Beginner’s Guide to Merchanting on The Grand Exchange

Table of Contents
# 1.0 – Introduction
# 2.0 – The Basics
# 3.0 – Figuring out Buy and Sell Prices
# 4.0 – Important things to know before you start
# 5.0 – Automatic Item Buy and Sell Price Finder
# 6.0 – Credits

1.0 – Introduction
» Merchanting on Runescape isn’t nearly as hard as many people think.  In fact, with just around 20 Million GP, you can make around 1 Million GP per day with very little hassle.  Then, as the amount of money you have grows, you can make even more per day.

» Merchanting can be risky, but if you stick to the kind of Merchanting I’m going to tell you about there is little risk.  This method, called Fundamental Trading, is not only very safe but also is one of the most profitable methods of Merchanting on Runescape – especially for beginners.

» I myself used this method when I began merchanting with 15M in 2009 and I have gained over 1 Billion GP from it.  I still use it as my main method of Merchanting.
If you don’t believe I’ve made so much, just watch my video.

           Make per day with just !!!

2.0 – The Basics

How Fundamental Trading works:  Let’s use Raw Tuna as an example – 10 People each have 1K raw tuna that they want to sell quickly, so they all go the GE and offer to sell them at Minimum Price.  You, the wise merchanter, also go to the GE and you put up an offer to buy Raw tuna at close to Minimum Price.  After waiting for a while, you get all the Raw Tuna that the 10 people were selling.  Next, you put in an offer to sell the Raw Tuna you bought near Minimum Price for a few GP over Market Price.  These Raw Tuna are eventually sold to other players who put in offers to buy Raw Tuna at near Maximum Price because, unlike you – the wise merchanter – they are too impatient to wait for them to come in at or below Market Price.

The Kind of items that are good for Fundamental Trades: The more often the item is traded on the GE, the better the chance that people will constantly be selling low and buying high and, thus, the easier it will be to buy low and sell high.  Look out especially for items that eventually either cease to exist or are changed into a different item. Such as: fish which is cooked and then eaten, bolts which are lost during range, Yew logs which are fletched to yew longs (u) then to yew longs when bowstring is added and finally to GP when they are alched. 

Where to look for Fundamental Trades:  The Top 100 Most Traded List  is the best place to look for them because, you guessed it, this is a list of the items that are most traded and finding highly traded items is the key to Fundamental Merchanting.  There are some good Fundamental Items that aren’t on the Top 100 Most Traded List   but stick to just items on this list for now.  Later on, after you’ve had a lot of experience, you can start searching for other items on The Grand Exchange Database.

Example:  Though seeds are not on Top 100 Most Traded List they often are good to merch.  After every GE update, I look up Seed on the Grand Exchange Database, look through them and see if any of them look good to merch (and I’ve found some good ones.  I’m sure I’ve made at least 200m altogether from them).

3.0 – Figuring out Buy and Sell Prices

Figuring out the Buy Price:  Here’s how I do it.  I go to the Top 100 Most Traded List,choose any item that is more than 60gp each and I put in an offer at the Grand Exchange for one of that item at Market Price.  If the item buys immediately at Market Price, I put in an offer to buy the Item for about 2.5% under Market Price also, I add the price it fell/rose that day to the Buy Price.  If, however, the item does not buy immediately at Market Price I put in an offer for the item at 1 or 2 GP above Market Price.

Figuring out the Sell Price:  When it comes time to sell, I simply sell the item for 2.5% over the Market Price and, as I did with the Buy Price, add the price it fell/rose that day to the Sell Price.

How to figure out what 2.5% below and above Market Price is: The easiest way to figure this out is to multiply the Market Price of an item by 0.975 and 1.025.  So if you wanted to find the buy and sell prices of Tuna, whose market price is, say, 124GP, you multiply by 0.975 and 1.025 – 124 x 0.975 = 120.9 Buy, 124 x 1.025 =  127.1 Sell - so you would round up the numbers and buy at 121GP each and sell at 127 GP each.

Example for Buy and Sell: Say Yew Longbows’ Market Price dropped -9gp from 708GP to 699GP.  First, put an offer for 1 Yew longbow at Market Price.  If it doesn’t buy instantly, then buy for 1-2gp over Market Price.  If it does buy instantly, then first figure out what is 2.5% below market price – 0.975*699=682GP – then add the price it rose fell today to 682 – -9 +682= 673.  Thus, you would buy for 673 GP each.  To figure out the sell price, first figure what is 2.5% above Market price – 1.025*699 = 716. Then, add the price it rose fell today and that’s your sell price – -9 +716= 707GP.  Thus, you would sell for 707 GP.
  
   I also have made a spreadsheet that you might find useful for finding buy/sell prices. It basically does all the calculations mentioned above for you and all you have to do is put in the item name. Here’s the link.  The spreadsheet below (5.0) does basically the same thing except only for specific items which I know to work well using the 2.5% method. __________________________________________________________________________
4.0 – Important things to know before you start

There is a Trade Limit: You can only buy a certain amount an item on the Grand Exchange every 4 hours, depending on the type of item (see full list of how many of each sort of item you can buy every 4 hours).  Also, when selling back an item, there will be a 4-hour delay before it starts to sell, so don’t freak out if it doesn’t start to sell immediately.


You need to be patient when Buying/Selling:   When buying an item I reccomend that you wait at least 12 hours before changing the price. Of course you should only change the price if you haven’t gotten any of that item yet, or if you can tell that you’re not going to get any more at that price.  When selling an item you should definitely wait at least 8-12 hours before changing the price.  You have to wait 4 hours anyway before you even get a chance at selling them.  Stubbornness is very good when it comes to selling.

You should always check an item’s graph before buying:  Check the item’s graph on the Grand Exchange database on either Runescape.com or GrandExchangeCentral.com.  Don’t buy the item if its falling in price drastically – especially if you’re a beginner.  Also don’t buy it if its price is drastically rising or if the item is far above it’s usual price unless (1) you know for sure  why it’s rising and (2) are confident that the item will not be crashing (i.e. falling back to it’s usual price) any time soon.

5.0 – Automatic Item Buy and Sell Price Finder

   People always are asking me for good items and what price they should Buy/Sell for, so I made this spreadsheet that will do this automatically for you.  It’s updated automatically whenever the Grand Exchange updates, so it’ll always be up to date.

P.S. this is a new thing so I’d appreciate your input on it.  If you want to learn how to make your own spreadsheets like this one, see my Spreadsheet Making Guide.

6.0 – Credits
TedBundty – I did everything.  If you find this guide helpful, I appreciate if you use the share/save button below to share with your friends or post a link to this guide on a Forum.  Commenting is nice, too :).

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5. TedBundty’s New 2.5% Buy and Sell Calculator