Tips & Tricks | Investing & Marketing | Updated - 07/22/2007

[Ah! My Goddess]

Want a lesson in investing and marketing?

This is in general investing tips topic created by my self with my own opinions, anything expressed is solely the opinions of the creators and should not be taken as a 100% guarantee to make you filthy rich. We're only taking the time to share our knowledge with you in hopes to make your time on Gaia more enjoyable.

Note -
Should you wish to contribute to these tutorials you may, please however PM me with any information you would like me to add and you will be credited for your contribution. Do not tell me our methods are un reasonable or un believable. Everything display here is exactly what we've done to earn what it is we have. Just remember you don't become a millionaire over night, it can take months even years but following these basic tutorials or adapting them to meet your needs we promise will help you in some shape or form.  

[Ah! My Goddess]

How to make the most gold out of Monthly Sealed Letters

Invest in Sealed Letters at the beginning of every month, usually between the 3rd - 12th. Buy as many as you can afford to with out making your self broke. Don’t invest what you can’t afford to invest. Though don’t limit your self in what you can invest, anyone with the patients can turn as little as 500 gold into 2,000 gold. You just really have to want to.

You should buy letters at or under 10,000 gold a piece. The reason behind buying letters at or under the 10,000 gold amount is due to the potential profit margin, this by experience is the best way for me personally to make the most realistic profit possible. I’m guaranteed at this price to make 5,000 to 7,000 gold profit on each letter I in turn sell after the initial purchase, I’ll explain this in better detail as you continue to read.

Stalk the Marketplace or the actual Exchange Forum when you plan on buying Sealed Letters. I actually recommend using the Exchange Forum, people are more likely to sell in bulk and you can spare your self the hassle of spending a lot of time in the Marketplace looking for Sealed Letters to pop up. Depending on your internet connection they can disappear quicker then you can left click.

The plus side to using the Exchange Forum is finding someone who might be selling 25 Sealed Letters at 11,000 gold a piece, buying in bulk could possibly earn you a discount. Depending on the number of letters you buy usually depends on the amount the discount entails, say you wanted to buy 10 letters he/she may sell them to you for 10,500 gold a piece. Then again if you offer to buy them all he/she may sell them to you for 10,000 gold a piece. It really just depends on how much experience the seller has. This scenario is not typical, but it does happen more often then you think.

Now lets look at the math perspective of investing in the 25 Sealed Letters at 11,000 gold each, this is in part to give you a general idea how much gold you have the potential to both earn and save at the same time. These numbers can be adapted to meet any number of letters, not just 25. You have to adapt the method in general to meet your specific needs, be it investing in a single letter or even hundreds of letters.

If you bought all 25 letters at 11,000 gold each you’d be paying 275,000 gold. That is a lot of gold when you think about it and you may not have that much to spend. If you can make a deal with the person by saying I will buy all your letters if you’ll sell them to me for 10,000 gold each, you in turn would only be out 250,000 gold. Still sound like a lot? At first it might, but you need to look at it as you just saved and potentially earned an additional 25,000 gold profit compared to what you would have if you actually bought them at 11,000 gold each.

Most people who sell letters in bulk actually pay real cash, in turn any gold they make off selling a letter is gold they didn’t have. They don’t really take into consideration how much gold they could potentially earn. There also actually is a purchase limit Gaia has to prevent excessive amounts of the same item actually being in put in circulation. You can only spend a max of $200.00 on letters each month. So contrary to what some people think, Gaia actually does limit how many letters are released to prevent them from plummeting and throwing off the entire virtual economy of the game.

I know this in part by experience, at one point I actually did spend hundreds of dollars a month on collectable items and found that once you reach $200.00 you can no longer purchase anymore. I tried changing accounts I was using to make another transaction and found I still couldn’t make the purchase, I then realized it didn’t matter how many different accounts you had it was the same transaction from your credit or debit card.

