Path of Exile 2 has no auction house. Trade is a listing site plus two players meeting in a hideout, and everything about it follows from that.
The loop
- Someone lists an item. Putting an item in a stash tab marked *public* with a price note makes it appear on the official trade site. That is the whole listing mechanism — there is no separate "sell" button.
- A buyer searches. On the trade site, or through ePOE's price check, which queries the same API.
- The buyer whispers. The site generates a fixed whisper:
@Seller Hi, I would like to buy your <item> listed for <price> in <league> (stash tab "<tab>"; position: left <x>, top <y>). That exact format matters — it tells the seller precisely which item and where it is. - The seller invites. Usually
/invite <buyer>, then the buyer travels to their hideout. - They trade. Right-click the other player's portrait, or
/tradewith <name>. - Done. The seller normally removes the item; the site catches up on its own.
What "listed" does not mean
A listing is an advert, not a contract. Three things routinely go wrong and none of them are anyone being dishonest:
- The item is already sold. The seller took it out of the tab; the site has not noticed yet. Very common in the first days of a league.
- The seller is AFK or offline. The trade site's "online" flag is coarse. Filter to *Securable* or *Online* to cut this down.
- The price is stale. Someone priced an item on day two and never came back.
If you get no reply in a few minutes, whisper the next listing. Do not sit waiting on one.
Etiquette that actually changes your reply rate
- Send the generated whisper unedited. It carries the stash tab and the item's grid position. Sellers with a full tab genuinely cannot find your item without it. Retyping "hi buying ring" gets ignored.
- Do not haggle in the first message. If you want to negotiate, buy at the listed price or move on. Sellers with a queue always take the buyer who did not open with a discount request.
- Say thanks and leave. Standing in someone's hideout is the most common minor annoyance in trade.
- On the selling side: reply, even to say no. "Sorry, sold" takes three seconds and is the difference between a trade community and a lottery.
- Bulk offers get bulk prices. Asking to buy one exalted orb at the bulk rate is a waste of both players' time. Use the currency exchange for stackables.
Price-fixed and instant-buyout listings
Two flags on the trade site do a lot of work:
- Securable / instant buyout means the seller has committed to the listed price through GGG's own flow. These are the listings worth whispering first.
- Note-priced items with a plain price note are the ordinary case. Fine, just slower.
- Items priced "negotiable" or with no note are, in practice, not for sale. Skip them.
Currency for currency
Stackable currency does not go through this loop. The bulk exchange is a separate market where you post "I have X, I want Y" and rates are set by volume. If you are converting exalted to divine, use the exchange, not item listings — the rates are better and you are not waiting on a human.
ePOE shows the live exchange rate automatically when you price-check a currency item, and the Exchange page has a have-to-want calculator.
How ePOE fits in
Everything above is the game's own system. ePOE does two things to it:
- Searching faster. One hotkey instead of a browser tab, with your mods already filled in.
- Whispering. It takes the generated whisper — unedited, tab and position intact — hands focus to the game, opens chat and sends it. It sends *that one line, when you click the button*. It never completes a trade, never replies for you, and never does anything you did not just press.
The line ePOE holds is the search box: regex and item searches are pasted for you but never submitted, because a search box that submits on its own is one step from automation.
Travel to hideout uses the trade site's own hideout token — the same thing the website's button does. No chat injection involved.
Scams, briefly
The mechanics of PoE2 trade make outright theft hard, but two patterns are worth knowing:
- Last-second swaps. Someone changes the item or currency in the trade window right before accepting. Read the window before you click.
- "Let me check it in my hideout." No. The trade window is the trade.
And the one that matters most: nobody legitimate ever needs your account details. Not to price your gear, not to craft for you, not to carry you. ePOE's own Service Board rejects posts asking for credentials for that reason.