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Queso
07-27-2008, 12:51 AM
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Queso's Guide to GE Merchanting!

Introduction:

Ever since the GE was unleashed upon Runescape, most people gave up hope on the undeclared skill, merchanting. Well, I'm here to tell you "not I" and that I still successfully make profits off of merchanting, and I will explain to you how I do so!

Realization:

That's right! You have to realize something! :duh:

The main thing you must realize is that prices in Runescape are based off of supply and demand, just like in the real world. Yes, other things cause fluctuations in prices, such as the release of new items and skills that cause items to either increase in price due to the new need or decrease in price due to it being inferior to the new item. A prime example of this would be the barrows items. Ever since their introduction, the prices of dragon armor and weaponry fell over time due to an increase in availability and a decrease in need. However, the rarity of certain dragon items (such as the dragon chain mail) continues to make them still cost a pretty penny.

The Items:

What item should you try and market off of? There are a lot of choices to make! I will help point you in the right direction.

First, lets think about what people need. Think of all the items needed throughout the game for players to succeed. The first thing that comes to mind for me is … bowstring!

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/4190/example1ao3.png

High level people hate making it, but its always needed to make strung bows, which are then highalched into GOLD, which means there should ALWAYS be some kind of demand for bowstring. Since the price seems to be increasing over time according to our picture, we will consider what other factors may causing this. *THIS IS WHERE SOME BRAINWORK IS NEEDED* I wandered over to the oh-so-popular flax area and noticed that there seemed to be more bowstring buyers in one world than bowstring sellers, and after some world hopping, this observation seems true throughout Runescape. This means that the demand for bowstring will continue to be HIGHER than the supply, resulting in future price hikes. REMEMBER though, there will be a max price to EVERY item. In the bowstring’s case, the max price will be around 350 (though it’s doubtful it will hit 350) because that is how much the highalch amount increases on yew longbows (I’m just approximating, mind you). If the price of bowstring goes over 350, then the fletcher would make more gold off of the unstrung bow over the strung bow, and would most likely prefer to leave it unstrung, causing the demand for bowstring to drop rapidly, and the price drop rapidly thereafter.

Let’s look at an item that has been falling in price as another example. DRAGON AXES!

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/4207/example2is4.png

Dragon axes are a MUST for high level woodcutters, as they cut better than all the rest. The increase in speed of gaining logs outweighs its heavy cost (if you use it a lot, of course). Let’s look into its supply and demand, now. Wander over to popular magic and yew spots. Notice how most people (consistently) already have dragon axes? How is there demand for dragon axes if the masses already have it? The answer is: there isn’t a demand (at least, not much for them). Dragon axes, like most weapons, are dead items: items not worth investing in, because their cost will generally go down over time due to a nearly never-ending loss of them and a constant flow of monster drops producing them. Yes, as more people level up, there will be more that need certain high-level items, but that in turn just results in more monster-killing which leads to more rare-item-production.

Investment:

Congratulations! You found an item worth investing in! Let’s head over to the Grand Exchange!

If you are confident that your item will increase in price over time, pull out most of your gold (except some spending money on random items) and buy as much of what you want to invest in! MAKE SURE YOU RECORD THE PRICE YOU BOUGHT IT AT! Now the only thing you can count on is TIME, which can be passed by leveling your main character, botting, or doing everyday activities :)

Check it every few days. Make sure the item you invested in doesn’t drop rapidly.

Aim to sell within a week to two weeks. Prices on items can be fickle and change from increasing to decreasing without warning, thus ruining long-term investments (the exception being holiday items that are no longer produced, such as party hats and Halloween masks).

If you plan on doing this for a while, make sure you find several items that fluctuate in price, and switch up on which one you invest in. If one item starts to drop in price, switch to another item!

OPTIONAL - Graphing:

Aw man, graphing? Lame…

NOT LAME! This allows you to easily observe the change in prices of certain items over time! It also gives you something to doodle in classes ;)

As I suggested above, you can draw your own graphs, or you can use Microsoft Word to produce graphs for you. To do so, go to Insert > Picture > Chart, edit it to a line graph, and off you go to changing the points! If you aren’t familiar with using graphs on Microsoft Word and would like to, google how to, noob!

What information do you put in? Price over time, dummy! The amount of time, however, is up to you. The most accurate results will be if you daily get the price for a certain item for the next year, but that is obviously not practical. Every 4-7 days would suffice to see where the direction for the price of an item is going.

Are you curious where the price of an item is going right now? Runescape (http://itemdb-rs.runescape.com/top100.ws?list=0&scale=0) has graphs for every item (up to 30 days) under the grand exchange portion of their website! www.Zybez.net also has some nice graphs that date even before the Grand Exchange (and you can see how badly the bots affected the price of certain items).