I’ve been told Gaia doesn’t actually limit the number of letters they release, but enforce the $200.00 purchase limit to one card to prevent fraud, which I can understand. With that being said let’s take into consideration of all the children ranging from ages 13 to 17 who use their parents credit or debit card every month to make purchases. Some are bound to have permission others may not and why risk getting your self in trouble by attempting to snag another credit or debit card and having to create an entire new PayPal account, because Gaia also tracks those specific transactions not just the credit or debit card it’s self.

Get what I’m saying yet? Gaia may not actually limit the numbers of letters released but face it, a lot of us are a lot lazier then were given credit for and spending actual cash on a virtual game may not seem like the brightest thing to do. Then again you have those people who invest thousands of dollars every month on letters and sell them to become quick millionaires and they do throw off the virtual economy. This is a game and it should be played, meaning you actually earn what it is you want by experience in which case is exactly what I’m trying to help you do, play the game and play it right.

When you plan on investing in Sealed Letters I advise you to pay attention to it’s current market value, this is where the actual Marketplace comes into play. Usually two days before letters are released they slowly begin to increase in value, they will also gain a bit of value when announcements are made stating hints as to what the letters contain or wither or not a letter has more then two items. If you pay attention to the market you’ll begin to see as the hours pass prices increasing.

At this point start putting letters in your shop for the following prices; 15,000 gold, 16,000 gold and 17,000 gold. They will eventually sell, it may not happen right away but you need to have patients and faith at this point, I do the exact same thing my self.

The day Sealed Letters are released they jump dramatically in price. They can go from 11,000 gold to over 15,000 gold in minutes, the actual amount depends every single time I just used this number as an example.

Sell every Letter you invested in the day they are released or with in a full 36 hour time period. Just never sell them for less then 15,000 gold. This is where my above statement about the various amounts in your shop come into play. Having a number of letters set at different values lets you keep track of their current market value with out having to constantly be watching. If one of your letters sell for 16,000 gold try putting the next one up for sale for 16,500 gold and do the same with various increments. So long as you sell them for more then 15,000 gold you aren’t out a single gold so one may sell for 15,000 gold and the next for 16,000 gold. Don’t panic and assume you have to sell them all for the same prices, listing the same item at different increments actually works in your favor it also makes your pricing job a lot easier.

So far every letter you’re selling at this point has paid for it’s self, meaning you earned back the initial 10,000 gold you spent on it and depending on how much you sold it for you stand to earn with my examples anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 gold! With each additional letter you sell you earn the same potential amount.

Time for another math session so try to follow along with what I’m about to show you.

25 Letters sold at 15,000 gold = 375,000 gold
25 Letters sold at 16,000 gold = 400,000 gold
25 Letters sold at 17,000 gold = 425,000 gold

What does this all mean? It’s the potential amount you stand to earn if you sell each letter at that price. You have the over all potential of earning at the very least 375,000 gold. Now lets take a look at the actual profit you make off your investment.

25 Letters bought at 10,000 gold = 250,000 gold
25 Letters sold at 15,000 gold = 375,000 gold

Profit = 125,000 gold

Can you believe that? That’s 125,000 gold pure profit plus you earned back everything you initially spent. If you do this every single month you have the potential to actually earn even more gold. You just need to look at this as a job, a steady habit. Setting aside a designated amount of gold every month to invest in Sealed letters.

Here’s a brief look at the potential profit you stand to make if you do this every month for a year.

25 Letters every month sold at 15,000 gold = 1,500,000 gold
25 Letters every month sold at 16,000 gold = 1,800,000 gold
25 Letters every month sold at 17,000 gold = 2,100,000 gold

Yes, that is millions you’re seeing. Easy millions at that and you have the potential to earn even more then what I’ve currently showed you. Did I mention that’s pure profit not the initial 250,000 gold investment needed every month, I actually subtracted that to get these numbers.

Note -
Don’t think you need 250,000 gold to make this tutorial work for you, you can actually do it with any amount of gold. Start off buying 2 letters as your investment follow the same steps as depicted above and sell them for the same exact prices and you easily earn at the very least 10,000 gold profit. That’s enough to buy an additional letter next month. If you continue to do it every time you earn a little more, that’s the whole point earning more and more as time goes by.

