Trading

To get better items or better prices, trading with other players will be almost unavoidable.

Trading worlds and locations
World 1 and 2 have more traders than any other worlds. Varrock's marketplace has the most traders in free to play RuneScape. Likewise, Falador Park has the most traders in pay to play RuneScape.

World 1's Varrock marketplace is hard to work with because messages fly very quickly. Also, most players trade around the west bank. It is best to put your chat on HIDE when going into that area, as the text can overwhelm your screen. World 1 Varrock marketplace at peak time is a crowded place to trade, but near it is the best trading in RuneScape.

The general store in Varrock world 1 can have goodies worth buying and reselling every minute as players lose patience with the flood of messages and the inability to locate potential trades first.

Official trading worlds:

Free: World 1, 3, 4, 5, and 105 Members: World 2, 26, 27, and 100

About quantities

 * It is possible to get good deals on certain quantities of items depending on location and the buyer/seller, such as 12 coal for 1,000 coins.
 * Trade most items in multiples of 1,000, as it saves time. Reliable and hassle-free 1,000 trades quickly become popular for somewhat better prices
 * Also, when buying in large quantaties, the game forums hosts many sellers. Though all players can access the forums, only members are allowed to post.

Where to trade
Often all players wanting to buy or sell a specific type of item or type of item will congregate in a specific area. This can make it much easier to find desired goods. Some items are listed below with their locations:
 * Runes - in front of Varrock west bank
 * Rune armour and weapons - east of Varrock west bank
 * Gilded, trimmed, and god armour, robes and amulets - behind Varrock west bank
 * Big bones- west of Varrock west bank
 * Lobsters - west of anvils near Varrock west bank
 * Amulets - east of anvils near Varrock west bank
 * Logs - Varrock west entrance
 * Rune Essence - Varrock east bank
 * Archery supplies and ranged armour - Lowe's Archery Emporium
 * Cow hides - Al Kharid bank
 * Mining and Smithing items (eg gems, coal, ores and bars) - Falador east bank
 * Food, runes and medium to low level armour and weapons - Edgeville bank
 * Law runes - Draynor bank (members world 66 only)
 * Miscellaneous (eg. bank sales, feathers etc.) - Varrock west bank basement and Lumbridge bank
 * Air runes - Falador east bank World 16

About experienced players
A level 90+ smith may buy coal for higher than market price if you sell in chunks of 10 000. Very few players actually have the patience to accumulate that much, and the smith might be impressed. On the other hand they may have several mining clans already mining for them and ignore you as "one-time pocket change".

Smithing makes the most coins per hour as a free player, but it takes extremely long to actually turn a better-than-miner profit. Many f2p players who reach 85+ mining stick to simply mining runite, as levelling their smithing to 90+ can cost more than the the player is willing to spend (not only money, but time). Casual players will be likely to prefer sticking to something less demanding like mining iron ore.

How to check by if an item can be traded
Method 1: Try to withdraw it from the bank in noted form. If it can't be withdrawn as notes, it cannot be traded. This method does not work with stackable items. For stackable items use method 2.

Method 2: Check for the price of the item at a general store. If it says the item can't be sold, it can't be traded with other players (This doesn't include coins or certain items like cosmics in the rune store).

Grand Exchange
With the introduction of the Grand Exchange player to player trading activity has died down somewhat in general. The grand exchange building has become a rather busy trading area for many items too.