Guides

What Malls Are

Malls are a collective venture between Neopians who join their shops together to form a mall. Shops are generally large (200+ in size) so that large stock can be held. Malls aim to reflect department stores in the real world, and place everything under one roof. The reason why people join together is to make stocking and coverage of item groups easier. That way, each user is able to concentrate on one genre of item stock. For example, Neopets A stocks toys and Neopets B stocks chocolate goods. A typical mall will have approximately 10 different shops, depending on how specialized the mall conglomerate want to be.

Malls are all interlinked, usually by graphic banners, in each shop lookup. That way, when a user visits a shop, linked mall shops are advertised in the same shop.

Malls are accessed by visiting the main market on Neopets. Unless your shop appears on the main marketplace listings on Neopets, your mall isn't considered a "main market". Your shop will appear there by default and the larger the size of your shop, the higher up in the list it will appear.

Why Work in Malls?
Malls increase the potential exposure of your shop. Because a significant portion of traffic to your shop occurs from the marketplaces (if you're a competing maller), the ability to have all networked mall shops under one roof, promoting each other increases your chances of being seen significantly more than if you were working on your own.

The neopoints incentive is great as well. Mall items, although have inflated prices, are bought by people who use the marketplace service (typically questers and new players to Neopets). This gives people who own malls a bigger profit margin that those who base their prices on the lowest via the Shop Wizard.

Terminology (alphabetically sorted)

Main Market – A main market shop is a shop that appears in the listings of the main market. There are three market places in Neopia: (1) Neopia Central; (2) Spooky Marketplace; and (3) Mystery Island Marketplace.

Mall - For the purposes of this guide, a mall is a collective agreement between Neopians to cross-promote each other's speciailized goods under one roof to help maximize profits.

Mall Leader – The person who co-ordinates mall activity, members, and promotions.

Mallers - People who participate in malls.

Spots – A spot is a place taken up by a shop. For example, if I am part of a mall, I take up one spot of the mall. Thus, in a 10 spot mall, only 9 spots are available left for other people unless I take more than 1 spot.

Common Misconceptions
One of the common misconceptions are that malls don't make money, and that their items are too overpriced. True that items are overpriced, however, people who buy from malls are new players to Neopets who don't know how to use the Shop Wizard, or use the malls to find items for their quests. Additionally, items in malls are priced higher, because the cost to upgrade shops are very expensive. For example, it costs approximately 16,000,000 neopoints to upgrade a shop to size 400. Additionally, good malls have advertising funds where members are required to donate each time the mall wants to run an advertisement (they can range anywhere from each week to each month). In a typical mall of 10 people, each person usually donates 400,000 neopoints and needs to make enough from their shop to cover this.

Additionally, the time investment required to running a mall shop is quite large. There needs to be some repayment in terms of neopoints for the time invested.

Malls Make Neopoints
People form malls because they make neopoints, and lots of it. Mall items are typically overpriced. How then, do they make so much money? People who buy from these malls are new players to Neopets. They don't know how to use the Shop Wizard, and as a result, they often visit the market shops for their items. Additionally, Neopets' quests don't allow the use of the Shop Wizard, and new players tend to use the market shops as their first resource for items. Because the larger shops are listed higher up in the market shop listings, these malls are highly traffic and as a result, sell more, and are able to sell their overpriced goods.

Another reason malls make neopoints, is that they are always stocked (good mall shops anyway) as opposed to the main Neopia shops, which run out of stock quickly. This makes it convenient for visitors to shop there as their wanted items are always guaranteed to be there.

Good Malls
1) Good malls have excellent leadership.
2) Good malls are consistently stocked.
3) Good malls check their hut ratings consistently and look at improving it.
4) Have good advertising.
5) Remember, communication is the key to running a good mall.

How to Make a Mall
So you want to form a mall of your own? This article is written from the viewpoint of the mall leader. Thus, when reading this, consider yourself the mall leader.

First ensure that you have a well-stocked shop that appears on the main market. If you're going to be the mall leader, you need to have better qualifications than everyone else.

Have a think through how you want your mall to be. What shops will there be, and what the rules will be. Write them down.

Post that you have mall openings on the NeoBoards. Mallers tend to hand out a the Battledome Chat so this would be a good place to start.

Determine where your hut position is and how to improve it.

