Merchanting guide
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Merchanting, or arbitrage, is the act of purchasing an item at a low price and then selling that item at a higher price, generating profit as the difference between the above unit prices. Merchanting was a popular method used by players to accumulate a significant amount of wealth in a relatively short time. The amount of time spent depends on the supply and demand of the item, similar to the situations in real-world economy. Prices of some items fluctuate rapidly. Some of the info below might be out of date.
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[edit] The unspecific way
Buy items in bulk at the Grand Exchange that are currently going up in price. Carefully watch the prices of the item and sell them when the price starts going down or stays even. Use the RuneScape Grand Exchange watch on the RuneScape wiki. Players may find the Grand Exchange Market Watch helpful.
[edit] Tips and tricks
- Patience - Players must have patience if they want to merchant. It might be a long time before someone will buy or sell, especially in crowded worlds where it is difficult to locate the trader.
- Stay in popular places - Merchant in Varrock, Falador, Seers' Village, Lumbridge Bank (top floor of castle) and sometimes in Catherby. Since many players are in these cities, there is a better chance that one of them will buy or sell what you want.
- Merchant in world 2 (members only) for member items and worlds 1 and 3 for non-member items- Worlds 1, 2 and 3 are the worlds where many players go to trade, either in Falador's park or in Varrock.
- Be firm on your price. If you switch your price you are losing profit or you are driving away business.
- Think of the Big Three. They are Mining, Woodcutting, and Fishing. Merchant these markets due to the fact they are always being bought and sold.
- Always take time trading - Many players used to try to scam other players, by removing some coins just before the players accepted the trade. But after a trade update, this is no longer possible.
- Know how to barter. If someone wants too much or is offering too little, you need to know how to bargain. Do you just decline and go about your business till they come crawling back? Or should you beg instead? This cannot be taught! You have to learn this through experience.
- Sell your items where players will likely need them. If you do not like trading in the 3 first worlds, target the place people will be needing what you are selling. For example, in Castle War worlds (24 and 82), there are almost always people there casting high-level alchemy on magic longbows or yew longbows. If you have either of those items in stock, you are more likely to find buyers there.
- Whenever possible, try to buy and sell items in bulk. If you make a 35gp profit per item merchanted, why not sell 20,000 of them?
- Try to exchange your goods for cash only, unless it is a good deal for you. If you always trade your goods for items, you have to sell the item you get, and sometimes in this process you lose money.
- Plan what you are going to do. Knowledge is power.
[edit] Free-to-play merchanting
The merchanting world is smaller for free-to-play players; however it does not mean that you are limited to painfully small amounts of money. With a bit of patience and experience, merchanting in the free-to-play world can be just as fast, if not faster, than merchanting in members' worlds.
The basis for our categorisation is not the individual item's price, nor is it the amount of money required to merchant that item. Rather, our basis for judgement comes from the profit ratio, or the ratio of the "selling price" to "buying price".
One example is that if a player buys cowhides for 100 coins each and sells them for 120 coins each, the ratio is 120:100 or 120%. Meaning that whenever you merchant cowhides, you make a 20% profit. (So if you start with 1,000,000 coins and merchant cowhides with the above prices, you will end up with 1,200,000 coins, 200,000 more than what you started with, or 20 percent.)
Why is this article written that way? Because no matter how much money you have, an item with a higher profit ratio will make you more money per trade. Other factors are included individually each item, like the supply-demand, recommended starting funds, approximate amount of money per hour using only the starter funds, etc.
Remember, merchanting is not risk free, and if you are not lucky you may end up with no money and a huge amount of items you have no use for. Free-to-play players are encouraged to use the official forums for trades, even though they cannot post in it.
Key:
- Recommended Salesplace: This shows where and what world would be optimum to buy in.
- Supply-demand: This shows you how high the supply is and how high the demand is.
- Sales difficulty: Ranging from 1 (easiest) to 10 (hardest), this shows you how hard it is to sell the item.
- Recommended buying price: This shows you the price range to buy this item for.
- Recommended selling price: This shows you the price range to sell this item for.
- Starting funds required: This shows you how much money is needed to start merchanting the item, not necessarily how much is recommended.
- Recommended starting funds: This shows you how much money is recommended for you to start merchanting this item.
- Profit per hour: This shows you how much money you will make per hour under normal conditions with the starting fund.
- Maximum profit per hour: This shows you how much money you will make per hour under peak conditions (not necessarily optimal) with unlimited funds.
[edit] 100%-120%
[edit] Merchant cowhides
Cowhides are only in steady demand because it is one of the fastest ways to train crafting on a free-to-play server. Even though players suffer a great loss training this way, the speed negates that cost. Willing players have been known to pay up to 140 coins per cow hide, even though the usual price is 95-115 coins each. Another reason players buy cowhides is because tanned cowhides, or leather and hard leather, sell for a far greater sum (180-230 coins) than cowhides alone. These are great bought in bulk.
