[FONT=Tahoma]Merchanting?[/FONT]
[COLOR=Blue] The Informative Guide on Merchants and Merchanting[/COLOR]
Hey this is my first guide for Mabi, but heck I'm gonna try my best ^^
What is merchanting?
Merchanting is basically a person that sells items that the merchant did not create him/her self. This is one of the most common ways of making money in the real world and it also appears in a virtual economy as well. Merchanting may make millions of gold/money or lose it all in one stupid decision, so merchants do have it tough.
Why would I become a merchant?
As I said before, merchants may make a ton of money, so getting to that 5mill Karis Wizard Suit or earning money for that expensive Japanese Sword would be faster if you decided to take up merchanting. Also it could be fun merchanting and controlling the markets of this game (which is why I like merchanting ^^) or you're just bored and want to try something else to do in Mabi, all-in-all, do give it a try!
Aren't merchants bad?
In short, yes and no. Reasons being that a merchant may help you get more money and help others that invested in the same product you merchanted get more money for their good, it's also bad because it will fluctuate the prices of items in the market, which can make someone's 4 mill investment instantly turn into nothing or make your investment worth rubbish. For the long version, yes merchanting is good since your income would increase if you know how to merchant well, you can control the price range of items if you merchant smart and you can easily be well off for your whole Mabi career. On the other hand it's bad because you can lose all your money and it could screw your money up big time. Merchants have it tough since they are playing in a high risk area where they can literally double, triple or quadruple their investment or lose it all. It's really only bad if you are not careful.
Wow, you convinced me to start merchant! I'm going to start merchant items now!
Hold it right there! Merchanting is good and all, but you need to know some basics of merchanting, also you need to somehow sell your items, this can be achieved by setting up a store, selling your item on the Housing Board or setting up an advertisement through making a party. I recommended to do all three at the same time since it would be more productive; set up a shop to sell your items and put up advertisement to buy other things to merchant to put in your shop.
The Housing board is a great way to advertise your items as well as merchant them there. Sadly I have never bought any sort of premium or advanced service so I do not know how to merchant well on the housing board >.<
Starting your merchanting career
Like all merchants, merchanting requires money out of the merchant's pocket as well as their time. You just can't buy something and raise the price of the item hoping someone would buy it! You need to know about the item and know about it well.
All items have something called a price tag on it and no it's not an actual tag, it's the worth of an item in gold. You also need to know about the price range of the item for example in the Mari server; Holy Water before sold for 10k per stack, the maximum price of Holy Water is 25k per stack, the maximum and minimum price of the item and the price of the item in between them is called the price range (In this case, 10-25k per stack is the price range for a stack of Holy Water).
When do I buy things and merchant them?
A rule of thumb for merchanting is "Buy low, sell high." This saying remains true in merchanting regardless where you merchant or what you merchant. As a merchant, your purpose is to make money not lose money; you also want to sell high because you want a high return (the amount of money you get back from selling the item) and not some mediocre price from something you got. You want to sell things at a high price since your return from that item would be greater than selling something for a lower price. Money is all it boils down too!.
I'll just buy everything for cheap and sell it for a high price!
Wait right there! You just can't merchant EVERYTHING! There are something that are just not merchantable even if the item has a high price tag. For example if a Grace Shawl Dress sells for 4 mill today and it sells for 4 mill for the next 6 months without the price increasing, that would mean there would be no point in merchanting a Grace Shawl Dress for those 6 months since you aren't making any money and really... the Grace Shawl Dress would be an inventory ornament instead. Make sure you merchant the right items and study the item before you even merchant it. It saves you money and time.
Okay than, I'll just merchant now!
One last thing before you go if you really want to merchant. Please make sure you carefully study the items you merchant and be smart. Not knowing that the item you merchant may not reappear again might cost you alot of money; on the other hand, not knowing the the item you are merchanting will become more prominent in the game can mean an inescapable ending to your money. Please do study up on your items as it will help you in both short term and long term.
Also be smart about merchanting please. It's very sad to see a person selling 10k Holy Waters for only 15k. Maximize profits and don't cut yourself money unless you're offering a deal to friends or guild members. Try and sell things for less than the maximum price since not alot of people buy things at max price and you are trying to make as much money as possible.
When selling at stores, look at other stores for the same item you have, and sell it for a little less than them if possible, this would get more people to buy your product and if you could restock as fast as your products go out, you would make alot of money!
You also do not have to exclusively merchant, you may also sell things you make and sell them at market price! For example I have a mule account where I merchant and I set up shop while I do some metallurgy at Qilla. This allows me to make money and merchant at the same time, so I don't have to just sit down and wait for people to buy my inventory. I make a salary and I merchant quite nicely.
Beyond Basic Merchanting: Analyzing the Market
Merchanting is a time consuming task and can consume even more time if you do not analyze the market. Studying the market not only helps you understand where money is flowing in the economy, but helps you make even more smarter decisions about what to merchant and what price to sell an item for.
Understanding the prices of materials needed to make a certain item such as a Plate Mail can inform you of the price you need to set that Plate Mail at in order to make money or it can help you decide if the item is worth merchanting.
Look at things being bought frequently. If you see an event where you require items dropped from monsters, it might be a good item to merchant them and make a quick buck. Also as a tip, event items always sell for a high price at the beginning of the event and will always trickle in price as time passes. Use that to your advantage when you merchant.
Try and see where money is headed. If you see that there are people rushing to rank up Spark, it's an indication that people are saving up money and using it to acquire those pages as well as crystals used to use the skill. This might mean that people might not be willing to spend money on those MP 100 Potions you bought.
Long term investments
Merchanting things that require time can be very frustrating since you don't really receive money, but it will come later on in the future. This can easily kill anyone's wallet if they are not careful.
Items that would be a candidate for a long term investment would be things are exclusive and/or available for a certain period of time or super hard to get such as a Mabinogi School Uniform, Chinese Dragon Armor, Dirk, Thunder Page 4. Holding these items for a very long time will increase the prices of these items since they will get more rare and rare as time passes by (this sorta excludes pages =P) and eventually there will be none in existence, so why not buy a whole set of these types of items and wait? The problem is that not all items that are exhibit the "available for a limited time only" property will not always increase in price. If something is available for a limited time and there are no good aspects about it (such as it doesn't offer any good bonuses, no enchants or it doesn't look good), investing into that item might not be worth it, and investing all your money into that item is a big risk. You have to use your Mabi experience and intuition to figure out what's merchantable and what's not
There is not "A Way", there are many ways
What this means is that there is not one way to do everything and it's the correct way to do things. There are many possible ways to get to the end, do what you can to maximize YOUR money and don't always follow other people's advice (yes, it also means you don't have to follow my guide to merchant). The economy always changes and eventually certain things will become so messed up on the server, you will have to take a different approach to make money. For example, although you can make alot of money advertising your item on the housing board, if you make more money setting up a shop than by all means set up a shop. But if the item for some apparent reasons stops selling in shops and sells alot more better on the housing market, than by all means do so as well. There is no "right way" to do things just like I said.
Conclusion
Hopefully this guide will help you on merchanting. If you have any questions please feel free to post on this thread (just don't nercopost it when it's dead) and/or PM me here. I'll create a Q&A section later when questions appears ^^.