Determine how you will advertise the malls. Most malls advertise on the front page of the notice board every week or other week. These advertisements cost 4,000,000 neopoints, so to balance the cost, each member of the mall contributes neopoints into the notice board fund. For example, if a mall had 10 members, the 4,000,000 neopoints would be divdided amongst the 10 members, so each person would contribute 400,000 neopoints each week for a weekly notice board advertisement. Other mall leaders divide the percentage share to differing members, because some mall spots are more profitable than others, for example, petpets.

With all that in mind, be aware that creating a good mall is quite difficult, as good mallers are typically all apart of a mall already. Additionally, the competition between malls is stiff, so unless you're willing to put in the time and effort, it won't work.

Joining an Already Established Mall
If you're looking to join a mall, you could start by posting a notice in the Battledome Chat. Be aware that to get into a good mall (a good anything for that matter), you have to fit into a certain set of criteria because they can be very selective.

A big determining factor will be your shop size, and whether your shop appears in the marketplace listings. For a guarantee, you'd want a shop to be over the size of 300. For a shop size of 400, you will require an investment of approximately 16,000,000 neopoints.

It'd also be a good idea to showcase what you propose to do. For example, if you plan to specialize in toys, then stock your shop with toys. Mall leaders want shops that are ready to go, not one that needs to be developed.

When you're in a mall, relationships with other people in the mall and with the mall leader is important. In addition to creating a better 'working' environment, these people can help you network with others. Most of the open mall positions are given to people the mall leaders know, rather than advertised.

It should also be of note that mall rules are complied with. Make sure you read them.

From your viewpoint, before joining a mall, you'll need to consider a few things. For example, does this mall appear to be a functioning, cohesive unit? You're wasting your time unless the mall system is actually working. A good indication of this is looking at the notice board advertisements. Good malls that work are ones that advertise on a weekly of fortnightly basis (alternatively, on a consistent basis). They should also have clear rules, expectations and a system of reporting to the mall leader, in addition to a good system of communication. Know what you're getting into, and what you're signing up for, and the best way to find out this information is to ask. Mall leaders want the same things as you do, to make neopoints so they will more often than not, be upfront with you.

A Rules and Guidelines Template
1) All mall shops convey a consistent theme and feel.
2) No extras that would distract from the buying process. Therefore, no music, backgrounds etc unless they fit with the theme of the mall.
3) No links to outside shops or malls.
4) The mall network banners in every mall. Typically these banners are the only ones allowed.
5) Stocking of the selected category only.
6) The requirement that the shop remains consistently stocked.
7) The requirement of a notice board contribution.

Maximizing Money
Price your goods at above average prices.

Upgrade shop size to bring up your shop listing in the market listings. If you have a good network of malls, then usually having one shop big will be sufficient if that shop links to all the other shops in the shop lookup. However, having more of your mall shops up there increases exposure for the mall overall as the larger your shop size, the higher you're your shop appears in the market listing or hut position.

Ensure the shops in the mall stock impressive stock.

If you price and advertise your mall correctly, then any mall shop should be able to make a nice profit. However, it is generally accepted that the following mall shops tend to have a bigger running profit and hence, more desirable: (1) faerie quest items such as books, cards, clothing, grooming, magic, and toys; (2) petpets; and (3) battledome items.

Final Note: What to Expect
In regards to sales, malls generally make more neopoints over the weekends. It can get low traffic on weekends, and all this, of course, depends on how high up your shops appear in the hut positions and how much advertising is done for your mall.

In a good mall, the average spot makes 300,000 neopoints a day. Some people make 500,000 neopoints off malls but that's a good sales per day.

Expect a considerable time investment. You must consistently watch your hut position, make sure all mall members are doing their job, and your shop is constantly stocked.

Our guild promises that you can make 10000 NP/day by following our tips. Many NeoPets users can claim that they've played for a long time, but never seem to be able to earn that much. Are we inflating our figures? To check our claims out, I started a brand new account. Armed with only 250 NP and a newbie pack containing a Rainbow Gun (which I gave to my pet), some assorted food items (Tigersquash Corn Dog and a Can of Neocola) and a book (The Big Book of Puzzles), The following report contains a fairly detailed account of how I made 100,000 NP in one week by playing only an hour and a half a day.

