Merching

[the420rythme]

Ok so merching is a good way to make some extra cash i hear, but I have never tried it before so i haave no idea what to look for or where to start for that matter.

 

What i do know about merching is that you can either buy in bulk like so many thousands of one item, or using a single rare/vaulable item buying it for less and selling it for more, but ive checked various items on the GE but dont know what to pick and how to see if i can make a profit on it. Im not sure how to predict when it will go up/down.

 

 

Some Questions

 

So what are some items that make a decent amount of money?

How should i go about looking on the GE and predicting the future value of an item?

What are some basic tip/guide lines to follow when merching an item?

 

Thanks,

The 420 Rythme

[Bladewing]

The golden rule of merchanting:

 

Buy low; Sell high.

[the420rythme]

Yes thats the basic concept...

 

i have truoble finding things that i can buy low cause its hard for me to predict what change will happen.

 

can you answer any of the questions?

[Bladewing]

You don't need to predict price changes. You just need to predict that the price will not change in the next 4 hours.

 

Example:

 

Pear tree seeds: min: 9500, mid: 10000, max:10500

 

You decide to "test the waters", and put in a buy offer for one seed for 10000. You wait a minute, and conclude that the item is "on the rise" and therefore you must offer above mid. You cancel the offer.

 

You put a new offer in at max, 10500. It sells instantly for 10450. This tells you that the item is not bought out, so it is possible to buy at a lower price than max.

 

So you put in a buy offer for 999 more seeds at 10005 each. After about 10 minutes, the offer resolves. You now put them in for sale at 10490. You log back in 6 hours later and they all sold.

[Evil_Sabre]

If someone has an item that makes a lot of money they are certainly not going to ruin it and tell you about it. The only answers you're going to get are answers like blade's that are examples, or generic items like whips. Finding which items to merchant is something you have to learn yourself.

[MstrMonopoly]

What bladewing said.

 

Merching used to be a lot better - the market is incredibly volatile right now.

[sciencemile]

The most reliable merchanting strategies have the downside of requiring long periods of time.

 

For instance, since it is summer, the majority prices of fish are going down. The wise choice would be to invest in one of these and then sell when the prices inevitably rise back up.

 

of course, the aforementioned downside is that this takes months of waiting.

------

 

There is also the idea of putting offers into the market for rares which you know have a much higher street price. Those without this knowledge or the inclination to find buyers will sell on the GE occasionally.

 

 

Finally, there's the speculation market of noticing trends and reacting to them, which doesn't have as clear-cut of rules as the above two.

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Of these options, I've only done the 1st (purching 40k monks before I took a break in summer and selling them off when I came back in winter), and the 3rd (I merched Strange Fruits, Tin Ore, and Prayer Potions)

[Knight_Zaros]

If you really want some safe merchanting just buy raw materials in mass quanities then sell for a little bit more. Example if you say had like 75m to invest, bought 75m worth of airs and then sold for 1gp more than you bought them for (obviously may take a day or two) you would profit 7.5mil for a rather safe investment. You just have to wait it out. Obviosuly some items even raw materials would be better than others. But i recommend doing 'safe' merchanting like this to get started, and that way things dont take and you lose millions right off the bat, especially as people mentioned the market is rather chaotic lately.

[Sir_Kurity]

Flipping a stable item is the easiest way to make cash.

 

I'm not gonna give you a half assed miniguide, i reccomend you read some other full guides.

[sciencemile]

Flipping a stable item is the easiest way to make cash.

 

I'm not gonna give you a half assed miniguide, i reccomend you read some other full guides.

 

Do you recommend a specific one?

[Sir_Kurity]

I personally screw around with treasure trail items.

 

Not that stable, but even if it goes down you can often make a profit.

 

This being said, ive kept my hands off them now, waiting for the TT update to come around :D