Grand Exchange

The Grand Exchange is a formal marketplace in northwest Varrock released on 26 November, 2007. Players can use the Exchange to buy or sell items while working on other activities in-game. Essentially, players post offers to buy or sell items with one of the Grand Exchange clerks, dressed in blue. Members are allowed to post six item slots' worth of offers at once, while free players are allowed two slots. The game will constantly try to match offers up to others made by players on every server, and when a transaction has been completed, players can collect the cash or items they received by selecting the new "collect" option at any bank, with the exceptions of the Burgh De Rott bank and bank chests. When the area is visited, the music "The Trade Parade" will be unlocked.

Tutorial
Players must complete a tutorial before being allowed to use the Grand Exchange. Two tutorials are available: one from the Grand Exchange tutor, the other from Brugsen Bursen, the founder of the Exchange. The former will give a more concise tutorial, including an elevated view of a Grand Exchange through a cutscene. The latter will explain in detail how the Grand Exchange was founded.

People
There are a variety of NPCs found in the Exchange, each of which play a role in its business.

Around the edges of the Exchange are the tutor and Brugsen Bursen, mentioned above, along with five other people, each specializing in a particular kind of goods. Any one of them will give players the current market price range for the items in their respective item categories. Bursen will also give players current market price ranges.

In the middle of the exchange four bankers, dressed in grey, and four Grand Exchange clerks, in blue, stand behind a counter. Players do not need to move next to these NPCs in order to talk to them. The bankers function as any others would; the clerks are used by players to place buy or sell offers on particular goods. These bankers' main use is for players trading on the Exchange, although there are potentially other applications, such as use of the Cooking Guild.

Usage
To use the exchange, players must first place offers either to buy or sell a specific quantity of an item at a specific price. Members are allowed to maintain six offers at a time, while free-to-play players may make two offers simultaneously. Every day, the game calculates the average price at which each item was sold the previous day, and sets this as the new market value. Offers must be placed within 5% above or below this market value, allowing for some fluctuation in prices from day to day. If the street value of an item is outside of this relatively narrow price range, it will usually be traded in banks using the older trade system rather than at the Grand Exchange.



The main advantage of using the Grand Exchange for trading is that the game constantly tries to match player offers to corresponding ones from other players on all servers, allowing one to leave the Exchange while waiting for transactions to complete. If more than one offer for the same item at the same price is pending at the same time, an offer queue will form, and the oldest offers will be served first if any matching offers are made. In the case that a buyer offers a higher price than the seller is willing to sell for, then the price used will be that of whichever offer was placed first at the Exchange.



Price strategies
By observing the price at which transactions are completed, it is possible to determine whether an item's Exchange price is likely to rise or fall in the near future. This is especially useful for commodity items such as ores, runes, and food ingredients that are traded in large quantities.

If a player plans on selling an item, he or she can test the market by trying to sell the item for the maximum allowed price. In the event that the item's price is rising rapidly, this item will sell immediately, and the player should usually wait a few days before trying to sell the rest of the items in order to get a better price.

On the other hand, if a price is falling rapidly, this can be determined by attempting to buy the item at the lowest possible price on the Exchange. If the item is purchased immediately, that means there is a huge supply of items from many people wanting to sell the item, and nobody who is buying them up at nearly any price. This situation may be difficult for players who craft or smith items, as waiting to sell the item will only lower the sale price. Some comfort can be found in the fact that the Grand Exchange uses a queue in which the first offers to buy or sell an item are filled first. It may be possible that the item simply sells slowly, in other words, it may still be valuable, but is only occasionally traded.

Armour sets
The Grand Exchange clerks can also pack and unpack armour sets, allowing a full set of many armours to be traded or stored in a single space.

Examples:
 * All metal, trimmed, gilded and god armours, in sets of full helm, plate, kite and legs or skirt
 * Dragon armour, the set is medium helm, chain, legs or skirt
 * Dragonhide (ranged armour) has a 3 piece set of body, chaps and vambraces

Players can create their own sets to sell by using the 'Sets Grand Exchange Clerk' option. Some scammers may exchange full rune for the rune armour set (l) and try to sell to other players as full rune (t) for about 500k-700k.

