Merching Blog Post


#1

Hey there,

This is Clouds and I often merch for fun. This will be my first post regarding merching. Here, I’ll talk about the topics that pop up in my head.

So why should you merch?
In ROTMG, I treat merching as investment. You can use the money you have and grow it in value. 2 weeks ago, I had a net worth of 3 life. Over the 2 weeks, I made over 300 trades and made about 90L in profit.

The ROTMG currency:
In ROTMG, we don’t have “money”. The fame and gold we have are all untradeable and as a result, the community found an alternative. While some prisons delegate cigarettes as currency, our community use pots and expensive items as currency. From my experience, the following items are used:

1 Def : 2-3 Spd/Wis/Vit
1 Life : 7-8 Def
1 Life : 2-3 Mana
1 UBHP : 3-4 Life
1 Deca : 4-5 Life
1 Fairy : 4-5 Life
1 Etherite : 4-5Life
1 ST Spell : 4-5 Life

These items work as a currency because there is always a demand for them. People want the items and as a result, the items are traded often.

As a warning, UBHP rings are slowly losing its value as a currency. Since the Deca ring stats overshadow UBHP ring stats, less people buy UBHP rings.

Markets
As a general rule of thumb, the more expensive a product is, the slower it gets traded but at the same time, the higher the profit. There are many items in the game and most of them can be categorised into certain markets. From my experience, most markets follow predictable patterns.

I’ll mention 3 markets that I used:

The first market I’d like to mention is the potion market. In this market, people buy and sell pots near the market price. In this market, it’s extremely quick to buy and sell. At times, I’d receive offers minutes after I post them! However, since so many people trade in this market, the profit margin is extremely slim. A single trade does not generate too much profit and as a result, may not be worth your time. The potion market is great for starting off but I’d recommend finding another market when you have the capital.
Example cycle: 1 def : 3 spd, 2 spd : 1 def

Similar to the potion market, the bulk potion market trades from potions to potions. Unlike the potion market however, one trade is heavily skewed in the merchant’s favour. The customers in this market are very specific. The market targets people who died recently but at the same time are rich enough to max their stats. This market is very interesting. The only reason it exists is because people are lazy. On a brighter note though, perhaps it’s because people want to spend more time in the game. The bulk potion market is very slow. Maybe 3-4 hours slow. However, the profit is immense for the money you are investing. You want to be timely and polite in the bulk potion market. If the customer likes your company, you often do multiple trades with the same customer.
Example cycle: 1 def : 2 spd, 8 spd : 1 L, 1 L: 8 def

The last market I’ll mention is the WC tops. For most WC items, the supply of items are huge in comparison to the demand. As such, it’s very quick to buy a WC top but slow to sell. Since the behaviour is predictable, we can take advantage of it. We know it’s slow to sell the item, so we simply decrease the price we sell it at. We also know it’s quick to buy, so we also decrease the price we buy it at. In short, we sell for cheap but buy it for even cheaper. In this market, you want to use the USW2 trade server to buy the item. On the trade server, the prices are more obscure compared to realmeye. At the same time, people get impatient and are more willing to negotiate. Once you get the item, you either post a cheap sell offer or contact a buyer on realmeye. To buy the item, you need to negotiate most of the time. Negotiating is a skill. The more you do it, the better you get. If you ever feel dejected, push on because you will get better.
Example cycle: 1-1.5 L : 1 acclaim, 1 acclaim : 1.5-2 L

There are many more markets in the game and I encourage you to explore. As a conclusion, I wish you luck on your future endeavours.


#2

I never trade unless it’s a necessity so I might just be stupid, but is “merchanting” a thing? I thought it was generally called “merching”. I guess the second is just the short version of the first, but I don’t think I have ever heard it called that.


#3

Thanks. I edited the post. Nowadays when I play, I leave my shop closed.


#4

Same. I usually have to settle for overpaying or being underpaid. And why? Too many kids try to “merch” nowadays.


#5

there are a lot more markets. St market, freebe skin market, expensive skin market, vanity market, tarot market, alchemist market, egg/feed might even be a market, also key market, although not really merching for the key market.


you make merching sound hard, but you really dont need things like negotiating power and such, you just need the ignore button and enough patience to keep going. I just realmeye, trading server is how u make small bucks, the big bucks are all made over realmeye.


#6

@CptShevu Interestingly, the more people that merch, the fairer the price gets, simply because merchants get impatient too. When everyone prices a product at let’s say 7 def : 1 Life, a single 7 def : 1 Life post doesn’t get a hit too often, so some merchant start posting 8 def : 1 Life. Going on from that, other merchants start following suit since no one will trade 7 def : 1 Life when there are 8 def : 1 Life offers. We can see a comparison in how the commonly traded def:life gives a 12% profit while rarely traded skins can give a 50%-100% profit. However, this is assuming that no one is manipulating the market.

@Scorchmist Yeah, there are so many more that I didn’t mention. I put up 3 markets that I know are reliable. I’ll mention a bit about the other markets here:
St market: Some sets don’t sell at all, like the mystic ST set. It looks like people trade a worthless set for a better set and then sell that one. However, flipping single ST items seem to have a decent payoff.
Vanity market: You have to be patient. I know a guy who bought the lesser mana pots for 1 def and then sold it for 6 Life.
Tarot market: It’s currently dead. Some people buy it for FP but there are better items for the same price.
Egg market: The eggs are normally traded, from an inexpensive family to an expensive family. Humanoid seems to be the most desired egg.
Feed market: If you buy treasures. list them as FP when selling. Most of the time, people will contact you through FP channels instead of treasure channels. The speed is decent but the payoff is low for the cheaper treasures.
Quest market: You can turn a profit easily with the quest market since not too many people sell quest items. Furthermore, many people want quest items. If 3k people want to finish quests daily, that’s 3k T7, T8 and T9 items traded every single day. Your supply of quest items are not normally bought from other people. Instead, most of your inventory is farmed from g-lands and dungeons. Items are bought often right before and after the daily quest timer.

I have yet to hear about the alchemist market. What is it?


#7

Alchemist market is dead now, since alchemist doesn’t exist anymore.

Also, shh, don’t tell them how merching works, more competitors for me ;cc


#8

yeah i dont really know anyone who does whole sets, but single items like etherite, geb tome, pixie, etc. can profit you a good 2-3 life. Not sure if its any good rn, but it used to be popular to many [quote=“Clouds, post:6, topic:11249”]
alchemist market.
[/quote]

oops thats the quest market rn. [quote=“Clouds, post:6, topic:11249”]
It’s currently dead.
[/quote]

not exactly, many predict its return and gather a lot of tarots for cheap in the mean time. Especially chariot. [quote=“Herkuzz, post:7, topic:11249”]
Also, shh, don’t tell them how merching works, more competitors for me
[/quote]

i used to think like that, but it doesnt make much of a difference. like ive had plenty of people copy my 200 offers but fail utterly.


#9

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