Talk: Trading and merchanting guide

I think that this article is biased. :| Shadowdancer 15:27, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll try and fix that.--Richard 16:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you give some examples of where is it biased? One thing to remember is that this is a guide, and therefore it offers suggestions, so sometimes it's hard not to be biased. -- Couchpotato99 19:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The bias is in the advice. I would prefer general principles, than actual advice. Merchants need to understand their market. Any suggestion of easy money could lead a player into a lot of bad trades, e.g. when prices go down and players following the advice end up selling above market price. I would advocate educating merchants what role they provide and why they are tolerated. I also would recommend listing the personal skillset required to have a go at merchanting. The few friends that i know tried merchanting had very mixed results. Game updates also may destroy some very sound advice, as something relatively rare can suddenly become common (the reverse also can occur). --Miw 15:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Oops, I shouldn't have wrote the "classes" on there (I'll replace it with something else). The "class items" may be a little biased, but the prices I wrote down are based on what I've seen on forums and server 2 (may not be exactly right, but close)  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by M1ni sn1p3r (talk).

General Principles

• Starting with a large amount of cash is a VERY VERY good idea, though you can probably start with a million or less coins.
• High level players in manufacturing or combat have lots of things to sell. They want to get rid of them fast, preferably in bulk and are willing to lower their prices so that instead of standing around selling stuff, they can be gaining experience. The trick is a) finding these players, and b) keeping them sweet.
  • Finding them shouldn't be too hard, just loiter around banks until you find players either selling manufactured items in bulk, or cheap rewards from combat.
  • Keeping them sweet is much harder. If you pay consistently good prices, they'll keep you added. Find out what they're training and try and supply them with stuff to help, (slightly) cheaper than forum prices.
• If it's a high level combat person, offer to take things like excess lava battlestaves, rune boots, mystic robes, spare barrows items, etc off their hands in bulk and cheaply - these aren't that hard to sell at a profit. For the very expensive items such as whips, the high level player probably wants to do his own merchanting, so profits may be less of a percentage, but more per trade if you want to go this route.
• If it's a high level manufacturer (high smith, craft, herblore) the very high value items are probably not worth bothering with (such as amulets of fury), because the manufacturer will want to make as much profit as he can out of these high value items. However, it should be relatively simple to buy manufactured items in bulk much cheaper from them. Recommended items are rune kites, rune axes, full black dragonhide, amulets of power/glory, bulk quantities of high level potions. Note that manufacturers LOVE item traders, and will be prepared to haggle with you over prices, depending on what you take.
• If you have nerves of steel, you might try foruming. This involves watching the forums for bargain raw materials (coal, logs, feathers, etc etc), buying as necessary, and then trying to resell later for a small, say 10% profit. You MUST know your market extremely well to even attempt this. Just because there's a dozen posts saying 'selling maple logs 100 each', doesn't mean that if you see them at 90 each you should buy and try and resell (maples are very common from miscellania). With this, KNOW YOUR MARKET OR YOU WILL GET BURNED! An alternative is to try and find raw materials cheap on free to play, and try and resell in members more expensive. The items which you can do this with now are extremely limited, but gold ore is a good bet for the moment.
• Rares continually inflate, but will this always be the case? I invite the reader to consider several things before going into the rares market
  • Almost every single MMORPG has had an item duplication bug at one point or other (including a minor one on runescape itself). Ask yourself this: How much would party hats be if someone discovered an item duplication bug. (Note also that jagex staff and testers can legally clone items for their own use, one playtester is rumoured to have 2.1 billion blue party hats).
  • The rares market is reminiscent of tulip mania - see Wikipedia:Tulip mania. Prices go up because people think they will go up, and no-one in the market is actually buying them for actual use, always to resell later. Needless to say, the tulip mania crisis, like the south sea bubble came to an abrupt end and bankrupted many.
  • Where has Jagex said it will not drop party hats again? Can you point this out to me? Oh, you assume that this is the case, but can you be sure?
  • Finally, your cash is irrevocably tied up whilst the rare is in the bank whilst you wait for prices to inflate slightly. Personally, I think you would probably get better profits from foruming.

Cheers --Eucarya 10:43, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Where has Jagex said it will not drop party hats again? Can you point this out to me? Oh, you assume that this is the case, but can you be sure?

Repeatedly, several hundred times, on the forums, whenever someone makes that suggestion...JalYt-Xil-Vimescarrot 16:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I like the general principles advice. Another aspect that any merchanter should know about is the effort required to sell items. Some items are easier to sell in bulk (e.g. pure essences, bow strings, vials), others are easier to sell in small quantities (dhide sets, super sets, duel ring). Location also makes a huge difference in price and ease of sales. It also helps if you understand the effect of newly introduced items, which sell at an insane mark-up (a pure sellers market). --Miw 15:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Merchanting Guide

The merchanting guide seems small. Countn't things such as pumpkins, santa hats, and other discontinued items be added? I know these items are + 10 mil now, but they are what rich merchants make their money off of. Merchanting is a huge topic and I think that a lot more could be added. I was wondering if this was a new page and just needed time to grow. I would input some information myself but I'm new and I don't know how to input information. Thanks  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DanBintrim89 (talk).

See wikipedia's article on editing here. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I just started work on wikis a couple weeks ago, and it took me about a day to pick up. It's not hard at all, so give it a try. Also, at the end of your comments on a discussion page put ~~~~. This will put your name and the time so we know who wrote the comment. -- Couchpotato99 00:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

There actually is quite some good content on the runescape market. I concur that there is a place for a decent price guide that reflects the current street price range. Some historic data would be helpful, as it would show price fluctuations. Working on some ideas around the RuneScape economy in my sandbox. --Miw 15:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)