In this report, I'll occasionally capitalize terms (like SHOP WIZARD below) to indicate that I'm going to explain the reasoning behind why I did certain things. Note also that prices fluctuate on NeoPets. Prices mentioned in this report were current as of mid-April 2003, you'll have to do research to find out what the going rate for items are at present. Fortunately, this report shows you how to do such research - read on!

I began by clicking on the shop icon and opening a shop which cost me 150 NP. For another 50 NP, I upgraded the shop to size 2. Then I clicked on Quick Stock and put all the items in my inventory into my shop.

To set the prices on each item, I used the SHOP WIZARD. When you do a shop wizard search, it shows a portion of all the neopets users' shops with the lowest price on the top, but as I said the page doesn't show everyone's shop, just a group of the shops with the lowest prices for that item. So, if User_X is selling a Main Codestone for 1000 NP and I did a Shop Wizard search for "Main Codestone", I'd only have a 1 in 8 chance of seeing User_X's price on that page. Instead of seeing User_X as the lowest price, you might see the page with User_Y having the lowest price at a reasonable 4600 NP or you might see User_Z having the lowest price at the somewhat inflated price of 5100 NP.

To RESEARCH PRICES, you should do a shop wizard search, check the first few prices for the item and who's selling them, and then (since you can't refresh the search page) click Back on your browser (for Explorer users, use the Backspace hotkey) and click on the Search Shops button to do another search. If the same names/prices come up, go back and click search again. What you are looking for are the lowest prices on at least three different search pages. Obviously, if you can do more than three, your researched price will be more accurate - you might discover one page where several shops sell the item you're researching for a lot less than the other pages, but doing too many searches takes time and can actually get you banned from the shop wizard for up to an hour.

After doing my research, I set the prices on my items at insanely low prices (35 for the book, 23 for the neocola, 4 for the corn dog). They all sold very fast, netting me 62 NP. Realizing I wasn't gonna be able to make any serious profits until I had the NPs to buy some inventory, I decided to play some games.

GAMES are a great way of making some NPs when you have nothing, but since you can make NPs faster in other ways, you shouldn't spend too much time on them unless you want to. The maximum number of NPs you can earn for most of the games (the shockwave games) is 1000 NP and you can only play most games three times a day. While you may find there are a number of games that you can get the maximum for, but if you want to make NPs quickly, you'll resist the urge and only play games that give you a good number of NPs in a short amount of time. I always try to play games that award me at least 100 NP for every minute I spend playing them and try to get into the habit of playing the three or four games that take the least amount of time to play every day. Also for some unknown reason, from midnight NST (that's California/Pacific time) to a bit after 1 AM, you can play a game three times and the number of times you played per day counter will reset, so you'll be able to play the same game another three times later that day.

As for what games will net you the most NPs in the shortest time... it changes frequently as the games and the NP amounts awarded change. Often, the featured game of the day is a good game to play, since you get twice the NPs you would normally. The shockwave games I played regularly during this week were Volcano Run, Chomby and the Fungus Balls, Dubloon Disaster, Meerca Chase & Zurroball. I also played Poogle Solitaire and Grundo's Gym every day and Pyramids when I had a few minutes to kill at the end of a session. All of the Meridell games were not working, otherwise I would have played Ultimate Bullseye and Potato Counter and would have placed bets on Turdle Racing as well.

After 3 games of Volcano Run (the featured game), Dubloon Disaster, Meerca Chase & Zurroball (all of which I tried to play fast rather than get a good score), I emptied my shop till and had a total of 3095 NP. It was time to get some inventory for my shop...

INVENTORY is the term I use to describe the items for sale in a shop. Most of the inventory I sold in my shop, I bought in other people's shops and sold at a profit. Determining what kind of inventory is good is really based on how much of a profit you can get from selling it and how fast you can sell it.

There's been a lot of talk in the guild about people who have won auctions or done shop wizard searches and managed to get items worth several thousand NPs for less than 100 NPs. Obviously items like that are pure profit. Let's not assume you're going to find any such bargains. When considering what kind of profit you'll realize off an item, ask yourself, "Is it better to buy 40 items at 100 NP and sell them at 150 NP or 1 item at 4000 NP and sell it for 4500?" This question asks if it's better to get a larger percentage profit for each item you sell or just more NPs for each item you sell. Obviously, the 40 items would net you a bigger overall profit, but it would take longer to buy, longer to sell and require you to have a bigger shop to fit the inventory. Also, when you buy up all the cheap listings for each item ("cornering the market"), people with higher prices often lower their price just below yours, forcing you to either lower your price (and get less of a profit) or sit on your inventory until you have the lowest price again. Unless you're going to realize a huge profit on a cheaper item (over 100%), you should go for the quick 500 NP.

