Wacky's guide on Buy/Resell Trading

[wackykid]

1) Introduction
This guide is specifically on buying and reselling to earn money. No digging, no hunting of monsters. It's a bit like playing stock market, except rewards are more consistent and predictable once you have mastered the art.


2) Why do I want to waste time buy/resell instead of training to lvl 400?
Well the most obvious reason is: MONEY!!! I have earned about 150mil on Fantasia since I started playing the game about 4-5 months ago, although i am still lvl 8x with 3 diff characters. I'm the lazy kind who doesn't want to spend many hours training for levels everyday. Sure you can earn alot of $$$ during training at high levels. However it takes time to reach there, and not everyone finds enjoyment in grinding, doing the most damage, getting the most HAXXED items (although with crap loads of $$$ you can buy one ). If you like to see your (virtual) $$$ grow, you will enjoy this. Best of all, it doesn't take up that much time (most of the time you will be idling in shop-mode).

2a) Why don't I hunt/dig for items to sell instead of buying, it is less risky business.
Well, it takes considerably more time to hunt/dig for items yourself. It just take few minutes to buy a handful of resaleable stuff compared with hours by hunting/digging. Digging is plain BORING. Moreover, if you do not have a high lvl Sense character, it takes considerable longer time to dig for any stuff worth selling. Other valuable items require you to hunt bosses, which you may have to compete with others (like golden sword), or you may not have the level to kill the bosses yet. So why not let others do the hunting instead of doing it yourself?

Moreover, the added risk is also part of the thrill as a reseller. Watch and laugh at n00bs selling dirt cheap items, buy it and set the shop then afk, coming back to see your money roll.



3) Okay, I'm motivated, so how do I start?
a) $$$
Well, here's a bad news if you are new to the game. You need $$$ to get started. EXCESS $$$ that is. The $$$ that you are willing to donate to the next begger who comes along and ask "pl0xxx gib me sme galders...". At the beginning, you will be doing a bit of experimentation and be prepared to make some losses. I started out buying some lvl 180/200 weapons like Elemental Claymore, Sense Knight Dagger, thinking that since they are high level weapons, and high level ppl are usually rich, so these will worth millions. (This may be true in Maple Story, but item drops there are WAAAAAY rarer there so DEMAND >> SUPPLY). In the end I was only barely able to break even or make slight loss in selling them.

b) 2nd PC (optional)
Ideally, you should have a 2nd PC which can be turned on 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, and a secondary account who has sufficient WT to carry all the stuff you are going to sell. In this way, you can safely open shop 24/7 with that account and still have time to play your main character. This is purely optional, but it is more efficient if you want to sell your stuff at a good price with good turnover rate. You could even setup multiple shops with multiple PCs.

c) Time
If you do not have a 2nd PC and secondary account, you should have sufficient time to run your shop too. At least your PC should be able to run 24/7, so that when you go to sleep, you can setup your shop. If you grind alot and only have a couple of hours to open shop, unfortunately it won't be easy for you to become a reseller.

d) Items
And of cos you need to buy some items to sell to start off. In the beginning, if you don't have much $$$ to buy anything, it's good that you start by selling the drops or items you acquired during your digging/training.

4) So how much $$$ do you need to get started?
Well, it's all up to you how much risk you want to take. It can be a small amount of $$$ like 20k, or can be as much as 1 mil or more.

5) General principals in buy/sell trade
Well, obviously you are to buy items at cheap prices and sell them for higher prices, that's what this guide is all about. But why would anyone buy at higher prices if others are selling cheaper? And why does people sell things cheap?

For selllers, the reason why they sell items cheap are either they are desperate for $$$, or they do not know the market prices and undervalues the items.

For buyers, the reason why they would buy at higher prices is because either they have too much $$$ and doesn't bother to spend time looking for a cheaper item (to them time is $$$), or they are desperate to buy something and nobody is selling, or they simply do not know the market prices.

To be successful in this trade, you are to buy items at below market prices (and not because you think the items seems cheap), and resell them at market prices (or sometimes above market prices).

