10 Tips to Succeed at the Trading Post

     The Mystery Island is one of the most desirable places for you and your friends to visit, if you are looking to have a fun a relaxing day. Although, despite from all the tranquility of the breaking waves and breezy forests, there is a turbulent place which is distinguished from the rest of this peaceful island.: The restless Trading Post. In this place, Neopians from all over the world gather in order to buy unique items that they would struggle to find, or trade their old belongings for brand new stuff!

     At this place, you can find thousands and thousands of different items. People normally go there to sell their stuff to gather some NPs, or to look for cool wearables to get to their pets, furniture to their Neohomes and even books, stamps or other collectables as well. If you want to take advantage of out of that in order to gain some more neopoints, the Trading Post is the perfect place to do so. But before jumping into the action, here is a list of 10 useful tips that anyone needs to know in order to succeed on the Trading Post:

     1)Bargain, bargain, BARGAIN! – Before selling items on the trading post, first of all you will need to buy them, eventually. You can try to restock items at the Neopian Shops around the world of Neopia, in which you can buy for pretty low prices and get nice profits, depending on the items you are aiming to buy. Although, it can take much more time to find a good item, as there are other players who are trying to get the same items as you. So you can see it’s not a guarantee most of the times.

     The other way to find items is to buy them from other players at the Trading Post. In order to achieve a decent profit, you will need to reach some nice discounts, so bargain is the key word. It doesn’t hurt to ask for a price reduction on one item you’re interested at, so just send the other person a neomail, and if he rejects it, try to find someone else to deal with. There are thousands of Neopian out there, so there might be at least someone that is willing to sell you one item at the price you are asking. But remember: BE POLITE! You will not want to argue with someone, nor be blocked simply because you were not a nice person to him.

     2)Always check the Trading/Auctions boards (check prices/look for cheap items) – Another way to find some cheaper items to sell is at the Trading/Auctions boards. There are a lot of players looking to sell their items for a cheap price, by many reasons. Someone might be looking for some neopoints fast to buy an item for his gallery, stamp album or any other stuff he is interested at, or wants fast money to make a bigger investment in other item. In this case you enter with the interest in their items, and is pretty happy to buy their items for a cheap price!

     3)Do not make a deal that you are not comfortable enough to – As I said earlier, there are plenty of players around, each one with their own interests. They are not going to make a deal that doesn’t benefit them at all, so you gotta be careful. Sometimes a deal may seem pretty great for you, but you need to analyze it with caution. Some item prices fluctuates a lot, and this may put you into some trouble. I tell you with my own experience that you can lose some precious NPs by not evaluating correctly and choosing the perfect approach. So if you don’t feel like it’s a good deal, just reject it. You may regret it later, but like the old saying: “It’s better safe than sorry”. So do not risk anything if you are not comfortable enough with it.

     4)Diversify the styles of items you are selling – There are lots of types of items around Neopia: Books, Stamps, Collectable Cards, TCGs, Furniture, Wearables, Food, Battedome Equipment... Each one of them will arouse the interest by lots of different players, so there will be always demand for all of them. So it is much better to have different types of items to be sold on your trading post than only books, or stamps, or wearables, so you will have more types of customers. But before rushing into anything, always do your researches right. You need to see the price fluctuation, the types of people interested on it and also if it’s easy to sell or not. Again, the perfect place to look for it is on the boards, so it doesn’t hurt to take a look at it once in a while.

     5)It’s better to have 10 items worth 1 m to sell rather than one item worth 10 m – An interesting approach. There are lots of players who may think because some items are high ends (which means they are expensive), they may sell faster or guarantee more profits. On the contrary, unless they got it from restocking, they will not get a big profit range, because normally some players do not accept big discounts on them, for the obvious reason that they are going to lose the opportunity to win a lot of NPs from an item they invested so much. So if you have some neopoints to spend, try to get some cheaper items, so you will be able to get better discount rates and also be able to sell faster, because of the same reason pointed out on topic #4.

     6)Put as many items as you can at the same lot – Another interesting tip. If you already are a big entrepreneur, or have discovered on your SDB a lot of expensive items lost in the middle of thousands and thousands of junk items, it is interesting to put them together on a trading post lot, especially if they are of the same type. For example, if you have six stamps, seven books and five collectable cards, it is better to create three different lots and put the items together as a group. That way, when someone is looking for one of the items you have on your Trading Post, they will not see only the specific item they are looking for, but all the other ones you put together. It’s a free way to advertise the items you have to a person that has found interest in one of your items, and may be interested in the other ones as well.

     7)Discount, but not too much – I am not going to be crazy enough to tell you to always look for discounts in other players’ items and not discount on the ones you have. The Trading Post, unlike the Auctions and the players’ shops, has the advantage of negotiating, which is the soul of profiting. The same way that you look for good deals, try to be flexible as well when someone contacts you with the interest on your items. But do this with caution: Keep in mind that when you were looking for any of the items you bought, you did that because you were looking for profit, and giving huge discounts to other players simply mischaracterizes the essence of the deal itself, because the more discount you do, the profit range you are going to get will keep reducing.

     8)If you already have in mind the amount you are looking for the item, make sure to put it on the description – Believe what I am telling you, but it’s way easier to sell one item if you put the price you are looking for, rather than letting the description empty or writing “make your offer” on it. As a collector that I’ve been for years and years, I have lost interest in buying many items on the Trading Post at the moment that I saw that none of the players were asking for a specific price, especially if I didn’t know its actual price range. That is said because if I don’t know the price range that the seller is looking for, there is no way I will be able to know if I bought the item for the optimized price. So unless you are also unaware of its market price, label your items with the price you are looking for, or the offer to beat (OTB) on it.

     9)Close and reopen your Trading Post Lots frequently – Most of the players put as their criteria of search the “Newest”, which shows the most recent added lots on the post. The most likely reason is because, especially for items that have a high supply, the competition for labeling the cheapest item on the Trading Post and for selling is immense. So, also to check the cheapest items available to be sold, make sure to close your lots and reopen then immediately. That way you can also be aware of the best prices on the post. After all, only the best prices are gonna be caught.

     10)Don’t take long hiatuses – Also because of the reason told on topic #9, you will want to check your TP lots daily for the simple reason that someone may have made an offer on one of your lots, and they will probably not let them forever, waiting for your response. Most of the players will retire their offers because they got annoyed of waiting or because they found another seller that answered them quickly. So if both you and the other seller had the same price labeled for that item, you would have lost a sale simply because you took too long to check your Trading Post Lots. Also, someone may send you a neomail asking for a discount, or asking for you to separate one of your items so he can buy it, but if you are not constantly checking the situation of your business, they may find someone else who is able to sell them the same item you have faster. So make sure to check it daily.