Seems so easy? Hit the Merchant mode button, set your prices and let the coins roll in. Wonder why we don’t have more millionaires? There are many guides that tell you how to acquire inventory; this one tells you how to get the best price. It easy to be a Merchant but to be a successful merchant is priceless.

Let state the obvious! To be a successful player you need to kill the real bad monster to gain experience points to level. This requires better weapons and armor. The quandary is these monsters give few coins but great items. To get better equipment you need is to sell the items that you have for the best price. Too high and we keep it until we give it away. Let’s all avoid too low. So what do we need?

Product Knowledge (What Should I know), Market value (what does my competition know) and Customer knowledge (Why the heck would anyone want it?).

Product Knowledge

Pop quiz!
These are real merchant offerings in Last Chaos, pick the one that give the fairest deal to the buyer?

1. Iron helm 5,000
2. Bloodstones 2,000
3. Helm of the Brave 20,000
4. Warblade 12,000

Sorry times up.! This was trick question; each of these merchants was charging more than the NPC vendor’s charges. The Iron Helm will cost 1294; Geres the NOC Merchant only charges 1000 coin for Blood Stones and Helm of the brave cost 4,410 each. Have I made this mistake? Well I didn’t buy the bloodstone but I have purchased overpriced sundries in other games. But you can’t count on ignorance to make a profit. Remember Ignorance can be cured (Stupidity is forever!)

Some may believe the above is scamming [abbr=New inexperienced players] newbies. [/] More likely, this is a lack of product knowledge on both sides. Anyone who believes they can make coin by reselling vendor equipment is going to have to find a lot of a very rare bird: a rich newbie.

The first step in Product Knowledge is to learn what the NPC vendors are charging for their items. This will give you a base line for all the items you get. Remember the NPC vendor will always give you a free quote for any item. This will be wholesale (or even below wholesale) but you will know the lowest price you can get for that item. So check the NPC for the Selling price and the buying price. If you want to sell the item quickly price it somewhere in between.

Market Knowledge

So now we know what to charge for normal items. What about the upgraded items? While it is possible to calculate what the cost should be, but all prices are market driven. Why do some people buy a +5 hunter bow when there are better +1 items for fewer coins? Because the glow (or some other non consequencial aspect) looks cool. Remember, not all-buying decisions are logical but emotional.

Some players try to make logical selling decisions. They believe that there is a correspondence between the plus (+) values and the price. They will charge 1000 for +1 and 2000 for +2 etc. This does not hold up in real life. In some games, upgrades from +1 to +3 are risk free in that you will only lose the cost of the stone and the transmutting. You may get lucky and upgrade to +3 with no losses. You may lose 10 stones making it a very expensive weapon. However, market drives the price of any items no ones cares what it cost you to make it.

First hint for knowledge, pick a niche that interests you and learn the heck out of it. If you’re a warrior you may want to specialize in sword knowledge, mages maybe learn about staffs, rogues could study crossbows and healers bend the elbow with a bow instead of a brew. It not possible to know every thing about the marketing of every item in the game; develop core knowledge of items which interest you then expand from there.

Market values do change sometimes on a daily basis. I have seen moonstones being sold for 2K (NPC will pay more) and 25k. Remember that the quantity of any particular item is controlled by the game. What may be rare today may be common tomorrow. This affects the price. So by walking around you will not only to keep an eye on your competition but what is the going price.

So what is the going price? This doesn’t mean they are correct but you can gauge what they the median cost range should be. Remember these are prices for items that have not sold yet. Therefore we can assume the fair market price of the item is near the lower end of the range we see.

Why range? You may need several days to determine the standard range of an item. Don’t be mislead by ridiculous high or low prices. Because there are players who have no idea what to charge and will ask ridiculous prices. Like 20K for a Iron helm. Other players are also clueless and may charge 500 for the same shield. Both of these examples are not in the median range for this shield. In this case, the NPC vendor has determine the range. No one in his right mind should sell for less than the NPC vendors will buy. And no one should pay more than what the vendor will sell. By reviewing prices for your specialty items on a daily basis you will learn what the correct range will be

But shouldn’t I charge the lowest price? You could but I would charge the fairest price. If there is normal demand for you’re item then when the low price item sells (assuming that people actually shop for the lowest price) then your item will sell next and you will get the better price. If you always sell at the lowest price, you have to work harder to get a decent profit. Let say HP pots have a fair market value of 50 coin but you sell them for a low price of 10 coin. You have to kill five times more monsters to get the same profit. (Your competition got their price while you were out killing all those extra monsters!). This is also true for games that use an auction block.

What if every body is selling my +6 accountant class pencil for 500k to 600k but I see a player selling it for 50K? Personally I would buy the 50K item and re-sell it at the market price of 500K. You have determined the market price and this player has not. He only wants 50K so give it to him. Since you have done your homework you deserve the 450K+ profit.