6) Market Price
So what is market price? Market price is the MAXIMUM price in which supply will not exceed demand. I will be using this as definition for the whole guide as a reseller. However, dependant on how fast you want your items to be sold, you may want to set it lower or higher than the market price. Market price can fluctuate from time to time too, depending on the demand and supply.
When a new item is introduced, you are almost certain that the prices initially will be over inflated because everyone wants to be the first to get it, and almost nobody have gotten it yet. To find out the market price, you can try doing a price check. However, it doesn't usually give you the REAL market price. Someone can quote you a price based on what he is willing to pay, which may be lower or higher than the market price. However, it does give you a figure to start off with if you are clueless. The BEST way to know the market price is to experiment on pricing by yourself.

7) Survey the Market
For starters, you should NOT jump into buying stuff and start selling, thinking that someone will buy. Spend time looking around what other ppl are selling, and note down the prices they are selling for. Consider what you want to buy depending on the budget you have. It only takes few minutes each time to visit the shops. But do go around visiting the shops at differnet times of the day. Do re-visit the shops you have been to, taking note of what have been sold and what haven't, as well as how fast the items are sold. It will help to give you an idea of the prices which will actually bring you business.

8) Where do I find shops?
Common places where you can find shops are: Paradise, Megalopolis, Azteca and Oops Wharf. There are other places like Path to Dessert Beach or Blooming Cora which you may find shops too, but usually these are just a waste of time.

Paradise - shops usually sell items level 35 and below here.
Megalopolis - you can find just about anything here, this is the best place to
get started off with.
Azteca - this place is good to find Caballa Relics quest items.
Oops Wharf - this place is good to find Oops Wharf quest items.

8) Why don't I hunt or dig for items to sell?
It takes alot more time to hunt/dig for stuff. It only takes few minutes to prowl the market to buy up stuff. Besides, if you want certain items like ultimates, you may not have sufficient level to hunt bosses by yourself. Also most people don't like to dig. So why not let others hunt/dig for these, then you buy/resell and earn part of the profits? :P

9) So what items should I buy to resell?
a) Event quest items?
NO WAY!!! ESPECIALLY at the beginning of new events. Contrary to what people might think, event quest items are BAD to invest in. These are certainly GOOD to sell if you are the first ones to obtain the quest items. But for buy/resale trade, it's a very BAD idea. Remember the general principals, you are to buy low and sell high. It takes a longer time to sell something if you price it high. Event items almost always cost alot more the day the event starts. Then the prices then rapidly drop in price within a day or two, depending on how easy the quest items can be obtained and how good the rewards are. The prices will then beome more or less stabilised during the middle of the event duration, and decline or increase in price as the event comes near the end, depending on whether most ppl have completed the quest and how good are the rewards. In general, prices will tend to decline than to increase near the end of the event. And eventually these quest items will become worthless after the event if these items do not have any particular use, other than to complete the event quests. So if you stock up a huge load of these items and hold them in your shop, you will be hard pressed to sell them away to recoup your losses when the event comes to the end.

b) Event quest rewards
No, this is not the same as (a). The previous is about the items that are needed to complete the event quests, which typically requires you to dig or hunt for. Event rewards are the rewards you obtain when you complete the event quests. Typically, event quests can give you unique items that are only available during the event period. These are often not available anymore after the event ends. In general, these are good to invest in, as the prices tend to increase after the event ended, depending on how useful they are. However it is usually not a good idea to buy these rewards in the beginning of the event period, as many ppl want to be the first to obtain them, while others want to profit from it by rushing to complete the quests and sell the stuff away. A good time to buy these is towards the end of the event period.

c) Compounding/Refining items
This is generally quite a stable market, there will always be people who want to refine their equipments when they upgrade their equipments. But not all items will sell well. Compounds that increases AP, AC, DA, DX, HP, HV, LK, MA sells well. HP tends to sell the best. Some compounds that increases elemental attributes can sell, depending on the kind of weapons available. Compounds that increases DP, MP, MD and elemental resistence typically don't sell well. Someone can help me comment on WT as i have not ventured into this area yet, but in general i think WT doesn't sell too well. Other compounds (like skunk pouch) don't sell, unless you can find equipments that CAN be compounded with these.

For refinement, lvl 1-4 gemstones sell best, followed by medium quality, high quality and pure ones in that order. Reason is that most people would not refine to over level 4 without breaking the item. And not everyone will use refine powder to continue with refinement. So there are alot less equipments that require medium and higher stones for refinement than the basic ones.

d) Normal quest items
This is another stable market. However when there is a major update like the Rev patch, when certain quests have been removed or changed, you may suddenly find no demand for them. Initially you may still be able to sell some away to those who are unaware of the changes. But it is a good idea to dump your items away fast to minimize losses.

