A Quick Guide to The Trading Post

Before you start making money in New World, you have to familiarize yourself with the Trading Post network as you will use it extensively during your endeavors. 

Trading Posts are places where players can freely exchange their goods. With their help, you can easily buy and sell all kinds of items. Think of them as the New World's version of the Runescape's Grand Exchange. You might have noticed that we've used the plural form in the two sentences above... This is because, in New World, each settlement has its own Trading Post and none of them are connected with each other. This decentralization of trade has some interesting consequences, mainly: 

• Prices of certain goods will differ from market to market. This will happen because of the supply and demand; if a certain Trading Post is flooded with some type of material and there are not enough players to buy it, the price will fall down, however, if a certain type of good is scarce in the area, its price is sure to rise up. 
• Most of the trade happens in a few highly populated hubs. If you want to sell your goods quickly or buy something in a large quantity, pick a popular Trading Post. The main Trading Hub of the New World is Everfall*. 

*Prices in Everfall tend to be lower than in other hubs, so you can potentially make money by buying stuff there and transporting it to Trading Posts located in cities where the supply of items is much lower (and thus the prices are higher). 

New World's Trading Post offers a lot of functionality and (in our opinion) is one of the better-designed in-game auction houses to date. Navigating through and using it is extremely simple: 

• Three menus on the top-left allow you easily find items you're interested in (the "Buy" tab and the Search option), quickly post your own auctions (the "Sell" tab and the My Sellable Items scroll list), and view your current Buy and Sell Orders (the "My Orders" tab). 
• The expanding menu on the top-right allows you to browse offers from different Trading Posts without physically going to them, which is a great quality of life feature. 
• You can have up to 100 offers active at the same time, and you can create them by simply clicking on the "Place Sell Order", or "Place Buy Order" buttons (you'll find them under the "Sell' tab). The "Place Order" menu is very transparent and will calculate everything in real-time for you - you'll instantly know how high of a Listing Fee and Transaction Charge you'll pay, how much you'll earn/spend per unit, and how your new wallet balance will look like. The Trading Tax (or the transaction charge) is percentage-based and determined by the town the Trading Post is located at. You can check the current tax rate by opening your map, clicking on a town, and selecting "war details" - taxes are listed on the bottom right. 
• The "Buy Order" functionality allows you to order goods that are not currently available for a price that satisfies you. With it, you can save a lot of money on buying stuff - use it! Just be aware that Trading Post will freeze your funds (the amount needed to fill the order completely) until the order is filled or canceled. 
• The "Sell Order" functionality allows you to post your goods for a price that fully satisfies you. You should sell all your goods through it as it allows you to make more money than if you were to simply fill someone else's Buy Order. Remember to check the current prices before placing orders! 
• If you cancel a partially-filled order you will get the rest of your New World Gold/Items back, but you won't get the Listing Fee. This is why you should try to avoid posting lengthy orders (if you're canceling them after a couple of days anyway, why place orders for longer?). 

Now that you more or less know how the Trading Post works, here are some tips on how to use it to its full potential: 

• Comparing prices between different Trading Posts will help you decide if selling your stuff/buying something in your current location is worth it or if you should do some leg work and make your transactions elsewhere. 
• If you don't need money/items immediately, always place Sell/Buy Orders. 
• With Buy Orders, you can order stuff that is not currently available on the market - use them to try and purchase rare goods/gear that you need. 
• It's always better to place short-term orders as you can always re-post them; canceling an order won't give you your listing fee back. Other players are going to undercut your offers anyway. 
• Vendoring loot is a waste of potential profit, most of the time. Before you "throw away" your loot, always check if it's worth something on the Trading Post. Things that sell well include (we're only listing drops, mind you - we'll talk about crafted goods later in the guide): 
  • Rare Drops. Stuff you don't see very often, especially the things that can only be obtained from chests are almost always in high demand. These include Void Metal, Essences, Motes, and more. 
  • All kinds of Gear. For as long as there are players leveling, gear for all kinds of levels will sell very well. After the initial period, "leveling gear" will fall off in price, but end-game equipment should still sell for a good sum. Items with Luck on them are generally worth more. Also, if a piece has "perfect stats" on it, it's worth A LOT - if you obtain such a piece, remember to price-check it thoroughly. 
  • All kinds of refining agents (Sandpapers, Solvents, Wireweave, Tannants, etc.). These drop from Supply Containers and are needed in HUGE quantities by crafters, so they are always in high demand. If you don't plan on crafting yourself, you should sell these while they're hot - they will fall down in price after a while as fewer and fewer people will be leveling up crafting skills. 