Just how much gold could you make from letters with diffrent amounts?

Now here is something to think about, exactly how much gold could you make over a year by buying and selling letters? It depends, lets take a look at another scenario and build it up over a year.

Say you initially do have the ability to buy 25 letters a month at 10,000 gold each in turn requiring 250,000 gold as your base investment. You could build the number of letters you buy every month by taking the profit you earn from your initial investment and putting it towards the month after.

What do I mean? Say you make 375,000 gold selling all your letters for 15,000 gold each. You earned a profit of 125,000 gold. Why not just re invest that profit and actually use the full 375,000 gold to buy more letters the next month. Just how many more letters could you buy with 125,000 gold? 12 additional letters to be exact, with some gold so spare. That in turn means that next month you buy 37 letters instead of 25, and you continue to re invest all the gold you earn until you come to a point where you are content with the amount of gold your making.

What does that mean? Each month you buy at least 50% more letters to earn more profit. Sure it may seem like a large investment but it will pay for it’s self over time. You continue to buy more letters until you’ve reached a realm of profit that you can be happy with.

How about I just show you what I mean? More math, I’m talking a LOT more math. To depict two different prediction guides to see just how much gold you could make with each set of letters. Though this should actually give you a real, breath taking idea of just how much gold you’ll make if you just keep at it.

These are 12 Month bought and sold charts, remember for this chart to work or even make sense you need to RE-invest the shown amounts every month.

This chart is for the beginning investor and is extremely easy to follow and obtainable. You start with 20k and you eventually turn that into 2370k.

2 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 30k
3 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 45k --- 5k to spare
4 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 60k
6 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 90k
9 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 135k --- 5k to spare
14 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 210k
21 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 315k --- 5k to spare
31 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 465k --- 5k to spare
47 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 705k --- 5k to spare
70 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 1050k
105 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 1575k --- 5k to spare
158 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 2370k

This is a 12 month chart using the initial 25 letters and building off of them. The amount of gold that takes place here starts at 357,000 gold and builds up to over 30,000,000 gold.

25 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 375k --- 5k to spare
37 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 55k --- 5k to spare
56 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 840k
84 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 1260k
126 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 1890k
189 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 2835k --- 5k to spare
283 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 4245k --- 5k to spare
425 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 6375 --- 5k to spare
637 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 9555k --- 5k to spare
956 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 14340k
1434 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 21510k
2151 Letters bought at 10,000 gold - sold at 15,000 gold = 32265k

This may just look like a bunch of numbers, but this actually makes sense. The totals above show you the base cost and profit combined. If you follow these charts you’ll begin to see the trend, with each additional 5k you have left over you wait till you build up 10k to invest in another letter. So the initial math you use to compare may not add up unless you take into considerations the extra gold you’re left with after some profits.

Note -
This requires no additional gold you make, you just have to keep putting aside the gold you make from letters to re invest in them.

What if we cant find letters for 10,000 gold?

If by chance after many days of stalking the exchange and market and you are un able to find letters at 10,000 gold don't panic. You could follow this little chart to determine at what price you buy and sell.

1 letter bought 11,000 - sold 16,000 = 5,000 profit
1 letter bought 12,000 - sold 17,000 = 5,000 profit
1 letter bought 13,000 - sold 18,000 = 5,000 profit

If you buy and sell at these prices you'll still make a profit you just wont make as much as you could if you bought them for 10,000 gold and sold them for 15,000 gold or more.

Buying at higher then 10,000 gold per letter you need to bump your selling price up 1,000 gold. Meaning if you buy one letter at 11,000 gold to make up for the potential lost profit you need to sell it for 16,000 gold instead of 15,000 gold.

This process still equals out to the same potential amount of profit, then again you just have to keep in mind so long as you sell the letter for more then you bought it for your still making a profit.  

[Ah! My Goddess]

When should you buy Monthly Collectables?

