Buying, Selling, Merchanting

[M_D_K_48117]

Welcome to MDK's guide to merchanting. I hope this helps some people get mad rich. Though do note that no one is allowed to copy this guide without my consent under any circumstances.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I - Introduction

 

II - Theory Behind Merchanting

 

III - Where To Merchant What

 

IV - Knowing Your Prices

 

V - Knowing What Makes The Moolah

 

VI - Using Merchanting To Get Rich

 

VII - Merchanting Off Other Players

 

VIII - Making A Merchanting Business

 

XI. - F2P and P2P merchanting

 

 

 

 

 

I.

 

Merchanting, this is something everyone does at some point but few actually apply. Merchanting is the act of selling various goods for profit, this is almost always done by buying cheap, selling expensive. By doing so you manipulate the price equivlents to your advantage to make a little amount of money into a large sunm of money. All players do this at some point, but as I said before, do not use thier knowledge to profit off of this. Merchanting is also a very effertless way of making money, meaning you don't have to do anything to make money off of mining, cooking, or fishing.

 

 

 

II.

 

The theory behind merchanting is that if you can find a good price to buy from people, and a good price to sell that item for, you can profit. These prices often take the near minimum value to buy an item for, and selling for the maximum price value. For instance, coal is worth 150gp-200gp. Knowing this you know you can buy coal for 150 gp and sometimes 140gp. Now doing this then selling for 200gp gives you a profit, not much, but it's a start. The greater the range of the value, the greater the profit, therefore new items or items with unsure values are usually better profit makers.

 

 

 

III.

 

Now, you know the theory, and you probably want to try this out now. So, time to learn where to sell what. This is usually known by higher level players who have been around a while, but not known as much by lower levels. This also takes common sense, if you lack that, then stop reading, but I'm hoping most of my readers have a bit of that. So pretty much, villages such as Varrock serve as a "melting pot". At Varrock West bank you can buy and sell anything, the only problem is the conjestion. At Fally East, you can buy and sell ores, meaning a greater chance of finding what your looking for. The below is a chart of F2P towns and banks to sell and buy at. (Sorry, I'm an F2P, if I become a member this consideration will be extended to them also.)

 

 

 

Bank Name - Items Traded

 

Lumbridge - Noob Items

 

Draynor - Fishing Materials, Fish

 

Fally East - Gems, Miscellanious

 

Fally West - Ores, Mining Materials, Bars, Gems

 

Varrock East - Runes, Mage Materials

 

Varrock West - Miscellanious

 

Al-Kharid - Crafting Materials, Bars, Cowhides, Gems

 

 

 

IV.

 

Knowing your prices is important and imperitive when merchanting. I use a mix of sources with my know-how on top. When merchanting you must know all the price ranges, coal is 150-200, lobs are 200-350, etc. This will let you minipulate the prices to your advantage. Not knowing the prices will not let you make too much of a profit and you may possibly lose money instead. Make sure if you do not know a price range, look around at either Tip.It or RuneHQ.

 

 

 

V.

 

One of the major troubles merchants will face is knowing what is selling at any one time. Sometimes a quick glance at a bank such as Varrock's will give you a clue, but not always. For instace, when I began merchanting Iron was a big seller, but then about a week later it wasn't. It's these kind of changes you must anticipate, when you see an item begining to sell better and another selling worse, then start merchanting the better items. These items will be worth more and are also easier to get ahold of. Also you have to be aware of sudden price changes or gradual ones, these may signify the market being flooded due to too many people selling a particular item. Flooding is what causes most items to vanish or to lose a large amount of value.

 

 

 

VI.

 

Now that you have this knowledge, it's time to try it out. My suggestion is to start out by going to the Varrock General Store where runes are bought cheap, take these runes and either sell them to the nearby shop or sell to other players. Work your way up from here to lobs, ores, and eventually rune items! Also try experimenting, you may find yourself drawn to certain items instead of others.

 

 

 

VII.

 

Well as I said before, merchanting comes in different forms. My favorite form is to merchant off other players. This type of merchanting takes a lot of planning and some mathematical know-how. Firstly, you'll need to figure out what item your going to merchant, we'll use lobs as an example. Now you then know you're going to need at least 1 runner if your fishing, and 2 if you and someone else is. So you'll have to figure out what your going to pay buy and you'll have to cover the shipping fees for them to go back and forth. So you first look at how much on average you fish per hour, then figure out how many lobs you want. Then from this I usually takes 40% off of what those lobs would be worth and figure out their salaries from there. By doing this, you make a 60% profit. The only trouble with this type of merchanting is it is often the most confusing and keeping your workers happy can be hard. As a suggestion, noobs are the cheap labor of RuneScape so try recruiting them for the running portion.

 

 

 

VIII.

 

Making a merchanting business is what most people who form non-combat clans aim for. Usually these clans are formed in hopes of a profit. Using the "Merchanting off other players" strategy is most often the most effective portion, but a clan usually hires its own members for work. This is were you may get stuck without experience, when you get members they may be better or worse in a certain area than what you need, so you have to account for this. Also if you merchant the goods your members are collecting, you have to always make sure you are gaining profit instead of creating assets. Assets will make you lose money, and this means that the money going out is greater than that comming in.

 

 

 

IX.

 

Trading between F2P and P2P is one of the better and easier ways to make money. Items such as Black Armor and Weps sell cheap in P2P worlds and expensive in F2P worlds where Black is someitmes considered one of the higher forms of armor. Taking advantage of these prices is where you must be strong if your a P2P player. Buying items in a F2P world you can find cheap labor, while in a P2P world you can buy items to sell to F2P players cheap. Knowing the prices between F2P and P2P is often your key to success.

[HellsBells]

I assume you're not finished? :| Good start.

[Owned_Nex]

Agreed, its obviously not finished. Right now, merchanting won't owrk, as everything is crashing.

[M_D_K_48117]

Yea, still working on it. I put up that for the moment as a start. I'll be adding more soon enough though. :

[nicrune007]

Fally East is BOTH for ores/bars and Gems

 

Varrock West is also for runes

 

 

 

:D

[M_D_K_48117]

Varrock West is "miscellanious" meaning EVERYTHING. And Al-khardi and Fally are for gems...adding now.

[swordwindtrtrtrt]

Varrock West is "miscellanious" meaning EVERYTHING. And Al-khardi and Fally are for gems...adding now.

outside varrok west its fish, ores, feathers, and runes. Inside the bank its full of people selling armour and weapons, and trying to offload the trimmed or g skirt they got lumbered with :P

[Blingkachi50]

Agreed, its obviously not finished. Right now, merchanting won't owrk, as everything is crashing.

 

 

 

Not everything is crashing so stop being so pessimistic. :notalk: #-o