Flipping

Let's start with a method that is completely based on trading goods. Trading Post allows you to Buy and Sell almost all tradable New World Items for Gold Coins, which makes it ideal as a moneymaking tool; you just have to know how to use it. 

The whole idea of flipping is based on the fact that most people want to sell their loot quickly, which means that they post it below its actual value. This loot can be bought out and re-posted at a higher price, which results in a profit for the re-seller. At its basics, the method is very simple, but there are some intricacies that make it deceptively complex. However, we are of the opinion that every player, who has some Gold to invest, can successfully flip goods on the Trading Post. If He follows the general guidelines, that is. 

The Trading Post Flipping follows very basic principles:

• Buy low and sell high - as basic as it gets; you have to sell stuff for a higher price than you've bought it for if you want to make money. There is a catch, however - Trading Post is taxed; you should include Listing Fee and the Trading Tax in all your calculations. 
  • Always buy items through Buy Orders and sell them through Sell Orders. That way you will buy items below their market value and sell them for a bit more than they are currently worth. 
• Avoid flipping common, easy-to-get Items; if something is easy to get, people will get it in extremely large quantities, it will be very popular among other buyers/sellers and its margins (difference between the buy and sell prices minus the tax) will be very close together - it is very easy to lose money on flipping low-level crafting materials, for example. 
• Focus on the stuff that is in high demand and rather hard to get in large quantities or needed by players in large quantities (this is the meta part - you have to analyze the market. For example, refining agents will be in very high demand for as long as people are leveling up their crafting skills). 
• Niche and obscure Items can sometimes be bought for laughably low prices and sold at a great profit. If there are no Buy Orders for an item that you know for a fact has some value, place a Buy Order for it! 
• Don't panic. Sometimes prices fall, just to increase again; it often is a weekly occurrence (prices rise on weekends because more people are playing and buying stuff, and fall mid-week because of lower overall server population). Take advantage of it - stock up mid-week and sell on weekends! 
• Invest New World Gold gained; if you increase your investments, your returns will also rise, but remember that higher investment equals higher risk. 

With the basics out of the way, you can start... to analyze the market and try to spot which items are actually worth flipping. This might take some time, as you want to make sure that items you buy not only sell well but also keep rather stable prices. 

Tip1: Don't forget to check your favorite flipping targets on a regular basis, this will allow you to spot Trading Post trends and take advantage of them. 

Tip2: Read the patch notes. Sometimes certain Items' prices rapidly drop or raise after an update (because of the new content). Reading patch notes will allow you to spot these Items and react accordingly (by mass-buying or mass-selling them). 

Tip3: If you have some more time on your hands, you could place Buy Orders in Everfall and Sell Orders in other cities, where the supply of items is lower and thus the prices are higher. You could also place Buy Orders for the more obscure items in less populated hubs for a chance that a player who does not know any better fills them (it's basically stealing, sometimes). 

Score:
Easiness  | Quickness  | Profitability *

*In relation to time needed - you can spend 30 minutes per day flipping, and you'll make much more money than you would if you've performed any other moneymaking activity for that amount of time. 