Have you ever wished you had been around when Panda Hats, Sashes, Devil Tails ect; were released? I think we all do at some point, however if you think about it back in 2003 not a lot of people thought the items would be worth as much as they are today. Then again there were those few hoarders who held onto a number of items who are now rolling in gold because of their initial investment. They turned as little as 1,000 gold into over 100,000,000 gold!

Don't listen to someone who says Monthly Collectables a aren’t worth investing in, everything is worth something and as I’ve stated it takes time for their value to increase. Some Monthly Collectable items values increase and only continue to increase when they are released, others will increase and decrease a million times over before they begin to become more valuable. It really just depends on the type of item released in each months letter, though every month we’re all looking forward to see what is in that Sealed Envelope and willing to pay just about anything to own it right away but is it worth it?

Sure the idea of owning an item the moment comes out is fantastic, but it’s entirely over rated in my opinion not to mention it can cost a lot more right of the gate rather then waiting a few weeks and saving your self a few thousand gold. Besides I’m sure your current outfit looks just fine and you’re mature enough to exhibit self control.

What’s the difference between buying a Monthly Collectable now and waiting a week or two after it has been released? A few thousand gold that’s what. When Letters are released right from the get go they can cost anywhere from 15,000 gold to as much as 20,000 gold and for what ever reason people are willing to pay that much. If you have to have the item the day it comes out you’re better off investing in a letter days before it was released. Why? Because again, right away you could have saved your self a few thousand gold. You’ll need to refer to Sealed Letters tutorial to understand what it is I’m referring to.

-Rest of tutorial in proccess-

 

[Ah! My Goddess]

Event Items

Items that are released in limited amounts, during special events or times of years are called Event Items. They are special items dedicated to special occasions and not commonly seen or easily acquired. The most commonly known special events take place during Halloween and Christmas with box set items. Other events as of lately take place randomly and usually relate to impending movie releases.

Depending on the type of item released depends on it’s potential value, if an item looks creative and unique chances are it will be worth more, items that look to common or repetitive may not be worth as much. Like most older Event Items, they will all be worth something at some point because these items are limited released.

Investing In Event Items

If your looking to make an investment for the near future event items is one way to do so. Buying a handful of event items could eventually pay off and it doesn’t require a lot of gold. Usually when an Event Item is released an announcement is made stating what the event topic is about and how to acquire an item your self.

There are limitations at times to the number of each item you can require before having to result to buying them, there are at times limitations as to who can acquire them due to what part of the world they live on. The exact number of items your limited to collecting using one account depends, more recently it’s been limited to 3 of the same item but the exact number is not limited.

Recent examples:

Mimzy x3 initially per account though a few weeks after it’s release you were able to acquire 3 additional as part of the promotion.

Mokona x3 initially per account and were limited released based on where you lived.

Situations like this can cause the value of an item to be more or less, if everyone can get an item chances are the market will be over flooded and cost less as to where if it’s not only limited to the number you can acquire but also as to who can acquire them can cause the price of an item to be more.

Meaning the more there are the less expensive they are the less there are the more expensive they are. Event Items will only grow in value or remain a specific value but never decrease in value because they aren’t as abundant as commons.

Usually when event items are released they are the most expensive because the number initially released are very few and in higher demand and depending on the circumstances of the release of the item can result in an even higher price tag. Until a few thousand of the same item is in circulation prices will remain high, as the days go buy the price of the item will continue to drop until the event linked to the released item is cut off.

Meaning until the event is over the item will continue to drop in price due to the number of that item in circulation, the moment the event is over the number of items in circulation comes to a halt and slowly begin to rise in price. With no new items to keep the market at a constant price they begin to inflate because the number in circulation begin to dwindle, many people at this point begin to hold onto their event items in hope their prices grow exponentially over time.

Just how many event items you want to horde depend on how much you’re willing to invest. Determining how much you want to invest also depends on how much the current Event Item cost. This process is completely up to you and remember, never invest in something you can’t afford to. Investing should be something extra you do and should only be done using your extra gold, that way you don’t make your self go broke.

