Advanced Technique - Merchanting

Perquisites:

- This technique is for both non-members and members
- Any level
- 50k Gold and Up

Merchanting and investing can earn you BILLIONS of gold! Read on!

You're reading this guide to get millions and millions of gold in Runescape, didn’t you? Well here’s the first section that explains how to earn that much money, and fast!

The Runescape Economy is ever-changing, like a real world economy. Prices are always going up and down, and it’s pretty hard to predict where they will go next.

Before starting merchanting, I recommend that you have at least 50k gold in hand. If you don't already have 50k gold, visit the Basic Techniques section of this guide and use the methods listed there to get up to this point. Also, you can clear your bank and sell anything that you don't need to get enough gold for merchanting.

Being a member really helps with merchanting, as it opens up the door to merchanting between members servers and free servers. However, membership is not required to get millions of gold from merchanting.

Merchanting takes advantage of different prices in different areas of Runescape. Basically, it focuses on the idea of buying an item for cheap and selling it for a greater price somewhere else. Merchanting in Runescape can be categorized into three types:

Short Scale Merchanting

Short Scale Merchanting is the easiest and fastest type of merchanting, and requires the least amount of effort. For example, say somebody in Varrock is selling full Rune for 180k. You can buy it, and sell it to another person in Varrock for 190k. However, this is usually the slowest way to make money off merchanting, and I don't recommend short scale merchanting at all.

Long Scale Merchanting

Long Scale Merchanting requires travel or some kind of modification to the item you’re merchanting. An example is buying uncooked lobsters at Karajarma. You can then cook them and sell them, or just sell them raw in a big city. Also, you can buy iron and coal and smith the ores into steel bars to sell. Steel bars sell for more than the ingredients used to make them, so this is a fast way to make money.

World Switch Merchanting

The last kind of merchanting requires you to switch worlds while buying and selling to take advantage of changing prices. Usually, this is the fastest way to make money off merchanting. For example, nature runes sell for more on members servers than non-members servers. Let’s say Nature Runes are worth 300 each on World 1 Varrock, and 400 each on World 2 Falador. You could buy 10,000 nature runes on World 1 Varrock for 3 million gp, then sell them on World 2 Falador for 4 million gp (for a total profit of 1 million gp)!

If you keep finding and using exploits in the market as big as the one explained above, you will eventually earn billions! Always keep a close watch on the forums for prices.

See the next section for examples of different merchanting techniques.

Useful Merchanting Tips

- By using all three types of merchanting, you can be sure that you'll make a lot of Runescape gold. Be on the lookout for varying prices over different servers and places, and whenever someone's offering an item for less than the market price, grab it!

- When choosing an item to merchant, gain some background information about the item before proceeding to buy and sell it. What is the current market price for the item? You'll need to know how much gold that you're going to buy the item for, and how much you're going to sell the item for. Is there enough demand for the item to merchant it? Usually, it's a good idea to merchant high demand items - this will make sure that you sell the item quickly. As always, keep an eye on the Runescape forums to find all the current prices for items.

- The key areas to sell your items are at Varrock West Bank (World 1) and Falador East Bank (World 2). Many people will gather in these places to buy and sell items, and you can usually get the best deals here when selling. The areas to buy items to merchant will vary with the merchanting technique.

- Before you start a merchanting route, test it out first to see if the route is profitable. Buy ten items and try to merchant them. If everything goes smoothly and you're successful, try the route with more items.

- Buy straight from the source, not from other merchanters. For example, if you're merchanting coal, it's best to buy from people who mined the coal themselves, not people who bought the coal only to sell.

- Sell as many items at a time as you can. Selling 1000 lobsters at a time is going to be more profitable than selling 100 lobsters at a time. Also, when people buy items in bulk, they will generally pay more gold per item.

- If you buy items frequently from one person, ask them if they'll provide you with these items in the future. If the person agrees, add them to your friends list and keep in contact. Build a large list of contacts so you'll always have someone to buy your merchanting supplies from. Generally, the more contacts you have, the more gold you'll make.

- If you have a lot of contacts, try to turn your merchanting into a business. Convert your most reliable contacts into employees. Buy employees' items for slightly more than other people are willing to pay (to prevent them from abandoning you), and merchant their goods to sell. Making a business ensures that you always have someone to buy from and your employees always have someone to sell to. For example, once I had employees mining coal and iron for me. I paid them slightly more than the market price for the ores, and I smithed the ores into steel bars myself to sell. This keeps everyone happy and puts more gold in your pocket.

- Always buy in bulk! Set a portion of your gold for merchanting, and use all of it to buy what you are currently trying to merchant. As you make more money, buy more and more items at a time, so you can sell more of them at a time and make more of a profit.

- Merchant many different types of items at once, and experiment to see which items work best for you. In addition, this will help you become familiar with the Runescape market, and in the long run you will earn more gold than if you only specialized in merchanting just one type of item.

- If you're a member, the Runescape forums are vital to buying and selling. When you're selling a particular item, simply post a new thread about it, and if your price is fair, you will get a sale fast. Even if you're not a member, don't underestimate the power of the forums! Since non-members can still read the boards, keep a watchful eye on the posts to find people to buy from and sell to.

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