Stonecutting

One of the most important things when it comes to making money in MMORPGs is spotting opportunities - Stonecutting is such an opportunity. This Refining Skill allows you to turn raw gemstones into gems that can be socketed into armor and weapons to provide certain beneficial effects. In simple terms, socketing gems into gear gives you more power, thus, every player concerned with their stats will want a complete set of them in their equipment. Because of this, refining Raw Gemstones into Cut Gemstones can be an excellent source of income, especially early in the game's lifespan and after content updates (as during these times players change their gear very frequently and thus they need a steady supply of new Cut Gemstones). While Stonecutting is almost guaranteed to be very profitable in the following weeks (and even months), leveling it up quickly enough to benefit from the current market situation is not an easy task. To do it, you will either need a load of cash* or a lot of free time for grinding (or a combination of the two). While this is not a dedicated Stonecutting Guide, we feel obliged to at least provide you with some basic leveling tips for it: 

• Leveling up Stonecutting is deceptively easy - you just have to cut enough gemstones. As mentioned above, getting enough raw materials is the tricky part. You will have to either pay good money for them on the Trading Post or gather them yourself. 
• You should stick to lower-tier recipes while leveling up Stonecutting, as the cost of crafting increases exponentially as you move up in tiers (higher-tier recipes require much more resources than low-level ones). You will get more skill levels for the same number of materials this way. 
• If you don't know how to get some of the rarer ingredients, just pay close attention to their tooltips - they will tell you everything you need to know about farming them. 
• At higher Skill Levels, you will be able to Downgrade Materials. This ability can potentially be beneficial if the prices of lower-tier resources rise up or when they are simply unavailable and you don't want to wait for them to show up (and these things are bound to happen when the majority of the player base reaches high experience levels). 

So, how to profit from Stonecutting? Well, here's how: Later in the game, it will be quite tricky to make a good profit on low and mid-tier gems, but as of right now (~a week after launch) players are interested in them as they offer that little bit of extra power while not burning a hole in their pocket. After some time passes, players' focus will shift towards the end-game - that is when tier V gems will greatly rise up in value. Because of the above, you should: 

• Focus on Cutting low and mid-tier gems at the start, as they are a steady source of profit for as long as the game remains popular and players are leveling up new characters. 
• Try to stockpile high-tier gems while they are still relatively cheap (trust us, their price will skyrocket in the upcoming weeks), and sell them when the prices are at their peak - you will have to pay close attention to Trading Post trends. 
  • To profit from this, you don't even have to be a Stonecutter yourself. You just have to have some New World Coins to invest, and some free storage space. 
  • As a Stonecutter, you can Fuse several pieces of a gemstone into a higher-tier gemstone of the same type. Doing this might save you some money, just remember to calculate the margins carefully before doing it. 

*Leveling up any refining skill with materials from the Trading Post is very pricy right now, as everybody is trying to power level their skills. On the other hand, this means that you can make a lot of money by gathering... more on that later. 

Summary - Players need a lot of gems for their gear and if they use multiple builds, they need even more. By leveling up Stonecutting and crafting end-game Cut Gemstones for sale, you can take advantage of it and make a hefty sum of New World Gold. 

Score: 
Easiness  | Quickness  | Profitability 

Toolmaking (with Engineering)

For as long as people are gathering, refining, and crafting, they are going to need better and better tools. Because of this, supplying them is a good source of income (for as long as players invest their time in activities that require tools, at least). 

This method is based on a few things:

• The fact that tools are in very high demand right now, which means that they sell in large quantities. This happens because people focus on leveling up and grinding, and will rather spend their gold than make tools themselves. 
• Some types of tools are not readily available because they require a relatively high Engineering Skill to make, which means that people are willing to pay good money for them. 
• The combined price of crafting materials required to make some types of tools is lower than the price of ready pieces minus taxes. If this one is not the case, you will have to grind out some of the materials yourself (but, at that point, this method won't be profitable anymore). 

Before you start profiting from this, you will have to level up your Engineering Skill high enough to be able to make at least Steel Tools (as of right now; in later stages of the game, Starmetal and then Orichalcum Tools will be the way to go*). Doing this will require a hefty investment, be it a time or New World Coins. When your Engineering Skill is high enough, all you have to do is do a quick Trading Post search to determine which types of tools are the most expensive and sell well. Then, you have to calculate your profit margins (the difference between the price of a ready product - taxes and the price of the materials** required for crafting it). If that number satisfies you, you should buy/farm the materials, make the tools, and put them on Sell Orders. 

*When you notice that Steel Tools' prices start to fall down, it is time to move a tier higher. 

