.

I know I was leveling up weaving and went to make myself a spinning wheel, only to find I lacked maple lumber. Since I have the carpentry to HQ the logs, I hopped over to the market, and discovered someone had put a dozen logs up for 5gil apiece. 60 gil for a lot of logs I can turn into HQ lumber is very worth the gil.

WTB ability to buy just 5 instead of 99 of something!

I'm sitting on 1.6 million. I am just crafting and selling relic pre-weapons with my mats and getting a decent fee with their mats.