Grand Exchange Merchanting Guide

[TomBarrister]

Here is my guide to the Grand Exchange.

 

 

 

There will be no pretty pictures. Use your imagination. The guide assumes you know the basics of the Grand Exchange.

 

 

 

Trying to sell the same item for a profit (buy low and sell high) doesn't work very well. For one thing, the system will often not allow a player to sell the same item for a profit in a specified time period (generally believed to be six hours). Another problem is the fact that the market rights itself. That means that people generally want to sell for as much as they can and buy as cheaply as they can. Eventually, most offers end up at the market (middle) price, the others being scooped up as fast as they get put into the system.

 

 

 

The old-fashioned way to profit is to simply go out and get the product yourself (mine, fish, do a treasure trail, etc.) and then sell it.

 

 

 

Another way to profit is to buy the item from a specialty shop (example, water vials in Ardougne, or empty vials in Taverly), and then sell it in the Grand Exchange.

 

 

 

The main way to profit from the Grand Exchange is to alter what you buy in some way (change it) and then sell it. This gets around the rule that you can't sell the same item for a profit in a certain amount of time, because it's technically a different item. Changing the item might also increase its value somewhat.

 

 

 

There are several ways of changing an item into one that's worth more. One way used by some players is to buy flax, spin it into bowstrings, and then sell the bowstrings for about a 100% profit.

 

 

 

One popular method going around is to buy Prayer(1), Prayer(2), and Prayer(3) potions, (although the idea would work for almost any potion), combine them into Prayer(4) potions, and then sell them at max. This doesn't work too well. For one thing, the market price of each potion is exactly the same, per unit of potion, i.e. a Prayer(2) potion markets for half of what a Prayer(4) potion does. Prayer(3) potions generally sell at market and rarely lower, and Prayer(4) potions don't often sell for maximum (although it can happen). Also, this requires a lot of mouse-clicking, and an error means you've drunk some of the profits :P . Another problem is that a lot of people are trying to make gold this way.

 

 

 

Some players invest in rares, and it would certainly be possible to profit from this (at some risk) through analysis, but that isn't in the scope of this article.

 

 

 

---THE METHOD---

 

 

 

This is the main way to make gold solely from merchanting in the Grand Exchange. It probably won't work as well after this is read, plagiarized, and used by many many people, but oh well. I wasn't the first one to think it up, and you can find it on many other websites. Some people have even sold this method as a pay-for guide.

 

 

 

To begin with, it will help to have about a million in gold to start with. You can technically start with much less, but the initial profits will be slim, and you will make more money faster by going and running such as Swamp Toads, Flax, Oak Planks, Swamp Tar, etc. It won't take that long to get a million gold together, although it DOES get tedious (I know, because Swamp Toads and Oak Planks is how I got my first 3 million gold, 2 million of which I spent on Prayer (Dragon Bones) and varous armour). In a little over two weeks, I turned 1 million into over 20 million, working 15 minutes twice a day. It can be done, although it will be harder now that everybody knows it.

 

 

 

(The following is my method, which is somewhat different from how others have suggested it, so it makes it unique. I'm not claiming any rights to it, either, since I don't have any rights to a common idea that others have been using since Runescape started.)

 

 

 

While F2P players can make some gold with this, you probably want to be a member if you're going to make any real gold.

 

 

 

The key is to sell sets of armour made from from individual pieces. It's no harder or easier than that. It works. Here are some tips on how to do it more effectively than others have suggested:

 

 

 

Sets of armour consist of various pieces. The general principle is to buy each piece for the minimum price, plus about 50 coins more.

 

 

 

Why 50 coins more? The reason is how the Grand Exchange works. When a player puts in a bid to buy or sell an item, one of two things happen.

 

 

 

1) There's at least one existing bid on the other side for as good or better a price. In that case, the best bid already in the system will be matched to the person who just bid. In other words, if I want to buy a widget for 2000 coins, and there are offers to sell for 2100, 2070, 2030, 2000 and 1980 coins, I'm going to get to buy my widget for the best offer: 1980 coins.

 

 

 

2) There's no previous bid on the other side. In that case, my entry gets put in. When it's matched, it's going to be matched in favor of the person who bids on it.

 

 

 

This tells us two things: for one, the first bid in the system is always going to get screwed. The second---and more important to us----is that if everybody else is offering to buy at the minimum, and we buy for the minimum plus 50, we're going to get the bid. Yes, we'll pay 50 more than minimum, but we'll make up for it later, and we'll have more turnover than somebody bidding minimum all the time.

 

 

 

Now you can't always do it the same way. If everybody catches on and does the same thing, then maybe you have to bid 100 more or whatever it takes to get it sold to you. I don't recommend going over market price unless you have to.

 

 

 

The general rule of thumb is that if you can't buy the most expensive piece in the set (example: Rune gold platebody) for near the minimum, then you probably should try another item. If you can get the most expensive piece cheaply, that gives you the most profit margin when you sell the set later.

 

 

 

Now sometimes one particular piece of a set will be hard to come by---a lot of the better sets are treasure-trail or Barrows/etc. items, and sometimes a certain piece is hard to come by. You may have to pay market or even maximum price for that piece. Just be sure it's one of the less expensive pieces in the set (i.e. Splitbark Boots). If you have to pay full price for the most expensive piece, you aren't going to be making much.