Since speed is a factor, you want inventory that will sell really quickly. You might have a Meerca Squirt Bottle for sale for 4700 NP which may be a very good price for that item, but who wants such an item? The item is only usuable by Meercas and it isn't the greatest weapon. Try to stick with inventory that a lot of people are looking for: Codestones & Dubloons are very popular, Neggs, Bottled Faeries, Scratchcards, Morphing/Transmogrification Potions, and certain battledome items usuable by any species also sell well. You can also turn a good profit by trading in items that appear as Faerie Quest objects (plushies/toys, books, candy/cake, etc), but often people dump these items at really low prices which may force you into the "cornering the market" situation mentioned above. Finally be sure to periodically check the shops around Neopia itself (the Bookstore, the Magic Shop, etc.). Even if you're not fast enough to snag some of the hotter items, you can find out what items are available and track them down on auctions and the shop wizard.

One of the items I saw in the magic shop was Stream of Light. I checked the shop wizard and found that the lowest prices on most of the pages was 500 NP or more, but I found a page where one user was selling two of them for 366 and another user was selling one for 400 NP. I snagged these and while in one of their shops, I found a Salt Mote for 200 NP which I also bought (because I didn't recall motes being that cheap). When I checked the wizard, I found out Salt Motes were trading for a little under 500, but I found another shop where I bought 5 more Salt Motes for 300 NP each. In order to fit all this inventory into my shop, I upgraded the size again and set the Stream of Lights at 495 NP and the Salt Motes at 450 NP.

Then I went to the guild and did all the activities I could (new users can't use Coltzan's Shrine, the Fruit Machine, Tombola and a few other things during the first few days). I got an omelette and a Healing Potion X from the healing faerie (which I sold for 70 NP). I played Poogle Solitaire & Grundo's Gym (an awful game when you start out - takes too long and provides no great reward, but should be played anyway since you occasionally get health food items which can be sold, your pet's stats can increase and after a few months of play, you'll be earning a couple of thousand NPs per game). I also snagged 150 NP off the Money Tree which I used to upgrade my shop again. I bought a scratchcard for 600 NP and won nothing (I would waste a lot of money on scratchcards - see below). I opened a bank account (the bank gave me 30 NPs just for that) and before I signed off, I took the rest of my NPs and bought a couple of really cheap books (Train Koi, World Class Wockys, Nest Builders Manual, When Your Meercas Hurt) haggling at the bookstore.

HAGGLING is a skill that I understand but haven't mastered. Unlike the shops (or at the igloo garage sale), in the stores of Neopia, you have to haggle. It's time consuming and along with the five second rule (you can't purchase two items within five seconds of each other), it's meant to help those with slower connections. It doesn't really work that way, but it is a skill that can get you a lower price on an item. I've found that if you walk into a store and offer 80% of an item's asking price, they'll accept. There are circumstances though where you can offer less than 70% and have the storekeeper accept and other times when they won't accept 80% of the asking price (I believe this is influenced to a degree by how much haggling you do with the storekeeper because they do occcasionally get upset with you and kick you out of the store). My advice on haggling is that there are a lot of items that sell out in the stores very quickly and you shouldn't try haggling the price down too low if you want to snag that item. Whenever I go to the bookstore, I want the storekeeper to accept my first offer because the book I want will probably be out of stock a few seconds later.

Other items can be found on the Shop Wizard for less than in the stores. It is possible to make a good profit on such items. For instance, I was able to haggle with the storekeeper at the Toy Shop over some Cheery Blossoms that he was selling for 400 NP and get 2 of them for about 260 NP each. I resold them in my shop for 375 NP each (the lowest price I found on the Shop Wizard was 380 NP). They sold very quickly - it was a small profit, but it took me very little time to achieve.

