Steam Market buy order functionality
I have a question about how the buy order works on the Steam Market. I will use the following picture for my examples.
Scenario:
Let's say I list my buy order at $11.41, after someone listed the $12.12 price. If a seller puts up the item for $11.41, will I get the item, or will the person who put their buy order higher and before mine receive the item?
Essentially, if the listing price is equal to or lower than the buy order, will the item go to the person with the highest buy order, or the person who placed the buy order first?
People actually sell their items under the top buy order. I've seen CSGO knives sell for pennies when their top buy order is in the hundreds. Here is an example. This knife was sold for $0.14 just a few weeks ago.
FYI:
This does not function like "basic forex" softwares. I've listed a CS:GO trading card for $0.04 when the highest buy order was $0.05 and I received $0.04 not $0.05.
Best Answer
Well, the FAQ tells us the following:
How do buy orders choose which listing to buy?
When you place a buy order, the market first looks for all the cheapest items that can fulfill your order. Then the oldest listing (ie. the seller who has waited the longest) is selected and purchased. If the items are listed in multiple currencies, the amounts are first converted into your currency before being selected (ie a 0.03 RUB listing has no priority over a 0.03 USD listing)
That means, the price you list as a buyer, is the amount you are willing to pay max, but you can get it cheaper, if someone is willing to sell at a cheaper price. An item is always sold at exactly the price, that the seller chose. As the buyer, you can get lucky, if someone offers an item below the amount that you set.
So it basically comes down to the order in which the buyers set their offers. When someone offers to sell his item (in your example for $11.41), then the first person that set a buy order with at least this amount will get it. So in your example the guy with a buy order for $12.12 will get the item for $11.41.
Because of that, it doesn't matter how high the highest buy order is, the item sellers dictate the prices and sometimes people just sell really valuable items at low prices, either because it's an error on their side or they just don't know about the real worth.
Pictures about "Steam Market buy order functionality"
How do Steam market buy orders work?
What is a buy order? When buying a commodity items, you specify the price you want to pay, and when an item comes available at that price the purchase completes. If there isn't an item available immediately at that price, then that request to purchase stays active until an item listed at the right price comes along.How do I check my buy orders on Steam?
You need to be logged into your Steam account to see your active buy orders. If you are already logged in, you can skip this step. Find your orders under "My buy orders." If you have any open orders, they will appear in this section of the Community Market front page. Click a buy order to see its details.Is buying from the Steam market safe?
In short: Yes, it is safe to buy video games from Steam. We'll provide some specific reasons why below, but let's think about the big picture first. Steam stated that, in 2019, it had as many as 95 million monthly active users.How do I trade on Steam market?
To send an offer from your Trade Offers page:The Steam Community Market: Buy Orders and How to Profit From Them
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Answer 2
So I basically had the same question and found this answer: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/community_market#announcements/detail/1262446774506273812
The buy order with the highest price gets priority for purchasing newly listed items. If there are multiple orders with the same high price, the oldest buy order gets fulfilled first.
So it's supposed to be the highest buy order that gets the priority, but... Yeah, there is a but. I found that there are people that will always get the item, no matter if their buy order is the highest or not. I don't know why or how, but my assumption is they are using some kind of exploit in the buy order system. So it might seem like they get the item because their buy order was 'older' but it's not. I saw them place their buy order after and below mine (meaning it was neither older nor highest) and yet they still bought the low priced item.
I described this with more info (and screenshots) in here: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/community_market/discussions/0/540744934355913062/?ctp=14#c458606248626520515 (and a second post few posts lower)
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Images: Ksenia Chernaya, Tim Samuel, Tim Samuel, Tim Samuel