Ten Tips to Help Improve Your Restocking

Do you ever wonder how some players seem to get multiple unbuyables from restocking each day while you never get anything, let alone SEE anything? I've been restocking for almost three years now and over all that time I've come up with some tips to help improve your restocking. If you follow all of these tips you'll be a restocking pro in no time! And even if you're already good at restocking, hopefully you find something here to help you succeed more and get richer.

1. Patience. Patience is by far one of the most important aspects of restocking. Think of restocking like fishing. If you walk around a lake throwing your fishing pole in different spots constantly... You're not gonna get anything! Keep this mindset while restocking. Sure, it's possible that you could walk in to a random shop and get something good, but it's NOT likely. Shops stock about every 8 minutes on average, but this does not mean that a shop will definitely stock in 8 minutes. It could take over an hour, or under 2 minutes. It's all random.

2. Zoom out. When restocking, it's important to eliminate any things that might slow you down while buying an item. Scrolling is one of these things. Press "ctrl –" to zoom your page out, and try to zoom your page out as much as you can while still feeling comfortable reading the names of the items in the shop and their prices. It may not seem it would speed up your restocking time much, but believe me, every single millisecond counts when there are multiple people all trying to buy the same item. This small thing could save you from missing out on a 10m+ item!

3. Haggle strategically. This is probably the most well-known tip for being a better restocker, but I figured I'd share it just because it's very important. If a Plushie Kougra Morphing potion stocks for 32,173, a lot of newbie restockers would instinctively try to haggle "33333." However, if you want to be a master restocker, you should try to use two or three fingers to haggle. For example, instead of haggling "33333," you should haggle "34343" or "34534" because you can type both of those haggles slightly faster than the "33333" haggle. Also, for items that stock over 100k, if you just try to type "111111" you may lose track of how many "1's" you've typed and either underhaggle or overhaggle the item. It may be easier to keep track of what you're typing if you type "123123." One last thing about haggling, you should always try to haggle a little bit over the item. If something stocks for 26,983 neopoints, it would be better to haggle "34343" than "23232," because the window for haggling over the listed price of an item and getting it is a lot bigger then the window for haggling lower than the listed price. The shopkeeper will accept up around 150% of the listed price but only down to 90%.

4. Pick an item fast! You should never spend more than one or two seconds looking around a shop that recently stocked before picking an item to go for. Suppose you're in restocking in stamp shop when the shop stocks. You start to go for a stamp worth 200k NP but as you click the stamp you notice a stamp at the bottom of the page worth 1m NP. You could do one of two things here. First, you could continue going for your stamp worth 200k NP, and second, you could go back and go for the stamp worth 1m NP. In most situations, you should do the first option and follow through with the first item you went for. If you try to go back and go for the second item you saw, it might be too late to get anything. However, if you feel that no one else is refreshing in the shop you're in, it might be worth going back and going for the second item you saw.

5. Learn what the junk items are in your shop. In most shops when picking what item to go for after a stock, you can generally assume that 1 in stock items with a high price are valuable, but in shops like Battle Magic, Defence Magic, and Ice Crystals, a lot of 1 in stock items can have a price of over 100k but only be worth 1k on the Shop Wizard. Try to memorize these items if you plan to be in a shop with expensive junk. If you don't have a lot of neopoints to spare and you're in one of these shops, you should probably keep the shop wizard open in another tab and check the prices of items that stock that you think might be worth a lot. While there's a big chance you'll miss out on some unbuyables, but it may be worth it because you won't be spending hundreds of thousands of neopoints on junk items.

6. Learn how fast shops are. A lot of shops tend to be more popular than others, and this causes items that stock to get bought a lot faster than in less popular shops. Pay attention to how fast items get sold out in shops you restock in. If they get sold out very fast, in popular shops like Stamp or Magic, you probably shouldn't try to restock in other shops while being in the popular shop. However, if you're in less popular shops like petpet shops, you can probably be restocking in a few shops at once and not miss anything.

7. Stay focused. It's not as easy as it sounds. When you're restocking, you don't want to be doing anything else at the same time, besides maybe listening to music. I can't remember all the times I've tried to watch television or type a long post on the neoboards while restocking only to miss a huge item like a Draik Morphing Potion. It may be boring to stare at your screen and refresh every few seconds... But it'll be worth it when you get something good!

8. Memorize the area the haggle box is. Again, this may not seem like it would help much, but every little bit counts. The time it takes you to move your mouse to the haggle box and click before you start typing out your haggle could cause you to miss an item. So after zooming your page out, try to memorize where the haggle box will on the haggle page so you can move your mouse to that spot while the haggle page loads. I started noticing I was getting a lot more unbuyables when I started using this method.

9. Don't get discouraged. This is really tough to do. When you miss out on an item worth millions of NP, it's hard not to feel bad. The honest truth is that most of the time if someone gets an item you were going for, they probably got the item because they got lucky and had a better refresh than you, not because you were too slow. Restocking requires dedication, and you won't feel willing to restock if you keep thinking "I missed that item because I'm bad at restocking." Restocking is 50% luck and 50% skill, and a lot of the time people are good with the skill part but just get unlucky with the luck part.

10. Stay calm. In my opinion this is one of the hardest things to do while restocking. A lot of the times when I was new to restocking I would see a very valuable item stock and I'd start shaking and mess up my clicking and haggling. When a good item stocks you need to push how much that item is worth out of your mind, and forget about everyone else trying to get the item, because otherwise you'll start to get nervous and you won't be as fast at clicking and haggling as you normally would be.

Follow all of these tips and you'll be rich in no time! Good luck!