Reported Post by dannis trinh

dannis trinh · Jul 14, 2008

dannis trinh has reported a post.

Reason:

This user has as he stated leaked Merchant_in_the_Darks guide. People have paid good money for a guide which if it left up there any longer will have no use. I am not telling anyone how to do their job but i believe a I.P ban should be warranted. As in the other thread they said they will keep making new accounts. I believe they have 3 identities on sythe...

Big Bro
Tom Jr
And this user i am reporting

They have leaked the guide on many different sites which i recommend you contact to take down the guide. I hope this will be dealt with swiftly as the longer the guide is up the more and more change people will have to use it.

-Dannis Trinh
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Post: Master Grand Exchange Merchanting Guide Now Free
Forum: RuneScape 2 Guides
Assigned Moderators: stevenadrien2, Covey

Posted by: Satomex
Original Content:

This is my guide, and it's now free. The only person who bought this (Big Bro) gave me her permission to post it. She and I now have a much more powerful method of making money, but this is still strong.

When Sythe removes this, go look for it on Zybez, Heavygaming.org, and probably Sal's, Tip.it, Jagex/Runescape, and everywhere else.

GRAND EXCHANGE MERCHANTING GUIDE

This guide is for Runescape members only. It's way too hard to do it on a Free to play account.

Runescape "merchanting" in the purest sense, involves buying things and then selling them for a higher price, thus making a profit. Some broaden this definition to include buying something, changing it in some way (for example, filling vials with water) and selling at a higher price for a profit.

Early this year, Jagex put some rules into place that made it harder for merchants to make money (Runescape gold). All items have a market price which is partly set by Jagex and partly set by how much people are willing to pay for it (the market for that item). The rules which affect those of us who merchant, are these:

1) There is a limit on the number of a specific item that can be bought in a four-hour period. Depending on how expensive the item is, it can be as few as 10 (in the case of some rares) or as many as 25,000 (in the case of runes). Most items have a limit of 100 in those four hours.

2) Some items that are bought cannot be resold for a higher price in a specified amount of time. Again, this varies by item: some have no time limit, while others require up to four hours.

3) In private trades, one can only gain or lose a specified amount (between 3,000 and 30,000 gold, depending on the number of quest points) in a 15 minute time period. This requires that expensive items, or large numbers of items be sold at or near the market (middle) price.

4) In the Grand Exchange, one can only go 5% higher or lower than the market (middle) price.

These rules were put into effect to stop scammers, try to stop real world trading, and stop people from buying up everything at a low price and selling it at a higher one, thus manipulating the market. What Jagex also did (purposely or not) was make it harder for merchants to make money by buying and selling.

There are still a few effective ways to merchant. The two main ways that aren't the method you're being taught, are:

1) Buying something (usually a rare), holding onto it, and then selling it for a profit later. This is called "investing", and it's a risky business to be in. If the item goes down in value, the merchant will lose money.

2) Buying something, changing it into something else, and selling it. For example, some people buy Emeralds, cut/fletch them into bolt tips, and sell the bolts. Others buy flax, spin it into bowstrings, and sell those.

The method you're going to be taught is easier than this, it's easier to learn, and it doesn't take a lot of time.

BEFORE WE BEGIN: Those of you who follow Sythe closely and/or who have bought Merchant_in_the_Dark's guide will scream "This is Merchant's guide!!!". Well, let's clear the air about this. The method that Merchant sold appeared on most of the other major Runescape sites (including Runescape iteself) long before Merchant ever packaged it and sold it. I have already gotten permission from a moderator/administrator to sell this guide. I got this permission because this is MUCH MORE than Merchant's guide. This guide includes (and Merchant's guide did not include):

1) A guarantee that only three copies will be sold. Period. Merchant allegedly sold hundreds.

2) Exactly which things to buy and which to NOT buy.

3) Specific directions regarding what prices to pay and what to sell for.

4) A particular modification ("trick" if you will) that I haven't seen discussed anywhere else, that will give you the advantage over people trying Merchant's method without this trick.

These will give you the advantage over everybody else who is doing the same basic thing.

With that in mind, here's what to do:

For starters, you're going to need at least $1 million in gold, and at least $10 million would be better. While you CAN start with just a million, you'll need to cycle (buy and sell) more often until you have more gold to work with. Also, with less gold, the cycles take much less time to complete, since you're buying and selling fewer items.

The method is to buy individual armour parts (and a weapon in the case of Barrows), package them into a set, and sell the set (for purposes of this guide, "armour" means melee armour, ranger armour, and wizard clothing). Yes, this is what Merchant_in_the_Dark said to do, and it's appeared (for free) on many websites before he sold it. People were buying parts and selling the sets long before the Grand Exchange arrived, although of course they didn't have packaged sets that the Grand Exchange has.