At this point, I had no NPs in hand. I placed all my inventory in my shop and set their prices to match or beat the lowest price I could find on the Shop Wizard and then I logged out and went to work. When I came back, I emptied my shop till and my bank account and after playing 3 games of Chomby and the Fungus Balls, I had racked up 6681 NP. First, I checked the Shop Wizard for "two dub" and found someone selling a Two Dubloon Coin for 3685 NP. I bought the coin and went to The Golden Dubloon (on Krawk Island) and bought a Caesar's Salad for my Neopet. My neopet got a yummy meal and I got a One Dubloon Coin as change which I put in my shop and sold for 3825 NP.

A quick word on PROFIT. The Golden Dubloon trick is well documented (see the guild web site), so I'll only say there's a bigger demand for One Dubloon Coins than Two Dubloon Coins, due to the number of neopets of level 1 - 10. I made another small profit by swapping my Two Dubloon Coin for a One Dubloon Coin (140 NP), but if I had the NP I could have bought ten Two Dubloon Coins for a bit under 37000 NP and sold them for 38250 NP (a 1200 NP profit). It served as a big incentive not to spend any NPs knowing I could accumulate NPs much faster if I had more NPs.

I was getting tired of getting these small profits (earning less than 5% of my purchase price), so I decided to experiment on the extreme. One of the most underpriced items on Neopets (mainly because of its availability) is the Pale Elixir. An item that restores 9 HP in the BattleDome, it can be found for 35 NP or less (which is about 1000 NP less than the Bomberry Elixir which restores 11 HP in the BattleDome). As far as use is concerned, it's potentially more useful than Healing Potions I through X, but can be found for a lot less. With this information, I bought every Pale Elixir I could find on the Shop Wizard that was priced under 20 NP and put them in my shop for 25 NP. Then I found my entry on the Shop Wizard and bought every Pale Elixir that was priced less than mine (and added them to my inventory) so my name appeared on the top of the page.

When I discussed the Shop Wizard before, I mentioned that the listings are broken into at least thirteen groups of listings. The page that shows your listing is what I call YOUR SHOP WIZARD PAGE. Often to sell an item, you don't have to have the lowest price in all of Neopia. If you have the lowest price on your Shop Wizard Page, people using the Shop Wizard may just buy the item from you rather than hunting for a lower price (which may not even exist). People who were looking for Pale Elixirs had no problem paying my 25 NP price tag, if they bothered to check the wizard, they might've found a Pale Elixir for a few NP less, but most people just bought from me rather than waste the time searching on such a cheap item.

Understanding the Shop Wizard:

When you look at a Shop Wizard Page, you aren't looking at everybody's shop. I may have a Pawkeet for sale at 80,000 NP and you might not see my name/price info when you search for "Pawkeet" on the Shop Wizard.

What you're actually seeing is a group of shops selling a Pawkeet. Neopets has divided its users into groups based on the first letter of their user ID and there are 13 different groups (there used to be 8, these are the updated groups).

1) a,n,0
2) b,o,1
3) c,p,2
4) d,q,3
5) e,r,4
6) f,s,5
7) g,t,6
8) h,u,7
9) i,v,8
10) j,w,9
11) k,x,_
12) l,y
13) m,z

The Shop Wizard Page can work to your advantage in other ways too. A week later, the lowest price anyone was selling One Dubloon Coins for was 3785 NP and one of the sellers had hundreds of them at that price. When I put a One Dubloon Coin in my shop, I set the price at 3780 NP (so I had the lowest price) then I checked the Shop Wizard to see my name on the top of the page but when my Shop Wizard Page finally came up (it took several searches), the price directly below mine was 3850 NP. I quickly changed my price to 3825 NP and bought as many One Dubloon Coins from the shop that had them for 3785 NP as I could (I could afford about 25) and put them in my shop before I logged out. They sold quickly and I was 5000 NP richer when I logged on the next day.

The drawback to buying all those Pale Elixirs and reselling them was that it was time consuming (I had to check the Shop Wizard Page for cheaper Pale Elixirs to buy up) and I had to upgrade my shop to fit all the Elixirs I bought. I spent another 1500 Np to bring my shop up to Size 9 and after running through my inventory of Pale Elixirs, I bought another shop full of Elixirs, bought a couple of books (Radioactive Pteri Part 1 & Quick Reference Dictionary) for 550 NP and upgraded my shop to Size 13 and logged out for the night, having played for 90 minutes in two sessions.