If you want to make coins in any game you need to turn over your inventory as quickly as possible. What you need is the right price to make the best profit. Anything in your inventory that can not enhance your character (or characters) abilities is a liability. You only have a limited amount of inventory. At the inn you have to pay for almost every slots. Each character can carry only a limited amount of items limited by weight. Even creating addition characters (called mules) will expand your storage ability but not make it unliimited.
Believe me these slots will fill up fast if you don’t sell off items that are useless to you and that includes your old character items. Remember that it is usually better to sell one high value item than five to ten cheap items. Assuming fair prices, I will have maximized my slots to sell other items plus I‘ll make just as much profit and gets the profit a bit quicker.

You can sell anything quickly if you make it cheap enough, but may never get rid of an item if you overcharge. Check what the vendor charges. What is your competition charging. Your item should be some multiple of what the vendor charges modified by what the market is charging but the market always rules.

Customer knowledge

What do I know about my customers? They run up grab the item and run off. I’m not even sure of their class! We can’t ask our customers what they want but from the items we have we can determine to whom the item would most appeal. Customer knowledge helps the most when we can’t determine market price by other means. Many items in Last Chaos and other games are class related so only the wide category of accessories can have more than one user class.

For example I have a Drake Egg. So who would be my customer? Anyone who wants a pet dragon anyone or who wants to get unique items from their pets. There are two categories that would desire it. They are neither common nor rare. NPC will buy it for free. So I’ll market it for 20K and reduce it in a few days if it doesn’t sell. Similar are the crystals of experience, the basic problem is a marketing job. Most players try them thinking they will increase XP earned; but actually you use them to reduce lost experience when you die. (They do have to equipped before you die) If marketed correctly these would appeal to middle and high-class player who have the most to lose. Red name players should also have a great desire for these items. So I would charge high after all the target class has a high need and cash.

Use this technique to analyze unique or very rare items. It also apples to items that the vendors never sell as in Last Chaos: Heaven stones, moonstones as well as other quest items.

Selling tips

Best location?

You don’t have much choice the safe places are the cities. You can also set up shop in the safe area of the temple (good place to sell potions) but I would do it only on non PvP servers. Out in the fields, even if the game allows it, I would not go into [abbr=Away From Keyboard]AFK[/] merchant mode. Monsters (or other players) may wander over and kill you.

I would also recommend that you try to return to the same location in town when selling. As players see you on a daily basis you build a reputation and trust factor. You will get a slight edge because you are better known then someone they see for the first time. (Better the devil you know then the devil you don’t!). This may give you a little extra business when the prices are the same or nearly the same.

I’m confused as to why some players place them selves in the same spot as NPC characters. This works against the merchant more often than it helps. Most players get annoyed if they get the merchant instead of the NPC character. Why would you buy from someone who is frustrating you?

Best time?
What you need is foot traffic. Most players start the game in town and exit from town. This is the time they will shop after that they are playing the game. Based on your time zone determine when that is. In my time zone, eastern, It seems to be 9:00 am and 4:00 to 6:00 P.M., which may not matter if you can put your character in merchant mode and leave him on all the time.

One player writes that he checks his merchant every two hours and his competition then. Most of us don’t have crying babies to get us up every couple of hours. Assuming you set your merchant up the night before then the morning is a good time to survey the competition and replenish your goods. Home for lunch? Another good time. Back home from a hard day. Another good time. You should always check out the competition before or after you go out to kill monsters or humans.

Anytime you take a long break, you can set up in merchant mode. However, don’t expect good results for short breaks unless there is a lot of foot traffic in the area

If you can have one account selling all the time and your current account selling when you are not playing you have that much more storage room and selling room. (Of course, for many games, you will need another computer to run two accounts concurrently)

Getting Noticed
Some Games use signs, others put your ad in the chat box. Space limitation precludes being able to include all your items and there is no automatic update when you do sell an item; so try to be general in your descriptions. Selling a knight sword shield and other knight gear may be better to advertise Knight Equipment level 35 then try to list each item.
Try humor like “pay now. Play later”, “Monsters hate our weapons”, “Monster Date? Get your protection here!’ or your own humorous slogans (what do mean not funny!, Boy try to help some people … opps did I type that out loud)
Players with mounts or other unique weapons or armor are advertising their success . While mounts will get them noticed; the downside it that it is difficult for players to click on them to see their selling inventory.

Morale
Sell what you know. If you don’t know, learn! Remember the most important bit of knowledge is what will the average player pay for my items?

Based on my merchant guide for another online game
Vgaming website at
[url="http://www.vgamingonline.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=13677"]Merchant Guide[/url]