The auction system in FFXI can be, at the very least, a little confusing. I know when I first looked at it, I couldn't make heads or tales of it. With this guide, you'll understand the system in no time. At first, the information before you can seem daunting. In reality, its very simple. It's just placed in an inefficient, linear fashion. This is because of the game's design to work with a gamepad, for the PlayStation 2.


Shopping

When you first approach an AH (Auction House), You'll find a lot of people standing around, and have a hard time getting access. The best thing I've found to work was to simply go to first-person view and approach the AH window. Press F8, which targets the closest NPC target. This targets the Auction Counter, which then gives you access to the auctions when you hit Enter.

To start shopping, you just hit Bid. From there, you select which category you wish to view, and work your way through the sub-categories till you reach the item listing. Once you get to the list, you'll notice a lot of items listed. The Auction system lists every conceivable item. It's a nice way to see everything in the game if you have the patience to browse.

Some of the items will have a number in brackets at the far right of the listing. This number shows how many of that particular item are available to buy from players. If you see a number between the name of the item, and the number in brackets, this means the item is sold as a stack. For example, if you were shopping for Wooden Arrows, you could see this:

Wooden Arrows [3]
Wooden Arrows 99 [12]

The first Wooden Arrows item in the list means you are looking at single arrows as one item, and there are 3 arrows on sale. The next item shows 12 items for sale, each item being a stack of 99 Wooden Arrows. Items will always be listed in every possible way they can be sold. As a single item, as a stack of 12 (when applicable), and/or a stack of 99 (where applicable).

Ok, so now you want to buy an item. How do you know how much to pay for it? The problem is, you can't see what the seller is charging for the item. You can see however, the prices people recently have paid for it. Once you highlight an item that has one or more of it on sale, you have three options. Price History, Bid, and Sort.

Price History will show you the most recent sales of the item along with the prices people paid for it. Now here's the trick. You'll notice the prices are varied, with no pattern. This will be explained in a moment. To bid on an item, you first look at what the other players have paid. You know you have to pay something similar. Here's where it gets tricky. Lets look at the Wooden Arrow example. Say someone put up a batch of 99 Arrows for sale for 400 gil. As a buyer, with no recent Price History, you don't know how much to bid. So you bid 100 gil for starters and see what happens. In a few seconds, you'll get a message saying you were unable to buy the item for the 100 gil, so you know its more than that. You then keep bidding higher and higher till you reach the 400 gil price or more (incase you jumped from 300 to 500 for example). This is the other tricky area. If you were to bid 500 gil for the Arrows, and they only cost 400 gil, you buy them at 500. This is the "bidding" part of the Auction system.

Lets look at a quick example to make sure this is clear:

Price History - Wooden Arrows

[date] - [player name] - 400 gil
[date] - [player name] - 400 gil
[date] - [player name] - 500 gil
[date] - [player name] - 400 gil
[date] - [player name] - 700 gil

This tells you that the arrows seem to be priced at 400 gil, but two people bid 500 and 700. So if you were buying, and you wanted to save some money, you could bid 300, seeing if maybe everyone was overbidding recently, then move to 400, in which case you'll have bought the Arrow stack.

Another important tip for shopping is the Sort feature. As you look through the listings, you can select any of the items that are in-stock (the ones with numbers in brackets) and select Sort. You can sort by various ways, but arguably the most helpful for equipment is Sort By Level. As you may have noticed before, items you can use are colored differently. When sorting by level, you can scroll to the bottom of the list and work your way up till the items change color, this is where you can see where the best items for your level are.


Selling

You've got a few items in your inventory, and you want to start selling. This is actually very simple, with one catch. You have to go to the Bid selection and look up each item you want to sell, so you can see what others have paid for it. This gives you an idea as to your item's market value and how much you should sell it for.

Once you've checked on the going price for your item, you then go back to the Sell selection. Your items window will open, where you select which item to sell. You will receive a message telling you to wait for the item's name to change color, then to select it again. I've never really noticed any color changes, but you can simply select the item once, wait a second or two, and then select it again (selecting by hitting Enter each time). A price window will then open. You place your price and accept. You will be charged a small fee of one to a few gil for every item you put on sale (a stack counts as one item), depending on various things I'm not clear about. You get charged even if you pull the item off your Sell list later.

When you sell an item, you are only allowed to sell it as a single item, or a full stack. This means either 1 item, a stack of 12, or a stack of 99, depending on the item.

Now its a matter of time. Check back later and in the first AH menu, below Bid and Sell, select Sales Status. This will show you the items you put up for sale, and wether they have been sold or not. An item in yellow means it has been sold. You can click any such item and it will be removed from your listing with a confirmation below that it has been sold.

When you buy items, they go directly to your inventory for immediate use. Selling is a little different. When an item of yours is sold, the money for it goes to your Delivery Box at your Mog House. Once there, you can look in your Delivery Box for coins, which represent the money you made for each item sold. Also, if an item stays on sale for 9 weeks Vana'diel time,
it will be automatically moved to your Delivery Box and it will be marked in red under Sales Status next time you visit the AH.


I hope this guide helps you make the most of this convenient, automated auction system.