The prices of quest items is dependant on the availability of the items and how good the quest rewards are. For items that require digging generally costs more (as most people doesn't like to dig). And for quests that give godly exp or rare equips, the quest items costs more too.

e) Equipments (Custom, Master, Ultimates)
This is a tricky market that requires considerable knowledge about the equips. These equipments are usually hard to obtain, either you have to hunt bosses or dig for them. But having the knowledge, this can be one of the most profitable market.

The base attributes of the item will largely determine the price of the item. The higher the base attribute, the more slots it has, the higher it can be priced at. You should consult wiki to find out the attributes range. It takes alot of experimentation and experience to know the market price.

A good way to start off is to set the price at what you think is a ridiculously high price. Sometimes you may be surprised at the kind of prices someone is willing to fork out for, especially for a near perfect item (meaning it's base stats and slots are near maximum). You should run your shop for some time, VERY SLOWLY reduce your price by a little bit if nobody buys it. Eventually you should find a price which a buying is willing to pay for. That price will be your benchmark for other similiar equipments with different stats.

f) Equipments/Accessories (useful and rare)
These are equipments that are hard to get, usually through digging quests only, and give good stats increase. Some examples are Duo Doctor, Rhythem Earring, Possessed Fork, No No Ring. This market is generally stable until some better equipment comes along. So it's generally adviced not to hold on to too many of these too long.

e) Cards
In general, only cards for Card quests and those that let u gain entry to boss maps have demand and are worthed buying/selling. For 3rd job skill cards, I do not have experience with buy/selling them, but I think they are not worthed the time to invest in.

f) Pets
Only those which are not available from NPC shops may have a demand, depending on the availability and usefulness of the pet.

g) Level up boxes
Not all boxes have demand, depending on what comes out of it. Only those boxes that give MyShop items have demand. And the demand for these are generally pretty stable and good. However, their value will be considerably higher (in the millions), so you will need to have sufficient $$$ to invest in this.

h) Super rare / super expensive items
Things like meglo vouchers, 4G cards, GM vouchers, unique set items, these are incredibly rare and expensive. There is significant risk in buying these items. Because of their rarity, the prices are incredibly high and you can't experiment with it to find out the market prices. Even the prices may be highly volatile, you would not know. You will either make a major windfall from buy/reselling these, or you will end up hogging on to it for a long time, or making a major loss because you need money and have to sell it for a cheaper price. Personally I would rather spend that kind of money investing on other items that are tried and tested that give me consistent returns.

10) Okay, I am ready to start my shop, where should I open it?
Meglopolis is the best place to open your shop. However if you are mainly selling noobie (lvl 35 and below) items, you should try Paradise. Or if you are mainly selling quest items from Cabellic Relics or Oops Wharf, you should open your shop in the respective towns. Do advertise your shop appropriately, especially if your shop is in Meglopolis, instead of putting up signs like "Pls I need money", or "CHEAPPPPPPP". Try to list out the items you MOST wanting to sell in your shop title. Buyers who are desperate, or having too much $$$ and too little time to browse through 31538503525 shops in Meglopolis will simply not visit all of them. Instead, your caption will catch their attention to your shop first, if they are okay with your item price, they are likely to buy it.

11) Making losses
Well, buy/selling is not always a profitable business. You may make losses on certain items because of various factors. If you are careful and do your homework enough, you will minimise your losses. But there are times when you took a risk and buy something expensive, but you are unable to sell it after many weeks, then it's probably time to cut your losses buy selling it below your buy price. Use the same strategy and slowly cut the price until someone buys it. But for event quest items, you better cut the price fast if the event is ending or has already ended. You probably suffer a significant loss as a result, but it's better than waiting until the items become worthless and you can only NPC them. That's why event quest items are not good for investment.