- Recommended Salesplace: Al Kharid World 1
- Supply-demand: High/Medium
- Sales difficulty: 7
- Recommended buying price: 100 coins each.
- Recommended selling price: 105-120 coins each.
- Starting funds required: 100 coins (trivial)
- Recommended starting funds: 500,000 coins (app. 5k cowhides)
- Profit per hour: app. 150,000 coins
- Maximum profit per hour: app. 600,000 coins
[edit] Merchant coal
Coal is one of the main components of high-level smithing. It is needed to smelt every bar above iron and thus is in very high demand. It is in rather high supply but in high consumption as well, with a high amount flowing in the market at any given time. The price of coal is stable since the items made are usually alchemized, and alchemy prices are set in stone. It is recommended to sell to Members on the official forums, since the market for it in free-to-play is rather shallow.
- Recommended Salesplace: Falador East Bank World 1
- Supply-demand: Very High/High
- Sales difficulty: 2 (If you can get to the buyers before others)
- Recommended buying price: 160-190 coins each.
- Recommended selling price: 195-210 coins each.
- Starting funds required: 180 coins (trivial)
- Recommended starting funds: 1,250,000 coins (app. 7k coal)
- Profit per hour: app. 250,000 coins
- Maximum profit per hour: app. 2,200,000 coins
[edit] Merchant iron ore or iron bars
Iron can be easily mined, and it is one of the main ways to level up smithing. Most of the ranged ammunition used is made of iron; without free-to-play players to supply members with the iron ores, the price of iron would soar. While this ore may be easily produced, the demand is lower than that of coal and is thus harder to sell in bulk quantities. Prices for iron bars are listed after the prices for the ores.
- Recommended Salesplace: Falador East Bank World 1
- Supply-demand: Very High/medium-High; High/High
- Sales difficulty: 5; 4
- Recommended buying price: 95-105 coins each; 190-195 coins each
- Recommended selling price: 110-120 coins each; 200-220 coins each
- Starting funds required: 95 coins (trivial); 190 coins (trivial)
- Recommended starting funds: 1,000,000 coins (app. 10k iron ores); (app. 5k iron bars)
- Profit per hour: app. 250,000 coins; 190,000 coins
- Maximum profit per hour: app. 1,800,000 coins; 3,000,000 coins
[edit] Merchant air runes
Although Runecrafting is far less popular in free-to-play worlds, many air runes enter the economy each day due to runners at the World 16 Air Company. Although most of the air runes are sold on member worlds, the official forums will occasionally have very high level Runecrafters selling air runes at low prices since they produce more each essence.
The essence of air merchanting is to use the official forums frequently and wisely. 18 coins is the set price for this rune, but buyers and sellers will occasionally go out of this price to sell or buy rapidly.
- Recommended Salesplace: Either Varrock Bank World 1
- Supply-demand: Very High/Medium
- Sales difficulty: 6
- Recommended buying price: 15-17 coins each.
- Recommended selling price: 18-22 coins each.
- Starting funds required: 15 coins (trivial)
- Recommended starting funds: 900,000 coins (app. 50k air runes)
- Profit per hour: app. 120,000 coins
- Maximum profit per hour: app. 2,300,000 coins
[edit] Merchant rune armour
Being the best armour for free-to-play players, this armour is in constant demand and at slightly higher prices than the high alchemy price. Rune armour is usually sold in mass by members that have gotten them via treasure trails, so again, the official forums is of great aid here in buying, but not selling, as members rarely buy rune armour.
The prices below are for a full set of rune (full helmet, platebody, platelegs/skirt, kiteshield), a chain set of rune (full helmet, chainbody, platelegs, kiteshield), and a ranger set of rune (medium helmet, chainbody), respectively. For individual prices, please consult the item articles.
Full Rune is standard, Chain rune is sold en masse to pures and macroers (You won’t be reported for trading with macroers, don’t worry), and ranger rune is sold to ranger player-killers.
