Merchant Clans: Genious or Folly?

[Soma2035]

 

2) There IS NO PRICE CEILING. 3rd age items ARE traded, just not very frequently. That's why the price changes occur irregularly, once every few days or so. Jagex has stated clearly multiple times that price ceilings do not exist, and any item that appears to have a ceiling is one that is not traded frequently.

 

 

 

EDIT: Correction, there are no KNOWN price ceilings. And by the way, the easiest way to check for a price ceiling is that the median price will be equal to the maximum price. Look at items with known price floors... Maple Longbow (u) for instance. 144 min, 144 median. Unless an item is 1 gp (which means it's locked for another reason but not a ceiling), the maximum price is always greater than the median price.

 

 

 

Cooked lobsters have a price ceiling of 368 gp. I wish I had the data, the charts, a screenshot. But when PVP came out, you could not buy a cooked lobster on the GE for more than 368 gp, even though I'm sure people wanted to pay upwards of 500 gp per. In fact, for several days the middle price of a cooked lobster was the same as the max, 368 gp.

 

 

 

Swordfish is another example - the max you could buy a swordfish for was around 470 gp.

 

 

 

I know this because I bought about 25k of each before pvp was introduced, waited for 2k weeks afterwards, and saw this with my own eyes.

 

 

 

Oh, and rune armour too. It was somewhere around 70k maximum for a platebody. You can know that a price is fixed when the median is closer to one end than another. And rune scimitars. And 2hs. Actually, pretty much all f2p combat related stuff had price ceilings. But I'm betting that you didn't see any of this, you didn't try to buy rune armour or scims or 2hs about 2 weeks after pvp came out. Trust me though, they were there.

 

 

 

I said they "do" not, not that they "did" not. I know they had price ceilings, but soon after the uproar about the raw chompy prices, Jagex removed almost all of them. There may still be one or two left, but they are based on store prices, as Jagex has said in the KB.

[mario_sunny]

You've got it right that their position on these merchant clans is blurry. Sometimes I hear of Jmods coming into big manipulator ccs and asking them to stop, other times I hear of Pmods actualy in the manipulator clans. Also, it's strange how some Fmods seem to hate the merchant clans and some Fmods believe they are legitiment.

[Artemis1330]

Most of these clans simply scam their own members. The few leaders buy as many of the item before hand, tell the clan to buy, then sell to the clan later. Then while the clan is dumping, the leaders start buying another item.

[Drakolord7]

IMO, it genius, but its 'wrong'. Genius is the operation at its core, but it shouldn't be done. If that makes any sense

[Sir_Kurity]

In some cases, merchant clans can fail, badly.

 

 

 

Those who dump first get the most money, those that dump last probably dont sell there items and end up with junk they can't sell for ages, until the price goes back down.

 

 

 

I personally don't care though, solo merchants (like me) can feed off a merchanting clan by going with the flow, just make sure they sell there items fast to be on the safe side.

[SwreeTak]

I like to merchant a lot and I don't see anything wrong with merchanting clans. It's just a good way to earn money :)

[bbalking]

It's just another simple answer, if you're part of a successful merchant clan you're lovin' it, reeping the profits and so on. If you're not then you moan and blurt out how it's against the rules. It should no way be against the rules (I'm not part of a merchant clan to me the pyramid status doesn't appeal to me).

[Luringrev]

Everyone seems to overlook where the money earned by doing this comes from. Money isn't created on the GE... it comes from players who doesn't understand how the GE works. I consider this to be an advanced form of stealing, therefore I cannot support it in any way and I wouldn't even think of doing it myself.

[Kepihan]

Its very smart. I wish I had enough money to do it, then I would.

[Nefelia]

Genius? Hardly. Clan buy-outs and price manipulation are the tools of those not clever enough to become successful merchants by themselves. I don't consider them 'wrong', but I do find them laughable.

 

 

 

Those who are able to successfully merchant on their own are deserving of respect for not resorting to the silly antics of 'Merchant' Clans.

 

 

 

Edit: Before someone accuses me of envy, let me make it clear that I do merchant, and make a regular ~10% profit on a daily or bi-daily basis. As I said, it's not difficult.

[Barihawk]

Before you say "people do it in real life," a good bit of the people who do this in real life get 15-30 years in Leavenworth.

 

 

 

Runescape needs a Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

 

 

Also, as Artie mentioned many of these groups exist for the point of scamming money out of others, even their own members. Looking at Carl Dublin's signature, this is only reinforced, ironically.

[demby123]

It does seem a bit 'cheap', and the money gained presumably comes at someones expense who is actually working for their money. No effort to make money? Seems a bit strange doesn't it?

 

It does take a lot of work in the first place to obtain the amount of money to buy the items in the first place,so we both work for our money. :roll:

[killerbeer0]

Before you say "people do it in real life," a good bit of the people who do this in real life get 15-30 years in Leavenworth.

 

 

 

Really? Last I checked Wall Street hasn't been the site of any big busts on merchants. The real-life guys are stock brokers. :roll: