Suggestion: Earbuds at 25 keys

Edit: I can see they have been becoming difficult to sell. Damn it! I should have waited for them to get around this value before buying that scorching merry..

sure, tons of unsold @ 26 keys, checkout classifieds, and i'll add the links as well

http://tf2finance.com/ just dropped down 0.1 keys to 24.77 in the span of 2 hours, interesting.

I'm gonna upvote this because you can in fact find lots on classifieds at 25 keys.

Inbe4 those lame #Savethebudzzzz.

Upvote, good proof.

scrap.tf just dropped their price to 25 keys and they have several in stock: http://scrap.tf/items?bot=13

Classifieds are filling up with 25 keys buds: http://backpack.tf/classifieds/search/143/6/0

Finance is reporting 24.94: http://tf2finance.com

...and several of the 25 keys buds you listed remain unsold after 24 hours and none of the 26 keys buds you listed have sold after several days in some cases. For a high volume item like buds, being unsold for several days is telling of it's value.

How in the hell did the average selling price dip to 24.85 keys in the past 8 hours on tf2finance.com...

http://i.imgur.com/kBHyKpE.png

*puts tin foil hat on*

the manipulators !

*takes hat off*

I'll buy that conquistador of yours for 1.33 ref

Think about what happened in the last 8 hours that could have caused that to happen.

People religiously following backpack.tf price and the current downward trend of buds value causing them to liquidate their buds onto the market before the price takes another hit?

You said it, not me... lol. I mean think about it, buds were actually trading stably b/w 25.5-26 for a full week. And then bam, down to 24.8. What else happened that could have caused that? "people religiously following bp.tf and current downward trend" - i'd favor the former to account for the huge plunge.

Big Team Fortress 2 update with new crates and keys, but that didn't happen. Anyways religiously following a spreadsheet is what http://tf2spreadsheet.traderempire.com/ is for, not sure why so many people follow it like bible. Its not like prices are set in stone otherwise I'd never be able to make a suggestion.

Absolutely agree with you. Same issue with the keys... I converted 100 ref to keys at 2.5 in the last 3 days. If you are paying 4.66 ref for a key, you are just plain lazy. But people take the price on the spreadsheets as the word... And so goes the way of the buds to 24 keys by this weekend. I guess 2 weeks from now will be the perfect time to buy unusuals

you are assuming unusual merchant will accept buds

but they do... at least for unusuals worth 7 buds or more. which are the ones i am after.

scrap.tf bought a bunch @ 24.5, and can't seem to sell them @ 25 http://scrap.tf/items

Perhaps even lower?

Edit: They're now buying @ 24, but ran out of keys.

Edit 2: Someone bought 5 earbuds @ 25 keys since I posted this comment. We'll see if they get any more with the keys they have now.

He is giving a conservative bump. 24-25 is too risky as of yet, and 0.5 keys makes little sense. Scrapendulum is always outta keys because of the people using it as a warped ref to key converter.

just because they are selling at that price doesnt mean people are buying at that price (scrap.tf

What the hell? You do realize what a trade is, don't you?

i think we need to treat scrap.tf like a quickbuyer. even if their prices are reasonable.

the reason is, people will only trade with scrap.tf if they don't feel like wasting time doing things the old fashioned way.

True enough, but I see they bought 2 Earbuds @ 24 keys in the past hour or so...

2-3 keys lower and I might be able to get a pair. Keep it going!

It will still be of bad value. Unless you want it for cosmetics, there is little point.

Wow, you have to be kidding me.

Holy Crap Bud's Be Goin Down.

Ya, be prepared.

What caused this random drop?

1 reason, I would say, is the keys going up. No one wants to give up their keys...

This is exactly the issue. As the price in metal (and a bit in cash) rises people see 25-26 keys as worth more and more. I will wait for anyone to refute your price suggestion before passing any judgement myself.

In a world where buds equal 5 refined and keys equal 25 buds...

I guess the rise of keys are finally doing its damage to the economy. As to be expected.

Or maybe the demand for items requiring buds has dropped (high unusuals)

Things cheaper that are wanted see buds being into keys for that.

It's not that Buds are that much less valuable (still reliably trading in dollars at the same). Its people are just holding resources for the summer sale (eg buying unusuals, so we're seeing there is less volume which I think is making people panic, try and sell super low. This is what happens when you have too many speculators in a market, they panic when their easy profit disapears. Even though the real value of buds is still about the same.

Jeeez the economy is really messed up now. One day my unusuals will be worth 10 keys or 0.1 Buds

Like I said before:

In a world where buds equal 5 refined and keys equal 25 buds.....

Wanna keep it going?

Remember that buds were changing at 19 keys this winter. Let's not freak out guys.