- Recommended Salesplace: Varrock West Bank World 1
- Supply-demand: Very High/High
- Sales difficulty: 7
- Recommended buying price: 160,000-170,000 coins
- Recommended selling price: 175,000-180,000 coins
- Starting funds required: 160,000 coins
- Recommended starting funds: 850,000 coins (5 sets)
- Profit per hour: app. 90,000 coins
- Maximum profit per hour: app. 600,000 coins
- Recommended Salesplace: Varrock West Bank World 1
- Supply-demand: Medium/High
- Sales difficulty: 4
- Recommended buying price: 130,000-140,000 coins
- Recommended selling price: 145,000-155,000 coins
- Starting funds required: 130,000 coins
- Recommended starting funds: 700,000 coins (5 sets)
- Profit per hour: app. 70,000 coins
- Maximum profit per hour: app. 900,000 coins
- Recommended Salesplace: Varrock West Bank World 1
- Supply-demand: Medium/Medium-Low
- Sales difficulty: 9
- Recommended buying price: 50,000-55,000 coins
- Recommended selling price: 60,000-65,000 coins
- Starting funds required: 55,000 coins
- Recommended starting funds: 160,000 coins (3 sets)
- Profit per hour: app. 40,000 coins
- Maximum profit per hour: app. 300,000 coins
[edit] 100%-150%
[edit] Merchant chaos runes
One of the more used runes, the chaos rune enters the market mainly via members doing the Barrows minigame and free-to-play players buying from magic shops. This rune is bought for high prices by members wishing to use Ancient Magicks or by free-to-play pkers since it hits relatively hard (up to 12 for fire bolt). The price range is wide, so beware!
- Recommended Salesplace: Either Varrock Bank World 1
- Supply-demand: High/Very High
- Sales difficulty: 6
- Recommended buying price: 100-130 coins
- Recommended selling price: 145-170 coins
- Starting funds required: 100 coins (trivial)
- Recommended starting funds: 750,000 coins (5K chaos runes)
- Profit per hour: app. 200,000 coins
- Maximum profit per hour: app. 2,600,000 coins
[edit] Merchant law runes
The only way for free-to-play players to teleport (besides the Home port spell and the Skull Sceptre) is with the law rune. Thus, it is in very high demand on free-to-play worlds. The following covers selling law runes en masse, but some desperate players would pay 1000 coins for minute amounts of law runes occasionally to teleport to a desired location. It enters the game in large amounts in members worlds.
- Recommended Salesplace: Either Varrock Bank World 1
- Supply-demand: High/Very High
- Sales difficulty: 4
- Recommended buying price: 250-300 coins
- Recommended selling price: 300-450 coins
- Starting funds required: 300 coins (trivial)
- Recommended starting funds: 300,000 coins (1K law runes)
- Profit per hour: app. 100,000 coins
- Maximum profit per hour: app. 3,200,000 coins
[edit] Merchant gold ore or gold bars
Gold is an extremely fast, although expensive, way to level crafting and smithing in member’s worlds. With a bit of care, a maximum of 143 smithing experience can be extracted from two gold ores (yielding one gold bowl). This is why the ore is of a much higher price than the gold bars produced by it, due to the 56.5 smithing experience yielded by smelting it with Goldsmithing gauntlets.
One way to manipulate the gold market is to trade gold bars for gold ores, then sell the ores and buy back three times as many bars, and repeat as necessary.
- Recommended Salesplace: Falador World 1 or 3
- Supply-demand: High/Medium; High/Very High
- Sales difficulty: 7; 4
- Recommended buying price: 450-500 coins; 160-175 coins
- Recommended selling price: 550-650 coins; 185-205 coins
- Starting funds required: 450 coins (trivial); 170 coins (trivial)
- Recommended starting funds: 550,000 coins (1K ores, 3k bars)
- Profit per hour: app. 200,000 coins
- Maximum profit per hour: app. 2,400,000 coins, or up to 12,000,000 coins when you trade bars for ores it will be very successfully a few times.
[edit] 100%-200%
[edit] Merchant mind runes
Mind runes are often neglected in Runecrafting because of its distance from a bank. However, they are extremely useful for training magic or casting the slayer dart spell for members. They have a wide price range, allowing for serious money-making.
- Recommended Salesplace: Either Varrock Bank World 1
- Supply-demand: High/Very High
- Sales difficulty: 3
- Recommended buying price: 8-12 coins
- Recommended selling price: 15-25 coins
- Starting funds required: 10 coins (trivial)
- Recommended starting funds: 500,000 coins (50K mind runes)
- Profit per hour: app. 200,000 coins
- Maximum profit per hour: app. 2,000,000 coins
[edit] Pay-to-play Merchanting
Section coming soon.
[edit] Where "it" is happening
It is easy to talk about merchanting and say how it works but many would be hard pressed to show a person an actual example of it.
[edit] Falador (world 2)
This is a place no new merchant should set foot in. There is no haggling to be learned here, only impoliteness. Here is where a merchant becoming good at what they do will go to buy their stock... and then leave as fast as they can.
Everything is cheaper here, and you have to be fast to get an even better deal. Buy here, sell elsewhere. Also, stay away from the area in front of the bank, where people are bank selling. Bank sales are the crutches of Varrock and low population worlds.
[edit] Seers' Village (worlds 6, 9, and 12)
This is a great place for players to go when they are at about the same merchanting "level" as someone who goes to Falador world 2. Here is a great place to sell high level weapons, and, of course, bowstrings.
Players can learn a lot about haggling simply by watching. With a sharp eye they will see a player come crawling back after being swiftly declined by an experienced merchant.