If you really want to understand graphs, specifically the ones Runescape provides with the 5 and 20 day averages, then I suggest you read up on some investing strategies. Here is a good Runescape-specific investing strategy website supplied by Wade (thank-you wade!): www.Thegrandexchange.com

Conclusion:

Investing is not only how people become rich in Runescape, but that’s also how they become rich in real life. Look at those snobs on Wall Street sniffing cocaine through hundred dollar bills … then TOSSING THEM AWAY! Don’t you want to become as awesome as them? …Probably not, cocaine stinks. THE POINT IS, if you want to make the real bucks in any market, the key is to INVESTING, and even though the Grand Exchange eliminated the ability to rip people off, you can still increase your current funds by a percentage. And over time, that percentage will build up :)

Good luck on your quest towards wealth!

noidea
07-27-2008, 01:18 AM
Wow, this is a very thought through and specific guide. I like it. It's very descriptive about what should be done and how you should do it rep for you!
It's fantastic...


noidea

King of the Nites
07-27-2008, 01:23 AM
WOW!!! Nice guide, jeeze you took a ton of time and effort to make this. You get rep from me and I thank you a ton for this. GJ!!!

Queso
07-27-2008, 01:24 AM
WOW!!! Nice guide, jeeze you took a ton of time and effort to make this. You get rep from me and I thank you a ton for this. GJ!!!

It actually took little effort (except world hopping at flax), because this is just what I do :) and I happen to know how to explain myself.

King of the Nites
07-27-2008, 01:56 AM
It actually took little effort (except world hopping at flax), because this is just what I do :) and I happen to know how to explain myself.

This would have taken me so much effort to make its not even funny(haha). But great job on this and I was wondering if you knew of anymore items to start merchenting with.

carlover
07-27-2008, 01:58 AM
I would suggest buying santa hats if you have enough money because the price of them is sky rocketing. Wouldn't doubt if they were up to 20mil pretty soon

Queso
07-27-2008, 02:00 AM
I was wondering if you knew of anymore items to start merchenting with.

I figured this would arise.

I'm not going to give exact items because I don't want people to take the items I use and merchant them as well. I keep it a mystery :)

The only items I WILL suggest are expendable items, items that dissipate after use. And when I say "dissipate", i mean anything like uncut to cut gems or clay to soft clay. That makes the uncut gem or clay to "dissipate".

Wade007
07-27-2008, 02:58 AM
My favourite G.e merchanting site is www.Thegrandexchange.com hes earned alot of cash and has videos showing how and what he merch's and how to know what item is a good item to merch

Queso
07-27-2008, 03:28 AM
My favourite G.e merchanting site is www.Thegrandexchange.com hes earned alot of cash and has videos showing how and what he merch's and how to know what item is a good item to merch

Yes, that's great!

I also just noticed that RS has all the graphs on their webpage...

I'm silly. :duh:

EDIT: The site is nice there, the guy seems to take the same concept I use. Simply compare the RS market to a real market, i.e. the NY stock exchange, apply the same concepts in investing, and voila! XD

Queso
07-30-2008, 03:36 AM
Well, I have made the biggest % profit to date!

I bought 500 body talismans on the 18th because the price flatlined at the bottom of the market price curve, and I sold yesterday. CACHING!

http://itemdb-rs.runescape.com/2344_graphimg.gif?id=1446&scale=1

andyroo
07-30-2008, 05:17 AM
this is so true.

5 years ago, phats (if theyre even called that anymore, idk) costed waaay less than 300+ mil. i think it was 100 mil.

but hey, thats 5 years lol.

Zyt3x
07-30-2008, 08:43 AM
yea, they was like 120m-

Iron ores will ALWAYS go higher, so buy as many as you can! for some months ago they were 86gp ea, now theyre 99gp ea

Queso
07-30-2008, 02:28 PM
Iron ores will ALWAYS go higher, so buy as many as you can! for some months ago they were 86gp ea, now theyre 99gp ea

Yes, they fluctuate, but I don't think they'll fly up above 100, just because of the psychological effects on buyers. "omg triple digits, that's too much."

However, if there are tons of ppl trying to buy and market iron, then yes, it will keep going up for a bit, until eventually there's a mass selling point where it drops off.

PvH
07-30-2008, 02:39 PM
Really good guide.
Thats exactelly how I do it too:)
Observe-think-invest-sell with (most of the time) profit:)

Ohh and btw, dragon axe only cuts faster on magic trees, everyone thinks its better on all trees, but it isn't.
How do I know? > I'm 95 wc... :D

PvH