I personally don’t base my investment on the amount of gold each item costs, I go by the number of each item I want. I invest in either 5 of one item or 100 of one item, simple as that for me. Sometimes the prices of items are low enough to be able to invest in a larger amount of a single item and not cost as much. Also having multiple accounts can help ease the cost of your investment or make it so you never actually have to spend any gold of your own. Refer to Multiple Accounts tutorial for further information regarding the above statement.

Let’s look at some very simple math to show an example of what I mean, I’ll use Mimzy as my example. My initial purchase per Mimzy was 175 gold per each one. However using multiple accounts I had initially acquired 28 with no gold spent.

-Rest of tutorial in proccess-

 

[Ah! My Goddess]

Don't be a pushover!

Tutorial By - `Tahirah

I don't know if this has been said, but don't be afraid to be a hardass in the exchange. Undercut people; rebid with .1k's (i.e. someone bids 12k, you bid 12.1k). It pisses people off, but sometimes will get you the best deal. Also, if people are asking you to bid higher and you don't want to, don't. I usually say, "That's as high as I'm going. Take it or leave it." It may work, it may not. It all depends on the person and how popular/wanted the item is. I know I've gotten some deals by doing that.

If someone says, "just send trade" for an MC and they're selling it way under the MP price, jump on it. Don't bother posting or PMing them. Just start the trade with whatever item they're selling in the title and add however much gold you need to. I've gotten a Gwee for 11k before.

Check TekTek for item prices/trends. If you notice an MC is going down, don't buy it. Look for ones that are going up. I've lost a few k by not paying attention to the trends.

Once you get the hang of it, I promise it's real simple. Some days you won't get many deals, but don't let it discourage you. There's always tomorrow.

Oh. And try to avoid reselling in the Exchange. It's best to resell in the MP because many users don't want to deal with the bid wars in the forums, even if they'd get a better price than MP. Just sell the item for 1g less than the lowest buy price. It generally will sell. ;P

-Rest of tutorial in process-

 

[Ah! My Goddess]

Basic Tips For Survival

Tutorial by - blue_abyss_16

A lot of vending tutorials talk about selling Sealed Envelopes, well for me I either don't have them or cant afford them and in any case I don't really care. What I really want share with you is how to vend smart and get gold using different methods. Below are some things I do my self which I hope will in some way help you.

Bonus Items

When you get a bonus item from a Gaia game like Jigsaw or Word bump, if you don't want it what should you do? Sell it. If you have a vending licence look up the value of the item using tektek or the market place. Then, sell the item for a bit lower than the store price, just because an item is listed for 700 gold in the market place doesn't mean it's worth that chances are you could buy it from the shops for 250 gold, selling for a slightly lower store value means pure profit for your self.

Daily Chance and Town Items

We all know junk it's easy to come by, either though the daily chance, towns or even fishing. If you have a lot of junk and you don't need or want it for your self try selling it, chances are you could make a pretty decent profit be it 1 gold or as much as a couple hundred gold..

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A Little Gold Always Helps

If gold is what your after you may try taking advantage of the many ways to earn it though out the site; Posting and voting in the forums, commenting in profiles, voting and commenting in the arenas. Every day you can do this and every day the number of times you make the most gold resets. You can earn as much as 500 gold simply by doing the above said.

Jigsaw Puzzle

As you probably noticed, if you keep doing puzzles the gold amount goes down after every puzzle. To avoid this do an insane puzzle everyday (not twice a day) and a couple normal puzzles after. It requires less work and less time in the process.

Avoiding Hackers

This is pretty simple to follow never give your password to anyone no matter what they promise you in return! This I learned from personal experience. I gave someone my password because they promised they would give me items, but instead they did the opposite and took everything I had worked so hard for.

-Rest of tutorial in process-

 

[Ah! My Goddess]

How to make the most out of multiple accounts, totally leagal!

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[Ah! My Goddess]

Using your own skills to make a little extra gold.

-Rest of tutorial in proccess-

 

[Ah! My Goddess]

 

[Ah! My Goddess]

 

[Ah! My Goddess]

 

[Ah! My Goddess]

 

[Ah! My Goddess]

 

[Ah! My Goddess]

 

[Ah! My Goddess]