Right now the cheaper items are what's hot and there's a bud scare. Everyone knows there's a drop, so some of them are selling out quick

http://backpack.tf/classifieds/search/earbuds < lots for 25..I'm selling for slight less

haha, are you advertising on a price suggestion? :D

Yes and no..5 min so far and I still have them..show the demand

look through my backpack. (aside from keys) if it's in there, it'll drop in price. i am cursed

i just got a pair of buds recently. clearly that is why the price has dropped.

o.O

Well to be fair you have a strange construction pda and a strange splendid screen which are almost bound to decrease in price over the next month, if not months, to come.

sure, that i don't mind since i don't plan on selling them. but buds? ouch! what next, BMOC? 'cause i just got that too :)

Probably not, Liddojunior is considering raising the price to 12-13 keys because he's had a rather easy time reselling in that range, but is unsure of it since there still seem to be plenty of people willing to sell for 12 keys.

buds are going down since keys are going up, but buds remain the same. its probably to just maintain consistency with keys.

I think not. You'll notice no real change in the dollar amount of keys or buds. Keys are only changing value in relationship to refined. So this relationship is doubtful.

It's nearly impossible to sell buds for 26 right now.

Just sold a pair for 26. You may call me mr. Impossible. Also sold a pair for 13 keys and a strange caber; which I'll prolly get a solid 13 keys out of.

Lucky you.

Oh god what... when I accepted that last suggestion, tf2finance showed an average of 25.2 keys per bud. And that was 9 hours ago

Look what you did! lol. stable at 25.5-26 for a week and then, bam. shenanigans comes along.... People are so reactive to spreadsheets. It's really getting quite ridiculous.

To be fair, it was dropping slowly over the past few weeks. But not at this rate...

Buds are dropping, keys are rising... Last summer a similar phenomenon happened too. Interested to see where this goes.

One tendency of human nature is to obey authority. In most developed worlds, people tend to not question data given by a "higher" power. I do not believe we're a higher power at all, and that we're just community members looking to make a guide on item pricing, but people always want their opinions to be supported by something. Maybe someone thought "I'd be happy to sell for 25 keys, but bp.tf has it listed as 26, so I'll put it up at 26 and take what I can get." Then, when the price got changed, they thought "Oh, looks like my original thought was right, better change it back to 25." This is also quite interesting...

Exactly. Which is what I meant when I said people are just too reactive. Use some common sense people... btw, the accepted suggestion was long overdue. I mean, they WERE hovering at 25.5ish for a while. It's just people take the passed suggestion as, "oh, they must be going down." but it just reflected what they had been trading for a week. Like I say below: I would really like to see the value of currency change no more than once a week to truly get a holistic idea for where currency is trending.

As a discourse analyst, I am quite interested what is going on in trading. What you mention is really important. I would have made study out of the trading system in TF2 if I had time... On second note, a lot of second language learners benefit from the authentic language they are exposed to here. They are haggling, discussing, selling, buying... Gaming has a huge effect on second language learning...

Indeed, tf2 and steam trading has become sort of a microcosm of its own, and there is a lot to be studied and examined from it. A lot of which can be used to reflect the real world too.

http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/9991134 within 30 minutes bought 3 buds and i was able to buy 2 more at 24.4

*for promo/currency items. Usually if a hat drops from 1.66-2 refined to 1.66 refined or one raises from 2.66-3 refined to 3-3.33 refined; you're most likely not going to see a continued effect on the market for that hat causing it to continue to increase or decrease.

However backpack.tf needs to better implement a cooldown time for when a new suggestion can be made. Using the Genuine Merc's Pride Scarf as an example that has dropped from 13 keys to 9 keys throughout the month of March. That type of rapid decrease caused a lot of uncertainty and an increase desire to liquidate the item in an effort to salvage the value it could. This type of rapid downwards spiral (or upwards spiral in keys case) is what is causing high volumes of animosity towards this site.

base64 even warns on his website that these averages should not be examined in the moment, but rather in the long-term trend overtime that stems from it.

Totally agree. Let's not jump to conclusions about prices of items after a single day. There are differences in a single day with prices and definitely dramatic difference in selling volumes over the weekend and during the week. I would really like to see the value of currency change no more than once a week (say on that monday after the weekend) to truly get a holistic idea for where currency is trending.

Yes. One might consider a slight cooldown timer on suggestions, especially things like keys...

But you know that they are affected by lots of reasons and the change might be sudden, sometimes. This website has to keep up with the current prices.

backpack.tf records market trends, not every minute market fluctuation. That's why you do not see an accepted price on some new items until 2-3 days after they have been released because there are always going to higher offers and recorded sales during that time, but the question is where do these sales start to settle into and proof that this is the case.

This is also true. Our current system isn't bad, but this bud decrease has made me re-evaluate some criticism, related to the key price situation, I have often heard (and dismissed) claiming that we're going too fast.

if you go slow, people would stop relying on the website. I am not saying that it should be updated every minute, but 0.5-1 key change in an item should be reflected as soon as possible. I have seen that a lot of sellers lowered their price to 25 keys after the suggestion but there were also a big number of sellers at 25 keys before the suggestion.

Well the problem is how to set it up because it cannot be universally applied to all items. Such as in the case of Chancellor accepting some unwarranted Diamond Botkiller suggestions that did not amply prove the lowend value. There needs to be a way for counter suggestions to arise after a price has been accepted that some may consider wrong with good reason. I'd open a ticket, but I'm too lazy and not sure exactly what I want the timer to do and what it should be able to adjust for let alone who should be allowed to adjust it if need be.

Mmhm, it was a wild thought I had. Putting it into practice might prove tricky.