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Back from whence I came.
"Dailies"
There are a few other places that you will want to visit every chance you get. Neopians commonly refer to them as "dailies" or "freebies." Two are located in the Lost Desert, one on Mystery Island, another in Meridell, and the last one is in the ice caves of Terror Mountain. Are you ready to start this leg of your tour? Good, it's traveling time again.
Coltzan's Shrine
The Lost Desert's mighty king's spirit is said to haunt his shrine, blessing deserving Neopets with gifts of food, strength, speed, or rare items. The luckiest of pets may get the ultimate gift of 1,000,000 NP's. Many Neopians say that to have a better chance of receiving specific gifts that you should visit at certain times.
I've also learned to watch my pets. If their reaction to visiting seems like they are unsure or don't want to be there ("Wouldn't you rather play Gormball instead?") then I've noticed that I definitely won't get a blessing from Coltzan. So if your pet doesn't seem sure about being there you might want to go back to the shrine later.
You can visit once every twelve hours or twice a day.
The Fruit Machine The other Lost Desert location that you don't want to pass up is the Fruit Machine. Similar to a slot machine, you get one free spin a day. If you get two or more of a matching desert fruit, then you could win as little as a few NP's and a piece of lost desert fruit or you might win big bucks or some rare items—including possibly a paint brush, a luxury item that you may have to save to get. (We'll talk about those later.) Tombola
Located on the southern shore of Mystery Island is a small grass hut where the Tiki Tack man operates his tombola machine. Once a day you may reach in and pull out a ticket. If your ticket ends in a 0,2, or 5, you will win a prize—NP's, food, bottled faeries and codestones are just some of the prizes that the Tiki Tack man keeps for his winners.
Even if you don't win, the Tiki Tack man may feel sorry for you and give you a booby prize that may be worth only 1 NP or over 100 NP's. (Where do you find the value of your prize?) "Risky" Dailies
The last two free "dailies" that you will want to catch if you can or if you dare are: Turmaculus
Turmaculus is a giant turmac that sleeps in Meridell. If you have a petpet you can let the little critter have a chance at awakening the King of Petpets affectionately known as "Turmy." If you are lucky Turmy will award you; if you are not so lucky, then bye-bye petpet.
I suggest that you buy a cheap petpet to use to try to awaken the Turmaculus, however there is at least a "consolation prize" of an avatar if he eats your petpet.
I personally view this daily with mixed feelings. As much as I like collecting avatars (and there are many that I will never have unless TNT allows us to have a fifth pet on an account.) as of the writing of this guidebook all of my petpets have been with me since I was able to buy them and give them to my Neopets.
I have, while traveling Neopia, seen mini memorials on pet lookups and petpages that say, "Leggs, the spyder, eaten on 06/09/02 by the great Turmaculus, may he rest in peace." Sad. Even so visiting Turmy might be worth it if you have an inexpensive petpet and aren't prone to getting attached to the little buggers.
Turmy can only be awoken for one random hour a day. You can do it the hard way and try back each hour or visit the message boards and watch for a while. There will either be a message that says, "Turmy's awake." or a few saying "Has Turmy been awake today?" Check those to see if he has been up already or not. The Snowager
Deep in the ice caves of Terror Mountain lives an incredible beast that tirelessly guards a trove of tempting treasures. He sleeps but three times a day and then for only an hour. If you are brave enough to venture into his lair, you may be able to steal an item from the Snowager's treasure.
The Snowager's sleeping hours are from 6am-7am NST, 2pm-3pm NST, and 10pm-11pm NST. His prizes are worth the risk of being blasted by his icy breath so be sure to set your alarm to visit. (Time this adventure with the healing springs in case you find your pets in need of the faerie's healing touch.)
Wheels of Chance
That covers all the daily freebies so we'll move onto "dailies" that require you to invest in the chance to win. There are currently four "wheels of chance" located in Neopia. If you are the gambling sort (I'm not—100-200 NP's in the bank is better than a possible win as far as I am concerned.) then you may find this section of our tour of interest. (Yes, yes, I know your shop is now empty. We'll get to restocking and buying items you desire for yourself next, I promise.) Wheel of Excitement
Location: Faerieland
You could win a mediocre prize, a great prize, or hit a losing section on the wheel. Of the four "wheels of chance" this one affords the greatest chance of winning a prize—though it may or may not be more than the cost of playing.
Among other things you may get from the wheel, you may catch a disease. (Currently that would be the Sneezles and you may get Mueka for a challenger. There's an avatar at stake. And/or you may get the Wheel of Excitement Avatar, if you are lucky enough to win 10,000 NP's.)
The Wheel of Monotony
Location: Tyrannian Plateau
This wheel should be called "The Wheel of Slow and Painful Torture." It may spin for as little as 45 minutes or a record 24 hours. You might win a terrific prize for your patience or end up empty handed. Whatever you do, once you spin the wheel do NOT close the browser window or move to another page. Open a second browser session to play until the wheel runs its course. (Spend this time restocking, or playing other games.) The Wheel of Knowledge Location:Brightvale The newest wheel of chance in Neopia. You may get a prize well worth the 500 NP's or take a loss. It's a gamble just like any other wheel of chance.