This experiment with the Pale Elixirs had another consequence. I could no longer detail every purchase and sale I made (there were just too many of them to deal with!). My notes after day 1 concern themselves more with certain items that I was now able to buy and sell and what to do when I had too much money.

When I logged on for Day 2, I emptied the shop till and bank account and had 7508 NP. I did a quick shop wizard search and was able to buy two One Dubloon Coins for 3600 NP each. I put them in my shop, marking them up to 3735 NP (the low price that day was a bit under 3700, but the low price on my shop wizard page was 3750). I played my daily round of games and emptied my shop till. I looked at the inventory for sale in some of the Neopian shops and snagged a copy of Kiko's Darkside and one of the Neopian Encyclopaedias at the bookstore.

When I did research on the prices for encyclopedia, I discovered that on just about every shop wizard page, there were one or two shops selling volumes for under 700 NP but everyone else was selling for 800 NP or more. I then bought up all the encyclopedias I could find for less than 700 NP and sold them for 800 NP. While I picked up these books, I also happened on one or two good bargains (a Purple Negg for 2000 which I sold for 3260 and a Good Luck Ankh for 1100 which I sold for 1860). I dumped all the books in my store (selling for various amounts between 730 and 795 NP) and logged off.

I came back several hours later, emptied the till (a few of the encyclopedias didn't sell, so I marked them down 10 NP each) and invested my NPs in as many Two Dubloon Coins as I could (someone was selling a few hundred of them at 3600 each - I marked them up to 3675 and they sold fast). While they sat in my shop at over 3800 NP, I played a few more games. Bought another scratchcard (another 600 NP down the drain!) and logged off for the day.

Day 3 came fast (since I logged on shortly after midnight NST), I emptied the shop till. Everything had sold and I had 22349 NP. The guy with all the Two Dubloon Coins still had about 30 left. I bought six of them and paid six quick visits to the Golden Dubloon, putting the change in my shop after each trip. I played all my games (and I'd get to play them all again later that day because of the time) and logged out for the night.

The next day was still day 3 and I converted my NPs into more Two Dubloon Coins and a couple of Bottled Earth Faeries which seemed to be going up in price (available for 2800 only a few weeks earlier, they now often sold at 3200 and would rise even more). I played my games again, blew another 600 NP on a scratchcard and debated whether I should continue throwing NPs away that way. If Turdle Racing had been available, I would have thrown my money away there too (NOTE: THIS EXPERIMENT WAS DONE SHORTLY AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF MERIDELL AND DOES NOT INCLUDE THE WAYS OF MAKING NPS THERE).

As I started Day 4, I had 38405 NP - much of the previous day's profit coming from playing all my games twice. 30000 of that was spent on a Cybunny Transmogrification Potion which I noticed was selling way below the next lowest price of 44500 NP. I poured the rest of my NPs into buying more encyclopedias for under 700 NP and selling them for over 700 NP and played some more games.

Let's talk about THE BIG SCORE. This is what you're looking for on Neopets. Whether it's winning 10000 NP or more from a scratchcard or finding a Main Codestone on the floor or stumbling upon the shop of some guy who's quitting the game and has graciously marked everything in his store down to 1 NP - it's all about scoring big NPs without really trying. Most of it is luck, but there are ways of making your own luck. Random events - such as finding codestones, neggs or other items happen just by accessing a page on the Neopets site. By playing certain non-Shockwave games, like Pyramids or Gormball, random events will happen with a bit more frequency. Scorchy Slots is an interesting game in that random events seem to happen more often than not (though most of them involve finding NPs or having NPs stolen). My big scores during the week were finding the under- priced Cybunny Transmogrification Potion in a shop and a Mau Codestone on the floor during day 4 and finding an underpriced Blue Scorchstone on day 6.

The Cybunny Transmogrification Potion would take a full day to sell (I priced it at 42500), so I took the rest of my NPs and bought some codestones. I had just found my first codestone and used the Shop Wizard to price them. I noticed someone was selling Zei Codestones for 4100 when everyone else had them for 4500, I bought what I could and moved on.

On Day 5, I started with 47257 NP in my hand and some unsold stock. I got down to business and researched the prices for dubloons, faeries, codestones and various morphing potions. After 45 minutes, I had bought about 25000 NP worth of inventory but was out of time and I hadn't even played a single game! Not wanting to keep my remaining 20000+ NP lying around, I bought a Scratchcard (another dud) and invested 15000 NP in the stock market.

