Buying and Selling w your Merchant

[Joria]

Of course, first you need to have some cash to spend.  Keep a very small amount in reserve for taxes but spend all the rest.  Go on the sea and trade everywhere you can.

Tredony -   Imports herbs and trades 6 phosphorus for 3 Magic Powder.  Phosphorus costs $6 each.  Trade 6 Barley, (cost $16 each) for 1 Gem.

They buy the following: (note: I don't have all the minerals listed yet)

Blood Moss     @  $8   each                 cost for you to buy          $3

Grass Weed    @  $18  each                      "            "                 $5            Better to harvest yourself

Wild Flower     @  $78 each                      "             "                 $0            You have to harvest them  very nice profit!

Nightshade     @  $82                        cost for you to buy          $16

Belladonna     @ $104                             "             "                 $10

Valoroot         @ $122                             "             "                 $9                      

Eagle Wood    @ $147                        cost for you to buy         $10

Sagewort       @ 165                              "             "                  $14

Lordleaf         @ $272.50                       "             "                  $16

I'll try to have the minerals tomorrow.  Too tired tonight.  While these returns may seem great, it is nothing compared to the return from selling meat to Entremont.  (Sp?)  One pigeon costs you $4 and sells for $249.  How's that for profit?  You can see from this that with a very little money you can build a fortune very quickly.  Buy, sell, rinse and repeat 3 times in one day.

EDIT:  This probably should have gone in Carl's thread asking for info for the guilde but it's late, I'm tired, and it is going to be a very long list.  Mods can move it if they feel it's better there.


EDIT 2:  Effonmont:

Bear Meat             @  140.00          Your cost to buy          $49

Boar Meat             @  260                     "         "                 $67

Fowl                      @ 144.50                 "         "                 $13

Frog                      @  327.50          Your cost to buy           $36

Pigeon                   @  249                This one's ftw!            $4

Rabbit                   @  256.50                                             $22

Venison                 @576.43                                               $36

I haven't tried bringing them sausage yet.

EDIT: 3 Tictop:  Trade 2 Gems for 2 Mithral

Adamantle             @ $60.00                   Cost to buy          $25 - $31

Azurite                   @ $105                                                 $17 - $25


Snordwhich:  Trade 25 wood for 5 Sleeping Drafts

Eel                        @ 24.44                      Cost to buy          $18

Herring                 @ 52.59                                                  $6

Trout                    @ 84.17                                                   $7

Salmon                 @ 441.67                                                 $36

Swordfish              @ 660.00                                                 $46

Tench                    @ 158.40                                                 $7

Turbot                   @ 302.94                                                 $23

Tried to do the table thing and failed.  Anyone want to straighten out these rows be my guest.  I'd be very happy about it!

[MrGabic]

Nice work Joria this will help a lot since I haven't played the merchant much

[Kai Heilos]

If you're interested in making the table easier to space, you can use the table tags. For instance:

TR = Table Row
TD = Table Data

Code: [Select]

[table]
[tr][td]Product[/td][td]Sell Price[/td][td]Buy Price[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Blood Moss[/td][td]8[/td][td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Grass Weed[/td][td]18[/td][td]5[/td][/tr]
[/table]
Will provide you with:

Product	Sell Price	Buy Price
Blood Moss	8	3
Grass Weed	18	5

[Carl]

That's awesome, Joria. I'll keep an eye on this thread for inclusion when we make those herb/metal pages.

[Joria]

If you're interested in making the table easier to space, you can use the table tags. For instance:

TR = Table Row
TD = Table Data

Code: [Select]

[table]
[tr][td]Product[/td][td]Sell Price[/td][td]Buy Price[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Blood Moss[/td][td]8[/td][td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Grass Weed[/td][td]18[/td][td]5[/td][/tr]
[/table]
Will provide you with:

Product	Sell Price	Buy Price
Blood Moss	8	3
Grass Weed	18	5

71 Year old, pc illiterate here.  What are table tags?  Where do you go to get to use them?

[Carl]

It's from the 3 squares just above the smileys. The first one inserts the beginning table code. Tables are laid out in rows (2nd button). the third will put td (column) which is a single entry in the table. It neatly lays out the data to form the table. as you add more rows. Since there are 3 things about each item here, it would go TR TD TD TD /TR for as many items as you had total. One row each. If you like, I'll edit it for you to get it started. I'll need to use almost the exact same code to put it on the guide.

