How does Steam Marketplace determine which items get listed first?

[DairunCates]

I've been using the steam marketplace to sell cards for a while, and I've noticed something unusual about how ordering is determined on the steam marketplace. Obviously, the lowest price item ends up on top, but after that, I have no idea how steam determines how items get placed on the marketplace.

Logic would dictate that the first ones put up are the farthest at the top, as they've been waiting the longest. This is true 90% of the time, but occasionally someone will post an item at the same price as me and get their item put up first on the marketplace. I've tried seeing if this is a glitch in how steam rounds up cents when you put extra decimals into the cent value, but that didn't seem to replicate the effect. I thought it might be based on steam name, but my steam name is near the beginning of the alphabet and people that have appeared before me have had names both before and after me in alphabetical order.

Even more bizarre is the fact that I've posted 2 copies of an item on the marketplace before and have managed to have people get items placed BETWEEN my sold items. Obviously, this is a bit bizarre as it seems to indicate that the placement of same priced items is sometimes very random.

Can anyone help me on this issue? I'm tired of getting price sniped by people posting the same prices as me.

[HP Hxnini]

i wrote on Paysafecard as well

[Muppet among Puppets]

Then it will get solved

[HP Hxnini]

i hope so , ty btw :)

[ch1m8n]

now how to get them to implement the damn thing. same value undercutting is just f#cked annoying, and unfair in every sense

[Futatsukusabana]

Messaggio originale di DairunCates:

Yeah. I actually found the answer to this, already. It's not an issue of "timing" and "millions of items" being placed (because I normally work with items there's like 100 of). It's actually that people with lower value currencies have an inherent advantage on the marketplace. Someone living in Russia can drop the price by one Ruble (which is less than a cent) and get preferential treatment on the listings while still getting the full price for the sale (it ends up rounding up the fraction of a cent in their favor, apparently).

Thaks a lot, I was wondering why my item went during weeks from page 20 to 24 despite being among lowest prices.

[ॐ ĔňěĹ ॐ ThePoliceMan]

had same problem many people sell before me that just put items for sale and i wait sometimes for days

[Die Hexe am Rhein]

maybe I'm years too late, and my english isn't that good, but from what I observe :

-> Whichever places their sell orders first will be the one who get's purchased first. This only works if two same items gets listed in the same currency. For example, you place your item for $15. But some russian seller puts in $15 too. His item gets bought first. How? There's a bit of a gap in the currency adjuster. So your item could be $15, but his is $14.995, which get's rounded to $15, but is actually lower than your item's price.

-> for anything over 3 cents, 99% of the time the lower price gets listed at the top. Unless there's a bug in the currency conversion which leads into some more-expensive listings get pushed to the top. Still, your item would be purchased first, as long as it's the cheapest. This is because when you place a buy order, let's say $15.99 (the top-most suggested price), it doesn't automatically order an item for $15.99, rather it looks at the data to see if there's an item cheaper below your buy order, and purchases the lowest priced item instead. (example, you placed a buy order at 15.99 because it's the top-most price available, but since in the database there's someone who sells for 15.98, but got pushed to the bottom, you will purchase the item for 15.98)

-> 3 cent items. Hoo boy, this is where things starts to get interesting. You know there's a heap of items that are listed as $0.03, and most of them are bulk items like cases and crates, which obviously, have tons of items listed for sale as $0.03. But here's the twist; there's a lot of currency that can reach below that. Since the absolute minimum listing price is 0.03 unit, no matter which currency, that means other country user can list far below $0.03. For example : 0.03 Russian Ruble. The lowest steam can get is Indonesia Rupiah's 0.03, which is really, REALLY low. I mean, 1 Rupiah is like 0.00007 US$ as of writing, imagin 0.03 Rupiah. Not even Russian Ruble gets that low. Countries like these, with three, four, or even this Rupiah which got 5 digits conversion to US$, are the ones that dominates low listing.

This is the main reason your listing rarely ever gets purchased. Let's say you're placing a csgo case for sale, at $0.03. Now, there's an Indonesian user which places the same case at 35 Rupiah (Actual Rupiah case prices as of writing). Now, 35 Rupiah is only 0.00021 US$. Which one is cheaper, $0.03 or $0.00021? Of course, $0.00021, or the Rupiah one, so the Rupiah case gets listed over your case. Then when someone from the US wants to buy a case for $0.03, the buyer pays $0.03, as he should. But instead of your item, the Rupiah item get's sold. And the Rupiah seller gets, wait for it.... $0.00021, as he should. Where did the extra money go? GABEN

I've stayed in Indonesia, so I get to use rupiah in here for quite a while, and provide some info about prices comparison to US$

EDIT : Apparently Vietnamese Dong had been inserted into steam without me knowing before, so then, the lowest steamc an get is 0.03 Vietnamese dong. 1 rupiah is about 1.5-1.6 Dong. calculate it yourself :v

[Ғlϵshus]

Since I became aware of this hoax my hatred of Steam and the Third World is growing day by day. I am in CHF (Swiss franc), I lost fortunes by buying items to 0.03 that I could never sell. Steam encourages hatred between nations. (It's not really the people for whom I hate, but the nations, the monetary system, the corporations, the industry, LIVE THE REVOLUTION !!!)

[Muppet among Puppets]

Messaggio originale di Fleshus - BITSKINS.COM:

Since I became aware of this hoax my hatred of Steam and the Third World is growing day by day. I am in CHF (Swiss franc), I lost fortunes by buying items to 0.03 that I could never sell. Steam encourages hatred between nations. (It's not really the people for whom I hate, but the nations, the monetary system, the corporations, the industry, LIVE THE REVOLUTION !!!)

There is so much wrong with this post.

But about the math:
If you buy something for 3 cent, you automatically make a loss if you plan to sell it.
The best you can get out of it is 2 cents.

If you are jealous for people who can sell lower than 3 cent, they "earn" less than 2 cent. For something they paid 3 cent for.

[☣ Jelly ☣]

Messaggio originale di 𝛍:

maybe I'm years too late, and my english isn't that good, but from what I observe :

excellent! that answered all my questions (and frustrations in €). Cheers!

[koz]

didnt read anything but dude listed his items after me for the same price and his listings are before mine, why tho

[76561199418627359]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.