[wackykid]

12) Advanced Topics
Okay, now you are an expert to buy/sell trading. Here are some tricks you may want to attempt.

a) Monopoly
Supposed you are specializing on selling a particular type of item which in your experience, sells well, and you have a good knowledge of the market price. When there is some shop within your vicinity who is selling the same item at lower than market price, you buy up all his goods to eliminate the competition. Firstly, you get rid of a cheaper alternative, so that people will buy from your shop. Secondly, you stand to earn profits by reselling them. Yes, this is pretty evil thing to do , but it is risky and if demand patterns changes, you stand to make a loss. Never try to manupulate with the prices by buying everything up even if they are selling above market prices, and then try to sell the stuff above market prices. You will find yourself buying more of the same stuff than selling. Eventually you will run out of WT or $$$ and you are forced to sell your stuff at a loss.

b) Long term investment
Buy/Sell is a risky business. Usually you want to clear your stocks and do not want to keep them for too long. The reason is, usually it is not worth to wait too long to sell. Prices may fall over time, and you will make loss as a result. Even if prices increases over time, usually it increases too slowly to worth waiting. You can earn more by earning less in terms of margin but sell larger volume. The only exceptions are rare and limited items which will not be available anymore in future. You may invest in these items and keep them for months for prices to skyrocket. A good example is GMV (Golden Mole Vest).

c) Buy Camping
Buy camping is about staying around popular places like Meglopolis where most of the shops are, to look for shops that are newly opened, for the purpose of being the first to visit it. You want to be the first to visit newly opened shops because cheap things sells fast, and you want to be the one to buy them. Often, you find things selling way cheaper than usual, either because the seller has made a typo, or he is clueless about the prices, or he simply wants to open a 5min shop to sell his stuff ASAP. Some of the good bargains I have bought are: tortoise shells for 10k each, 100k ma14 luk9 ult bronze rod, 300k first anniversary card. To do this, you need to have time to idle around, while staying alert on new shops. Sometimes you can predict a shop opening when you see someone walks to a spot and stand there motionless. Also, you will need to be familiar with the market, so that you will know a good bargain the moment you see one.

d) Secondary "Scammer" Shop
This is not the same as opening 2 shops simultenously to sell your stuff. This is actually a theory which I have (but never put in practice) which is an even more evil technique than (a). This may or may not work entirely. The idea is to create a false illusion of the prices of certain items. When I am selling stuff, i noticed that my items tend to sell easier if there is another shop nearby who is selling the same items at higher prices. Typically these are for not so common items, where the market prices are unknown. The same items tend not to sell as well, even when i have set the same prices, and there are nobody else selling more expensive than me.

So to inflate prices, you need 2 accounts and 2 PCs, both selling the same items. One account will be selling the item for WAY higher than normal, the other account will be selling the same item at the price you want to sell at, typically is above normal prices. This creates false impression that the item you are selling is cheaper than normal. This can fool other resellers like you, who do have no idea on the actual prices and hope to buy and profit from it.

I don't recommend using this technique, besides being not so "ethical", it does not necessary work all the time if people are not fooled. You may have to open your shop for many days or weeks before you will be able to con some noobs.

Also, bear in mind that somebody else may be using this technique, so when you go around shopping for stuff yourself, you may fall victim yourself. So use some common sense to ask yourself whether that item is going to worth THAT much. Use extra caution when buying new items which you have no experience in trading with. If you are going to take risk to buy it, just buy one or two, don't spend a bulk of your money and buy a whole lot up.

[wackykid]

Reserved for future additions

[Aurvandil]

Hm, that's a pretty decent guide for those who wish to make money than level mindlessly. I like the idea of buying and reselling, as I do that often myself, mainly on the past event equips, such as 1st annivesary card, golden mole vest, etc. It's a nice way to make money indeed. I even got offered for 15m for a santa hat this year during christmas, it was very common from last christmas event, but since it cannot be gotten anymore, some people who are desperate who definitely pay them even if it's way-way overpriced.
I like this guide, as it gives an insight what other stuff you can do in this game, other than just leveling and reaching level 200, 250, 300, and so on.

[Vaizado]

So.... I've been going at this all wrong. I'm missing the 2nd PC for leveling. LOL well, I have more than 2 PC's just lazy to turn them on and train.

You should add somewhere, Always look at the item and read the items name before you buy it.
i agree, long Term investment is crap, don't do it.