 

 

 

Once you have all of the pieces, you can then swap them into sets. When you sell the sets, you want to sell them at the maximum price, minus about 50 coins. Again, selling the set for 50 coins less will mean you'll get first call over somebody selling it for maximum, when a buyer comes along.

 

 

 

Now understand that the market value of a set is EXACTLY the market value of all of the individual pieces, added up. You don't make a profit just by making a set. Your profit comes from the fact that most people who sell armour pieces usually unload them for minimum, while most people who buy the set want it right then and will pay the maximum.

 

 

 

For example, a player goes out and gets a Rune trimmerd full helm in a Treasure Trail. The player isn't going to wait until he (or she) gets the rest of that particular suit, because that might take years. He also doesn't want to wait a long time to get another 5-10% gold from his helm. So he unloads it, usually for the minimum, and goes back to whatever he was doing. He never thinks of buying the rest of the pieces, making a set from it, and selling it.

 

 

 

Likewise (and luckily for us), a lot of the players who want a set aren't going to buy the pieces individually. For one thing, a lot of people who are doing what we do are buying them up as fast as they're offered, so they usually aren't available. The player doesn't want to wait around just to save a few thousand gold. So when he sees that he isn't going to get the set for market value, he puts in the maximum price, gets his set, and moves on. And we make the profit from it.

 

 

 

Some advice: When you're buying pieces of a set, you should generally try to get the most expensive piece in the set---the one that makes you the most profit---for close to the minimum. Once you've locked that profit in, you can afford to pay a bit more for the smaller priced pieces, if necessary. Also, generally you're going to have to pay more than minimum for the rarer stuff and sell the sets for less than maximum For example, it's hard (not impossible) to get a Dharok's helm for the minimum price or sell the set for the maximum. Players are a bit more willing to wait for a good price. The good part is that there's more profit to be made, so you can give up a bit on each end and still do well.

 

 

 

Understand that the most you can make on any transaction is 10.5% of what you pay for the pieces, that being if you buy all pieces at minimum and sell them all at maximum. This is one reason you need to have about a million to start, as the profits from this go up, the more gold you have to put into the system.

 

 

 

Since you only have six slots in the Grand Exchange, you can generally only buy one kind of armour set at a time. Here are some techniques that are commonly used:

 

 

 

The first technique is to simply buy as many individual pieces of each set as you have gold. For example, if you have a million, and the five individual pieces cost a total of 100k, then you'd buy 10 of each. Wait until you've gotten them all, then make them into sets and sell them (or sell them as you go). Then buy more individual pieces, then sell them. This way you don't have to check very often.

 

 

 

The second technqiue is this: when you get a lot of money and can't invest it all at once, you can spend about half of it on individual pieces. When they all come in, you make them into sets and then sell them. After you put them on the Exchange, you buy MORE set pieces (not necessarily the same type of armour) with your five empty slots. This way, you can be buying and selling continuously, instead of just doing one at a time.

 

 

 

If you want to be more active on the Exchange (not a bad idea when you're first starting out and/or don't have a lot of gold), you can put your money into buying pieces. As they come in, you can retrieve them, make them into sets, and sell them. This way, you can be buying and selling at the same time while keeping all of your gold working for you. The drawback is that you have to be at the Exchange more often and/or longer.

 

 

 

This isn't written in stone, and as more people start doing it, you may have to adapt and do things different. Also, sometimes an individual piece will be hard to get (for example, some Treasure Trail items are rarer than others). For those, you may have to pay more, perhaps even maximum (be sure this isn't for the most expensive piece of the set). You may also end up with a set item that isn't selling well. It's possible that you'll have to take a loss. If so, do it and learn from your mistake.

 

 

 

The point is that you have to adapt to conditions if you're going to profit. The players who think are going to do a lot better than the ones who do things mechanically or mindlessly.

 

 

 

Have fun.

[Ouchy]

WOW :shock: ! I only read about 1/4 of this but it is a very good guide! It is very useful!

 

 

 

9/10 easily :D

[compfreak847]

Himm, I think most of the players that have enough cash to do this effectively already know about it. I used to do a similar thing, although the several *secret* items that I found made a nice 1-2M per day with a 10M investment. Now that I have far more then that, I could probably make quite a bit more, but it really isn't worth the risk to me. Besides that, all armor besides barrows, which is still unsteady, is headed fairly steadily downwards. I'd hate to have 100 ahrim's robeskirts in my bank ready to sell the day Jagex adds a new, more powerful armor. (Think 3rd age kite when DFS came out, its recovered but still is trading far below what it used to be, especially considering how much all of the other 3rd age pieces have moved since then, thanks to merchants).

[fubol]

nice guide , but i don't know if i'm gonna try :|

[ckellingc]

Nooooooo! My secret is out!

 

 

 

Prices have been a bit inflated lately though, I can still profit like 2k per set, but its nothing like it used to be.

[X V3 N 0 M X]

Wow, very nice guide, I love it. It has helped me a lot and should bring me some money.

 

 

 

However there is a mistake in your post: "of armour made from from individual pieces."

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure your only wanted one 'from'. :

 

 

 

Well, awesome guide! Thanks a lot.

[Tijger2099]

Only read the start and didn't look too promising. However after I read the comments I realized I apparently had missed some crucial parts. When I have some more time I might read some more of it and put it into practice ;)

 

 

 

Thanks in advance

[gamertjecool]

add some pics ;) Nice guide 9/10 :thumbsup:

[Pat_61]

Good but add pics it burned my eyes :o