Economic effects
Some players have criticised the Grand Exchange as it has caused many items to drop in price. Commonly traded raw materials such as sharks and lobsters have dropped in price from 800 coins and 250 coins each to about 650 coins each and 220 coins each, respectively. Abyssal whips have dropped from 1.3 million coins to about 1.2 million, and the prices of rune weapons and armour have fallen since the release of the Grand Exchange:


 * Rune scimitar: Approx. 25 000 coins before the exchange to less than 20 000
 * Rune battleaxe: Approx. 40 000 to less than 30 000
 * Rune platebody: Approx. 55 000 to less than 40 000

Not all items have dropped in price. Some prices have risen, such as the ones of yew logs. Yew logs traded for around 350 coins each before the exchange, but are now trading for about 400 coins each. Bones previously regarded to be not worth the effort to trade have risen to 100gp, and Raw Lobsters are worth more than their cooked counterparts, fetching 250gp ea. at market price, and rising.

Most of these changes are actually due to perceptions of players who were unaware of the most recent changes in prices. For example, although some players would pay 25 000 coins for a rune scimitar before the update, most players would only pay 20 000 coins or less. Since the update removed these perceptions and made players aware of the current average prices, items which were sometimes traded for above or below their street price were being traded for values much closer to their actual street price.

Because the Grand Exchange also averages the prices of items traded in both free-to-play and pay-to-play, the prices of raw materials dropped. For example, lobsters - which are the best food available in free-to-play besides swordfish (which are much harder to catch in bulk) - were often traded for 250 coins each in free-to-play because of high demand before the update, but only 200 coins each in pay-to-play. After the update, players in free-to-play noticed that the market price of lobsters shown in the Grand Exchange was only about 220 coins, and began to offer less money for the lobsters. As a result, the price of lobsters fell, as the players in free-to-play were all that kept the price up.

However, the prices have slightly risen again recently. The prices of raw fish have sharply gone up as sharks are around 775 coins now, and raw lobsters are around 235 coins now. The raised prices are probably due to a recent update that eliminated nearly all of the macroers, which were the main suppliers of raw materials.

Player reaction
Most players reacted positively to the release of the Grand Exchange, finding it a quicker and easier way to trade items. Using the Exchange, players no longer need to search the forums or trading areas for someone who will buy or sell the goods they need. Some, however, criticized its implementation, particularly the control of prices to within a 5% range of the previous day's average price. Merchanting has become far less popular since the Exchange's release, and it was previously considered one of the best ways to make considerable amounts of money fast. Other concerns have been raised regarding the lack of transparency provided by the Exchange system. Players are unable to see how many others are trading a particular item, and more importantly, the prices of the offers given.

Tips

 * Try selling raw materials such as uncut gems, ore and pure essence, which usually sell quickly. Also, remember that just because something is for sale on the Grand Exchange doesn't mean someone will buy it right away.
 * For bank sales involving lots of items, just try for quick sales on items by placing items up, and if they don't sell immediately (no matching buyer), then remove and try another item. After trying all items, then just leave up items that have not sold.



Trivia

 * The Grand Exchange seems to have the same functions as the Auction House on World of Warcraft.


 * There was an easter egg where if players searched for "Thingy" in the item search pane, they would see many sapphire amulets listed with that same name. The item's description was simply be "Mabob", as in "thingymabob". This was later removed, in a system update.


 * If a player, who has completed Lunar Diplomacy, talks to the rune merchant Murky Matt, Murky will refer to how "pirates" were stuck for days and sailing around in circles.


 * There is a trapdoor north-west of the Grand Exchange area. It currently has no use and will not let players open it. It may have been put there for decoration purposes only. In the future though, it could be used possibly in a quest, or lead to a currently unfinished and unreleased dungeon.


 * On its first day, the Grand Exchange was temporary off-line for a short time "to fix a couple of bugs". An update Update:Grand Exchange temp offline was on the RuneScape main page until it was back on-line when the update was taken off the main page. No items were lost by players as "items are actually looked after by an older system that has been working fine for years, rather than the new system". (One particularly amusing bug was that players could talk to non-Grand Exchange NPC's (e.g., Rick Turpentine) the same way they could to Grand Exchange clerks, this was quickly fixed when the Exchange was offline).


 * When the exchange was released most prices weren't the same as the street prices at the time, now people estimate that the prices will even out in the next couple of months.


 * Varrock Bank was updated to have the bankers on both sides and a door in the back. The deposit box is now gone.


 * If one searches for any item that can be built in a study, save for bookcases and wall charts, they will find flatpacked versions of these items. While players can offer a price to buy these items, they are not released yet and thus cannot be purchased, implying that there will be a construction update sometime in the future.