Let's talk briefly about the STOCK MARKET. I don't know exactly how it works. I would like to think that like the real stock market the rise and fall of the stocks is the result of trading, but I know this isn't the case. If I have 15000 NP that I know I don't have a chance in heck of spending on inventory for my shop. I'll buy 1000 shares of whatever stock is currently at 15 NP/share. My biggest problem with the stock market is that your money is kind of locked in. If you are serious about seeing a return, you can't cash your stocks in just because you need the NPs. I did this a lot when I started out and I quickly realized that if you're not gonna wait until your stock rises even 1 NP/share before selling, you shouldn't have bought the stock in the first place. I waited until I had so many NPs that I didn't have time to spend them all. The stock market can be great, but you should probably wait until you earn your first 50000 NP first - until then, there are a lot faster ways to earn NP.

Note: the end of this story involved finding a Blue Scorchstone for 62000 NP and reselling it for 78500 NP (then the going rate). When you have lots of NPs to spend, you can easily buy expensive underpriced items and make a profit while people who have less than 1000 NP on hand can only grumble and mutter about how they wish they were rich.

There are a myriad of ways to change your pet's appearance on the Neopets site. The primary changes available are color and species but there are many options available for achieving either. It is important to note that any item which changes species will also change the color of your pet. Therefore, I will adress color changes first.

Changing color without changing species

Paint Brush
Paint brushes are the most obvious and well known way to change a pet's color. Below are some pieces of trivia about Paint Brushes:

* Retired paintbrushes will still work! Only retired colors no longer work.
* There are only two retired colors: Stone and Glass. Pets that were painted Stone and Glass turned into Mystery Island and Tyrannian versions, respectively. (Credit to Neocolours for this information.)
* Currently only three Paint Brushes may be bought. Baby, Royal, and Darigan are all available for purchase in the Hidden Tower in the Faerie City.
* Any retired Paint Brush may be gained through Random Event or won from the Fruit Machine in the Lost Desert or the Tombola on Mystery Island.
* Some Paint Brushes may be won from completing World Challenge maps.
* Starter Paint Brushes are available in the Newbie Pack of a brand new account but these items may not be sold or traded. They only come in the basic colors: Blue, Green, Red, and Yellow.

Chia Pops
Less well known than paint brushes are the magical properties of certain Chia Pops when fed to a Chia. This is the sure-fire way to get a fruity Chia.

* Chia Pops may be bought from the Snow Foods store on Terror Mountain.
* All of these items are r99 which makes them very rare. It also makes them gourmet foods and highly sought after. These items will always be very expensive if bought from a user shop.
* Chia Pops which will make your Chia into a fruit or vegetable. INSERT LINK HERE RE CHIA POPS FROM PETS, GENERAL INFO

Fountain Faerie
The Fountain Faerie will give out quests just like the regular faeries but she is incredibly rare. If you are lucky enough to find the item she is looking for then you may afterward visit her Rainbow Fountain in the Faerie City and paint a pet of your choosing. Below is some further information about the quest and paint options:

* Which item she asks for can vary widely in rarity and price and seems to come from any item group. Some people get away with paying only a few thousand and others are asked for an item worth several hundred thousand.
* It is commonly agreed that Royal is unavailable from the Fountain. It is likely that there are a few other unavailable colors as well.
* Once you complete the quest, you may go back at any time and paint any pet you have on the lucky account. It does not matter which pet is active when you complete the quest and your free ticket into the Rainbow Fountain will not expire.

Random Events
Yes, your pet can actually change color as the result of a Random Event. As far as I know, these are all rather rare.

* Red: If your pet becomes angry there is a slim chance that it will turn Red. This will most likely occur to pets which are hungry.
* Blue: If your pet becomes sad there is a slim chance that it will turn Blue. Sick pets will become sad at an alarming rate.
* Invisible: The text of the Random Event is: "Oh no! Where on earth is [INSERT PET's NAME HERE], you cant find her anywhere!!! Where on Neopia could she be?"
* Baby: A Baby Bruce named Boochi is known to take potshots at pets. Sometimes he will miss but if he doesn't then you get a Baby pet.
* The Red and Blue Random Events may target any one of your pets, whether it is active or not.
* It is believed that the Boochi and Invisible Random Events only target your active pet.