What Merchant didn't tell you was which sets to buy, the correct amount to pay for them (his recommendation cost the merchant a lot of money), and the "trick" to allow you to control the market for whatever item you're dealing with. Those "secrets" are what you're paying for, and they'll serve you well.

SETS TO AVOID: Do not try to merchant any of the Free to Play (F2P) sets. That includes the basic armours (rune, adamant, mithril, black, steel, iron, and bronze), the trimmed and gold-trimmed armours (rune, adamant, and black), the God armours (Saradomin, Zamorak, and Guthix), or the trimmed wizard or ranger sets. The reason is that people on F2P have a harder time making money. A purchase of such as a Sara set is a major investment (and the highest a F2P player can go), and so they're much more patient about getting a good price. Also, the basic armours are traded in too high a quantity to get a good profit margin.

While you can make money with the F2P sets, you can make it much faster and much easier with the members sets. Members can make money much easier than F2P can. Since many of them have a lot of money, they aren't as picky about getting the best price. This is especially true of one particular type of set, which I'll describe later. Also, members have many more types of armour to choose from, and a lot of them have many different sets in all three combat styles. So we want to aim for the member armour sets.

Why does this method work? Well, most members-only armour pieces are gotten from treasure trails or minigames. Somebody might get a White Mystic robe top from a treasure trail clue. While that's all well and good, there isn't much that can be done with it. Since rewards from treasure trails are random, it might take years to get all of the other pieces of that robe set. So the player sells it. Since there are a lot of players doing a lot of treasure trails and minigames, there are a lot of White Mystic robe tops on the market. So the individual armour pieces sell very cheaply, often for minimum price. This is especially true of the lower-priced armour/robe sets. Generally, the higher priced the armour is, the closer to the market (middle) price you're going to have to buy and sell it for. The lower priced it is, the less you can buy it and more you can sell it for, within the 5% limits, of course.

On the other end, somebody who wants to buy an armour set usually won't try to buy the pieces individually. They'll go right for the full set itself. If it's an expensive set (like Guthans), they may shop a bit for a better price. But if the set is relatively inexpensive, they'll usually pay top price for it.

So basically, the individual pieces of less expensive sets sell for close to minimum price, and the sets sell for close to maximum.

SECRET 1: Find a members-only set that isn't too expensive, buy the individual pieces, make sets out of them, and sell them for profit.

Which sets do well? Mystic robes are probably the best, and they're all I deal in. Why? For one, a full set sells for under 200,000. Members aren't picky about a mere 200,000, and most members who buy a robe set want that set NOW. For example, if the set costs 150,000, they aren't going to haggle over the 7,500 difference between high price and market/middle price. They'll pay the full price and move on to whatever they're doing. It isn't worth their time to haggle for 7,500. But it's worth OUR time to haggle for up to 15,000 profit on each of 100 such robe sets.

On the other hand, a set such as Dharok or Guthan costs a good bit more. Now a player will be willing to wait for a better price on both pieces and the full set. You can still make a profit, but it's generally going to be on somebody selling one of the individual pieces for minimum. The rest of the pieces are probably going to be bought for close to market/middle, and they'll also be sold close to market/middle.

SECRET 2: Outbid your competitors-----just barely.

Most people who merchant sets have a base mentality: they buy for the absolute minimum and sell for the absolute maximum---and they wonder why they have so much trouble getting any business. The slightly more clever ones will bid a few coins more than minimum and sell for a few coins less than maximum. These people will get first business over everybody buying for minimum and selling for maximum. But they won't get first call over us.

What we do is bid enough to get by the "few coins more/less" merchants. For example, if the low price on White Mystic boots is 9,480, we'll bid 9,501. This outbids those offering 9,480, the ones who bid 9,482, and the slightly more clever ones who bid an even 9,500. Yes, we lose a bit of profit this way, but we make up for it in having faster buy/sell cycles than the others. Overall, we make more money.

When selling, generally we'll go 110 coins lower than maximum. For example, if a White Mystic robe set sells for 154,825 coins, we'll sell it for 154,715 coins. Why exactly 110? The reason is because a lot of competitors who don't try to sell for maximum will lower the price a mechanical 100 coins. By adding 10 more coins to the deal, we get first call.

There are a lot of people using the sets method which Merchant described. By outbidding them, we're already ahead of the crowd, and we haven't even gotten to the main secret yet:

THE MAIN SECRET: To discourage competition, control the market on the set by bidding the maximum on one armour piece, usually one of the least expensive ones.

