Steam Market buy order functionality

Question

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.

Answer 1

The CS:GO knife which you linked to in your question is not a commodity. That means that each item can be purchased separately, because items could have unique characteristics. There is no priority queue of sell orders.

However, you are right that there is a priority queue of buy orders, described as such:

You can place an order to buy at a specific price, and the cheapest listing will automatically get matched to the highest buy order.

For this item, buy orders will be matched with the cheapest option to buy regardless of any unique characteristics.

If you're looking for a specific characteristic, you can search or view the individual listings below.

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?

The rule is clear: priority should be given to the highest buy order.

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.

For info, this statement can be misleading, because you did not mention market fees.

On a side-note, in contrast to knives, CS:GO trading cards are commodity items.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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)