Beat the best buying price - in detail

BullionVault is a dynamic, competitive market where buyers and sellers of gold compete on price.

As a buyer you want the lowest price. You can accept the best offer, to try to buy quickly if you think the market is moving up soon.

If, on the other hand, you are patient, and want to try to save the market 'spread', you can advertise your price to the next seller and wait, hoping that a seller on the market arrives before someone bids gold higher than you. With this strategy you are less likely to buy quickly, but might buy at a lower price. It all depends on there being a seller of gold at the price you bid in the reasonably near future.

Following this strategy you will become the market's new best price for sellers, and you will see your bid appear as a green coloured brick on the order board, attracting sellers. This can take a while to get your head around. You are a buyer advertising to sellers, so your advertised price is placed on a green button, waiting for a seller to click it. The more you bid the narrower you make the spread, and the more attractive your price becomes to potential sellers out there.

The procedure

Step 1. (less detail)	Make sure you are Logged in. Another thing you may need to do is check on your resources. You will need to have enough currency available to meet your purchase order. From the front page select the order board by pressing the BUY/SELL menu button.
Step 2. (less detail)	Look at the prices in your chosen vault, in the currency you've got. You'll see a spread between the green button's best selling price and the gold button's best buying price. You want to attract a seller with an attractive price - so you want to narrow the spread in favour of sellers by bidding up.
Step 3. (less detail)	Click the 'Best Offer' gold brick. This loads the order panel with the details of the best offer, in other words the best terms offered by a current seller, with you as the buyer. Let's try and tempt him by bidding very nearly what he's asking!
Step 4. (less detail)	So, instead of going on to buy immediately on his terms now adjust your price limit / kg downwards on the order panel using the arrow key. Pressing it just once leaves a narrow price which may be compelling to many gold sellers. Each additional press decreases your buying price one mark at a time and deters potential sellers, but saves you a fraction more. Now remember to adjust the quantity to the amount you'd like to buy.
Step 5. (less detail)	When you're happy with your order press the BUY/BID button, and CONFIRM, as for a normal order entry. Then look below for what happens next.

What happens next?

You will probably receive a response in the order panel saying 'Your order is now open'.
As the best bid in the market you will probably see your price come up as the new highest bid green brick for your chosen vault and currency. You are buying, so you are advertising to a seller.
The reason we can only say probably is because you might have entered your order at almost exactly the same time as a seller offering gold at your price, in which case you will already have dealt. Or possibly someone has already bettered your price, in which case you're on the board, but not currently at the best price as a green brick.
Remember there are trading bots out there. It's quite possible that someone's computer is making a market too, and when it sees you beating it on price it starts to compete with you to bid higher. Don't be too surprised if you're not the best bid for long.
One thing that's fun to do now is to view the new market spread. What you just did was narrow the spread on the gold price for the whole world. You can see the effect by pressing the BUY/SELL menu button, then selecting the MARKET SPREAD sub-menu option. You reduced the size of the white gap in your chosen vault and currency.
As usual you can monitor the success of your order from the HISTORY > ORDERS screen. Sometimes it's best to monitor what's happening on the ORDER BOARD itself, because you'll see if anyone is bidding up against you.
If you decide you want to push the purchase through you'll need to withdraw your bid by killing it from HISTORY > ORDERS screen and replacing it with one at a higher price.