That's not a typo. Take a look in the Grand Exchange on Dark Mystic boots. Their market/middle price is a whopping 35,580 ---four times as much as for white and six times as much as for blue! There's a reason for that, and the reason is me. I simply buy the boots for the maximum price all of the time. They've gone up from 8,000 to 35,580 in about two months, and I am the main reason for that.

Now understand that the market/middle price of a set is exactly the sum of the market prices of the individual pieces. So when the value of the pieces goes up, the value of the set also goes up. So you aren't ruining your profitability by driving the price of one piece up.

Yes, you're eliminating the profit you make on that one piece. But by paying maximum, you're getting rid of a lot of the competing merchants---they can't get any of that armour piece before you do unless they also bid maximum on it. If they can't get the individual piece, they can't complete the set. Most will get discouraged, bid maximum to fill their sets, unload the sets, and move to a different set. So by bidding the price up, you're driving your competition off. Now the downside of that is that if the price goes up TOO far, as it has with the Dark Mystic boots, then the set itself might get priced so high that it won't sell as well. This is another reason to choose relatively inexpensive sets. Light and Dark Mystic sets are very popular, and most players don't mind the extra few thousand they have to pay for them.

WARNING: do Blue Mystic sets at your own risk. They don't move as well, and it's hard to sell them for more than market/middle price.

Understandably, you want to bid maximum on one of the lesser-priced pieces. The more expensive pieces also have more potential for profit, since the 5% each way involves more money. Fortunately for us, the more expensive pieces (at least of Light and Dark Mystic armour) can be bought for close to minimum. The robe top and bottom can usually be bought for 20-50 coins more than minimum. Of the boots, gloves, and hat, two of these are generally sold for market price (it varies), while you want to bid the MAXIMUM on the third to make it hard on the competition.

Generally, when you start the day, you divide the total gold you have by the Grand Exchange market/middle price of the set you want to merchant (because you only have six slots, you can only merchant one kind of set at a time), up to the 100 maximum per four hours. That tells you how many of each piece to buy. The first step is to try to buy them for the minimum price. You may catch some bargains that way. Then set the price to 20-50 coins higher than the minimum on all but the piece you're buying for maximum. You may get some of the piece you're buying for maximum at a lower price--that's fine, but offering maximum will shut others out later unless they also offer maximum. Now you might wait a half-hour. If you aren't getting any business for a particular, then you probably want to raise the price on that piece to the market, plus 20-50 coins (to get first call over those bidding exactly market and those bidding market plus a few coins). As you get enough pieces for a set, you convert them and sell. Once you get a feel for how much you need to offer for each piece, you can stop by a few times a day and cycle everything.
HIGHER PRICED SETS: The higher priced sets require a bit different approach. For these, you simply want to get the best deal you can. What I do is put in a bid for 110 to 1,010 coins more than minimum price for each piece (depending on how expensive it is----it's no big deal to pay 1010 more for something that costs over a million) and let them sit there for a few minutes. If I catch one at minimum, then I've already made my profit. I can then pay market for the rest. I then can try selling it for 1,010 coins less than maximum. If I'm not merchanting much else that day, I can leave it there for a while. Usually, though, I'll sell it for market price---I've already made my profit on the piece that sold for minimum.

Generally, higher-priced sets don't have as much fluctuation in what you can buy or sell them for. Usually, you're lucky to get one of the pieces for near-minimum, and generally you can only sell them for market price. Too many people are trying to trade these, and the higher value makes both buyers and sellers a lot more patient about getting a fair price. You'll do better sticking with the lower-priced stuff, such as Mystic robes, Splitbark, Rockshell, Spined, Skeletal, and even Dwarf Cannon sets.

The dragonhide-trimmed and wizard-trimmed sets don't seem to move well. Try them at your own risk.

Of the Barrows sets, Guthans and Dharok's do best, because the weapons are needed to get the special set effects.

The F2P armours aren't that great, as far as I'm concerned, but some people have success with the god armours, and some say that the black-gold-trimmed sets sell well.

The Gilded (solid gold members) armour sets and Infinity robe sets have their ups and downs. Understand that these move slowly, so don't expect a fast profit.

I have no opinion of Third Age sets. If you're rich enough to deal in them, good luck to you.

NOTE: there is no absolute one fixed way to do things in merchanting. Smart merchanting is all about staying a step ahead of everybody else. I gave you the basic foundation to do this, but you still have to use your head once in a while and adjust according to conditions.
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OldFinn · Jul 14, 2008

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