Wheel of Mediocrity
Location: Tyrannian Jungle
Just as the name implies you stand the most chance of winning a mediocre prize and less chance of winning a great prize, but if gambling is in your blood then you may deem it worth the chance.
Nothing more can be said of the wheel of mediocrity.
The Wheel of Misfortune
Location: Deserted Fairgrounds/Haunted Woods
You guessed it; there are more chances of getting a bad space where your pets may get sick or an item stolen. (Oh, that reminds me—stash the good stuff in your SDB while you are traveling around Neopia to ensure that it is protected from some of Neopia's less savory citizens.)
I guess reason could follow that with fewer chances to win the prizes might be better, but remember the Haunted Woods is full of monsters and shady characters like that Sssidney at the Deserted Fairgrounds Scratchcards Kiosk. (He cheats, you know.) You might spin, win and only get a Headless Vonroo Plushie worth a max of 1-2 NP's.
Restocking
Okay! I know you are just dying to build on that 230 NP profit that is sitting your shop till, so now we will talk about the basics of restocking. Since this is a beginners guide I won't expand greatly on this, but I will give you some starting pointers to keep you from making costly buying mistakes—both for restocking and for personal purchases.
Main Shops
Let's talk about the main shops first. All over Neopia you will find little shops tucked here and there that specialize in certain items from petpets to books.
These shops restock an average of eight times an hour on a random schedule. One pitfall of buying from them is that you can be banned from them for visiting too often or for making the shopkeeper angry. It's tricky to get the timing down for restocking from the main shops, but one trick that I've been told works is to count to five between refreshing the shop pages. (If you think you are banned, visit the Tiki Tack shop on Mystery Island. If there are no items there for you to buy, then you are banned. This may last a couple of hours or I've heard of it even lasting for a week.)
Items sell fast so you won't have much time to think about purchases—that is why it is important that you learn the prices for items in the secondary market. Not knowing the prices that you will be able to sell items for will put you at a major disadvantage as a new buyer. Initially it will be to your benefit to miss some items in order to check the average selling price with the Shop Wizard. What you may miss out on in doing so, may save you from making a horrible buying decision as some items sell for significantly less in user shops than they sell for in the main shops. Restocking experts recommend choosing a specialty and sticking to it until you are familiar with the prices of those items.
Sounds a little scary, doesn't it? And what are you going to sell while you are learning the prices of your chosen specialty? The Shop Wizard This is my tried and true recommendation—start with restocking from the user shops with the help of the Shop Wizard
Why use the Shop Wizard's services?
1) Not everyone has read this guide so you can find items priced significantly lower than their true market value in a setting that allows you to compare the prices quickly.
2) Some of the wealthier Neopians have sales in their shops where they may sell items for as little as 1 NP or half the price of the true value. You can buy those, sell for less than the average and still make a profit.
3) Mistakes get made and an item that should cost 1000 NP's might get priced at 100 NP's. This is fair—it is the shop owners' responsibility to double-check before they save their prices.
Again, I can't stress to you enough how important it is to spend your initial earnings and winnings on expanding your shop. (This is important especially if you are, like me, a mediocre game player.) To begin with you should spend more on expanding your shop than you actually do on the stock you put in it. (If you're good at games then this whole process will work faster for you.)
Now, what are we going to start off selling?
I will suggest a short list of some basic items, but another option (if you can earn the NP's to do it) is to choose your specialty and go to Neoitems.net's items database to get your shopping list together. Then get the Wizard working for you to find the items and their average selling price.
At any rate, here's my list of beginner restocks:
Remember—refresh the wizard and buy anything that will allow you to earn at least half the value. (Example: Sausage Omelette. Buy for 10 NP's and sell for 15 NP's. Of course, if you can get it for less than 10 NP's then that's all for the better.)
*Always have a second browser session running to check prices you see that might look low—again you might miss a good item, but it could save you from a bad purchase until you learn the prices.
If you start off with a random list, once you have expanded your shop size to around a size 6, then you will want to start paying close attention to your chosen specialty and begin moving into buying and selling those items. When you feel confident that you are familiar enough with the prices of those items begin trying to restock them from the main shops to increase your profit levels. Keep working on expanding your shop.
I can't say that I'm enough of an expert to guide you into advanced restocking, but I hope that this section will get you off to a good start. Where to go for help from here? Not many of the really great restockers are going to be willing to give you their list of items, but they may be willing to share general information and some tips. You might try the Shop Board or Help chat and politely ask questions. I can't say what you may learn.
The most likely way to get better at restocking is going to be by starting cautiously with this guide and learning through your own profits and losses. Owning a Neo-shop is a great lesson in marketing concepts that apply as much offline as they do online_ I wish you much success in your business venture.
*One note about adding music and a background in your shop: While you do have the option of adding music to your shop, many serious shop owners will tell you that it's not a good idea. The music will cause the shop to load slower (especially for those with slower internet connections) and a lot of people won't wait for it no matter how good your prices are. Backgrounds are great and can really dress a shop up—just make sure that the image you are using is a gif or jpg file and not a slow-loading bmp file. Make sure that you can see your prices with your background, too. You can change the color of the body text with the right coding or create a table around your items. For tips on how to dress your shop up go to The Neopets HTML Guide.
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