**Very often, it is cheaper to buy lower-tier materials and turn them into the higher-tier ones yourself. For example: Don't buy ready Steel; Buy Iron, Flux, and Wood instead, and make it yourself. 

Score:
 Easiness  | Quickness  | Profitability 

Crafting Bags

This method is very similar in its nature to the previous one - for as long as people focus on leveling and are willing to pay good money for essential item upgrades, Bags will sell like hot buns on Trading Post. Moreover, because of the steep price increases between tiers, players are likely to upgrade their bags gradually (they won't skip a tier because they simply won't afford it), which means that every tier of bags will sell. Unlike the Toolmaking method, however, Crafting Bags requires you to do some quest grinding, as you will have to do faction quests to obtain Runes of Holding from Faction Shops. 

Bags can be made on the Outfitting Station and require the Armoring Skill to make. Luckily, the most basic Bag (Coarse Leather Bag) requires Armoring Skill of 0 and it still sells quite well, which means that you can profit from this method right from the get-go. To start off, grind faction quests (which will net you some New World Coins by themselves) so that you can afford Runes of Holding. Then invest some money into materials (Coarse Leather, Linen Cloth, and Iron Ingots) or grind them yourself and proceed to craft low-tier bags. After you craft enough of them, you will reach Armoring Skill of 50 that will allow you to make the next tier of Bags which is worth much more. Rinse and repeat until you're able to craft Infused Leather Bags that are worth a lot of money and will always be in high demand. 

Note: If you're looking for a crafting-based method that will generate profits almost immediately, this is it. 

Score:
Easiness  | Quickness  | Profitability 

Gathering

New World is a Sandbox game with a high emphasis on Crafting, and Crafting requires materials that have to be gathered. This simple gameplay loop lays at the base of the game's economy and thus you can be sure that gathering will remain very profitable for its whole lifespan. To profit from gathering, you simply Sell your harvests on the Trading Post. The price of gathered materials heavily depends on the market situation; the more people gather and sell something, the cheaper it becomes. The more people need something, the more expensive it becomes - that's supply and demand for you. 

This is the baseline method that allows you to turn time into money by grinding resources for sale on the Trading Post, and players often compare it to other moneymakers - if something takes more time and/or gives less profit than gathering, then it's terrible. Your overall profits will mostly depend on your level, skills, chosen resource, and grinding location. The main advantages of Gathering are: 

• Very low entry-level - you can start Gathering without a single dime to your name and still profit from it. Over time, your profits will rise, together with your gathering skills. 
• Relatively low dependence on market trends - even if prices of raw materials fall down, you will still make a profit (just less of it). Losing money on gathering is almost impossible. 
• It's very relaxing - you don't have to, well... use your brain too much while grinding resources. While gathering, you can turn on your favorite music and calm yourself down after more stressful in-game activities. 

One of the best resources to farm early on is Iron as it's needed in a lot of recipes and it can be turned into Steel (which means that it's basically two resource tiers in one). The best locations for Mining Iron are:

• Mountain Ridgeline in Monarch's Bluffs - A relatively short farming route that is quite easy to monopolize (Nodes have 15-minute respawn timers, if you're back at the start at the 15-minute mark, you can be sure that no one "steals" nodes from you). 
• Mountains in First Light - they are filled to the brim with Iron Veins. The recommended level for this one is 17, but you can farm there earlier if you're good at avoiding combat. There are also other mineral veins in the area - don't forget to gather them if your skill is high enough. 

Score:
Easiness  | Quickness  | Profitability 

END NOTE

Please remember that the in-game economy of New World is fluid and will change over time (the market should stabilize after some time passes, however). This is why all New World Coins making activities that require an initial investment or simply demand a lot of time should be performed with the highest caution to minimize the risks involved. Sometimes it is better to wait for the prices to stabilize before taking any risky in-game actions, like investing heavily (without prior research) or selling a large stock of farmed goods in one go (again, without proper research/information). 

We hope that you have found this guide useful and informative. If we have missed a method that is worth mentioning, please let us know! Also, we will be happy to receive constructive criticism that will help us improve our future work so leave your suggestions in the comments section below.