[Katluvr]

71 Year old, pc illiterate here.  What are table tags?  Where do you go to get to use them?

Pffft, you are definitely not PC illiterate.  That is the cool thing about being on a forum like this - people who know how to do things are willing to help educate those of us who don't have that experience.

Back on topic, thanks so much for this info!  I read your post about your merchant being your favorite hero and decided to give mine a try last night - LOVED IT!!!  I didn't spend time trading overseas except as required for daily responsibilities, so this is great information to have.

[Jancy]

I like playing the merchant   This is very handy Joria - Made a screenshot to reference it.  Thank you so much!

[Joria]

I'm adding Tictop  and Snordwhich tonight, however......."Houston.  We've got a problem!"   

The problem is in what it costs to buy the items CHANGES.  Just like in any market there is a price fluctuation, so one day when I go in, Adamantle cost was $31 and the next time it was $25.  As I do this merchant thing I'll put the different days prices on my handwritten sheet so the final thing will be cost  X$ to X$,  ($17 - $25 for instance).  I'm expecting what you sell any item for also changes, but you won't have any advance way of knowing what that change will be till you actually do the trade.  I'll try to track that as well but I get easily distracted so not sure how good that will be. 

Still, giving the buy/sell ratio, and WHERE you do what with each item, you can definitely plot a great trade route to maximize profit.
You get X  from Bongo Bongo and trade that X to Pickanose who gives you Y which you can then sell at a huge profit to Smilezalot.  See what I mean?  It will take some planning and strategizing but you should be able to make a very wealthy trader and it would all become routine to just do the morning responsibilities, hop on the boat and off you go.

[Carl]

Did your security go up by any chance, Joria? Might need Very High as a control...that or NO security which would really be a pain.

[samoht04]

Wow Joria! Thanks so much! I'm about to be able to place a new Hero and I think I will place a Merchant! 

[Joria]

Did your security go up by any chance, Joria? Might need Very High as a control...that or NO security which would really be a pain.

Might need to go to Very High, Carl.  My security is High, Well Being is High, Knowledge is Neutral and Culture is Low.  When I started figuring this out with my merchant she was at level 7 and is now a level 10.  Profits rose significantly as she rose in level and she rarely fails to make a sale at her booth.  Bottom line is it is still more profitable to sell at sea.

Last night I discovered what I thought might happen, did.  I checked the sale price against my first list and many of the items sold much lower, though still at a profit.  It is really like any RL market with price fluctuations on both buy and sell ends.  I might just ask my brilliant husband to take my data and see what he can figure out with it, as in what the profit margin/percentage might be overall.  He used to do this for a big corporation.  He's been doing the math for me.  I can take her base amount of money, do a full country trade, (hit each country, I think I have them all now), and see what the bottom line is at the end of the day.  If we track that over a period of several days we should have an idea of what the profit margin is.  In any case, will this make it unnecessary or unreliable to have a list of buy/sell prices for the guide?  

EDIT:  Ok, full day of play and I'm tired.  Wasn't quite as organized or uptight about the research but what I did was write down the amount of Simoles I started with, 70,526 and subtracted the amount of purchases for three days worth of trading which was 4 trades a day.  My expenditure was averaged out at 4,000 Simoles per day, one trip to the Shoppe each day.  My total income as of tonight was 92, 329 Simoles.  Not too shabby, especially when you consider I still have a stall full of merchandise and a hold full as well.  I'm continuing to note prices individually but not sure it will really be beneficial since prices fluctuate on both ends of the market with no way of knowing what that fluctuation will be.  The bottom line is trading is profitable.