You need money to make money. <--- that's the only bad thing. I dont know how many times I missed out on stuff that would have made profit of over 50m per sale, as in 12m pop pendants and 3m GMVs.... so, rule: Conserve you money and don't spend it all in one place, keep like 100m with you at all times. because shop items can't exceed over 100m you can always buy the item if it's worth it

[wackykid]

Originally Posted by Aurvandil

Hm, that's a pretty decent guide for those who wish to make money than level mindlessly. I like the idea of buying and reselling, as I do that often myself, mainly on the past event equips, such as 1st annivesary card, golden mole vest, etc. It's a nice way to make money indeed. I even got offered for 15m for a santa hat this year during christmas, it was very common from last christmas event, but since it cannot be gotten anymore, some people who are desperate who definitely pay them even if it's way-way overpriced.
I like this guide, as it gives an insight what other stuff you can do in this game, other than just leveling and reaching level 200, 250, 300, and so on.

thanks... it's the first guide i wrote... more comments from everyone are appreciated...


regards,
wacky

[wackykid]

Originally Posted by Vaizado

So.... I've been going at this all wrong. I'm missing the 2nd PC for leveling. LOL well, I have more than 2 PC's just lazy to turn them on and train.

don't worry... if you don't have 2nd PC you still can run shop... just that having a 24/7 shop is more efficient...

in fact... sometimes i have 2 shops running at the same time... when i am not playing my main... i run 2 shops with 2 PCs...

Originally Posted by Vaizado

You should add somewhere, Always look at the item and read the items name before you buy it.
i agree, long Term investment is crap, don't do it.

You need money to make money. <--- that's the only bad thing. I dont know how many times I missed out on stuff that would have made profit of over 50m per sale, as in 12m pop pendants and 3m GMVs.... so, rule: Conserve you money and don't spend it all in one place, keep like 100m with you at all times. because shop items can't exceed over 100m you can always buy the item if it's worth it

okay noted... good comments... i think you should maintain around 80% to 60% of your assets in cash at least... instead of investing most of your $$$ into items...

i will gather more comments and update the guide again when i have time...


regards,
wacky

[LeonSv]

Looks like a good guide wacky, although i personally prefer to hunt/dig for stuff, cause i love drilling ^^

[wackykid]

UPDATES:
- added section 2a)
- refined section 3b)
- added section 12d) for Advanced Topics


regards,
wacky

[wackykid]

Originally Posted by LeonSv

Looks like a good guide wacky, although i personally prefer to hunt/dig for stuff, cause i love drilling ^^

thanks...

i just added section 2b) on why don't i just hunt/dig for stuff... bbbt:

but it's all personal preferences... not everyone get the same enjoyment out of the same things...


regards,
wacky

[burntwig]

wow...
talk about detailed!
really informative wacky...
Thanks!

[khyle]

very informative
although it's a bit long & i doubt noobs will be able to get as much information from this
alot of people tried to harvest event limited items,
they buy cheap and attempted to sell them higher a month later or later
yep not everything will go according to plan and it's gamble doing this

im sure for anyone who has patience to to read through your guide,
this will really help them employ a good approach to making money in-game

nice guide by the way ^_^

[badna0]

This is an interesting guide, not run-of-the mill, and a good explanation of ECON 101, too.

I may try this out sometime... find me in mega... "B>2nd PC"

but in all seriousness, it's quite good, you have some very nice market analysis in there. Only thing would be maybe to improve your formatting, just a little bit, changing the formats and stuff for the headers (I need to do the same with my guide). overall, GJ!

[wackykid]

Originally Posted by khyle

very informative
although it's a bit long & i doubt noobs will be able to get as much information from this
alot of people tried to harvest event limited items,
they buy cheap and attempted to sell them higher a month later or later
yep not everything will go according to plan and it's gamble doing this

yeah my guide is pretty long... maybe i should add in the guide that patience is needed to be a resale trader too... and if anybody don't have the patience to read my guide... then good luck to him... bbbt:

anyway for harvest event items... one have to use their own judgement to see whether they are going to be very useful in future or not... if they are useful... then it's worth giving a shot to invest.

Originally Posted by badna0

but in all seriousness, it's quite good, you have some very nice market analysis in there. Only thing would be maybe to improve your formatting, just a little bit, changing the formats and stuff for the headers (I need to do the same with my guide). overall, GJ!

ok thanks for the suggestion... i think i still have some details to polish up in my guide... then i'll look at the formatting and looks... :)

and thanks all for the comments...!


regards,
wacky