Strategies for trading and negotiating in general - Part 4

For the fourth and final part of the series on trading strategy (for now) I wanted to cover something that's exclusive to MTGO. I know parts of this series have been more helpful for in person rather than online trades because many online trades are similar to purchases, so here's the trading tip for this week that's exclusive to online.

When you're looking for a card or playset of cards, it's tempting to find the absolute lowest price on the card. That seems like the best solution and much of the time it is, but sometimes it's not.\

Here's the scenario when it's not, if you are looking for very inexpensive cards the difference between paying .05 and .10 is 100% and seems like a lot. 100% more is a lot but when you buy the card you're going to have a credit with the bot because there are only 1 ticket increments in Magic Online. If you're never going to use your credit with the cheaper bot but you certainly will with the more expensive bot, is it worth it?

There's a lot to consider. The short answer is yes, but do your research. If a bot only has a few cards to sell and their prices are high, but have a great price on this one card, it might be better to have your credit on another bot that you're more likely to use.

Let's look at the price breakdown. You pay .05 for four copies of a card and they take 1 ticket. You have .8 credit that you'll never use because everything is overpriced from that bot (except the card you want) or the selection is very limited. Essentially you paid 1 ticket for those four cards.

If you were to buy the card from the more expensive bot that you know and use often, you have .60 credit that you'll actually use

Now I know that it's hard to say what bots you'll use and not use in the future, but it's worth tracking what bots you do business with to find out how much you have tied up in bot credits. I find that most of my trades are with the same group of bots because they seem to have the selection that I'm looking for and reasonable prices.

Until next time, good luck in the trading bazaar.