Changing species
This is where most of the fun is.

Morphing potions
Morphing potions are the most direct way to change a pet's species. Most species morphing potions are available in several colors. Below are a few facts about morphing potions:

* If you give a morphing potion to a pet both its color and species will change. For instance, if I give a Green Uni potion to my Blue Lupe tthen my Blue Lupe will become a Green Uni. If I give the Green Uni potion to a Blue Uni, then the Blue Uni will become a Green Uni.
* Morphing Potions can be bought from Kauvara's Magic Shop.
* The Stone Lupe Morphing Potion exists but will do nothing because the color has been retired.

Transmogrification Potions
Transmogrification Potions are a special kind of Morphing Potion. They work just like the Morphing Potion but they will only make Mutant colored pets.

* Transmogrification Potions may only be obtained through a Random Event where Dr. Frank Sloth gives you one.
* If I give a Lupe Transmogrification Potion to a Blue Lupe, it will turn into a Mutant Lupe. If I give a Lupe Transmogrification Potion to a Blue Uni, it will also turn into a Mutant Lupe.

Magical Plushies and Toys
These items are very rare. They act in a similar fashion to Morphing Potions.

* Magical Plushies and Magical Toys work exactly the same way and do the same thing. To activate this item, you must have your pet play with it.
* After the plushie or toy has been played with, it turns into a regular toy or plushie and loses all magical properties.
* Some of these were given as prizes in some games very long ago. Now you can only buy them from the Toy Shop in Neopia Central if you are very lucky.
* Note: Ignore the non-magical plushies. They don't do anything.
* Note: Ignore the non-magical toys. They don't do anything.

The Lab Ray
This very special thing allows you almost unlimited access to both color and species changes. As such, I feel it ought to get its own category.

This is something that members need to do on their own. Determining the price of things. Allow me to offer you a little lesson.

IF the item in question is UNDER 99,999nps, type the name of the item, identical. Other prices should now show up 99,999nps or lower. Take the one at the top, let's say it 37,700mps for this item. Now put in 37,699nps as you new max willing to pay and refresh again. Do this repeatedly until after 6 or 7 refreshes, nothing lower comes up, then set your price slightly lower, usually 5nps lower. You should now be the lowest price of that item currently.

You may need to recheck your prices to make sure that you are still the lowest. I'm online so much that I check SEVERAL times a day! You should re-check AT LEAST once a day, and re-price your items as needed to make yourself the lowest again.

This is the fastest way to move items under 99,999 nps, thru your shop!!
I've made MILLIONS doing this and you can too!!

If the item isn't on the Wiz, check the Trades/Auctions. The Chat Boards can also help you price an unbuyable item.

Good Luck and Rock On!!

Making points from the stock market is a long term strategy - you're talking weeks if not months.

1. Buy stocks at 15np (the minimum) every day. Buy the maximum you can afford, and try to buy different ones
2. The more different stocks you have the more opportunities for profit you will have
3. Have a selling strategy and stick to it - ie sell at 20np+ (profits of 100% or more are possible but rare.) Remember you can only buy 1000 a day to make points you need to make your portfolio bigger - so sell no more than 1000 a day unless you really need to
4. Remember when you sell to buy more stock at 15np
5. Don't panic sometimes you may not have anything to sell - many of your stocks will be worth less than 15np - they will go up eventually. (Occasionally one may go bust!)
6. Once you have a lot of different stocks you often be able to make 10,000 a day, in a couple of clicks - great for those times when you can't be on line for long.

I think some wheels are definitely better and more worth the costs than others.

Wheel of Excitement: Not a bad wheel, 150 nps to play, chance of winning 10,000 nps, level ups, items, I usually get the ? but oh well.

Wheel of Misfortune: Not worth it in any way in my opinion. Too many bad "prizes" and risks.

Wheel of Mediocrity: Not horrible, 50 nps to play but prizes aren't all that great.

Wheel of Monotony: Besides the long wait and the play once every 24 hrs I like this wheel. For 100 nps you can win 5,000 nps when you land on the single bag of nps. Imagine if you land on the multiple bags of nps. Also, there is the chance of winning a Tyrannian Paint Brush or Tyrannian Petpet Paint Brush.

Wheel of Knowledge: Least favorite wheel of all. 500 nps to play and I usually get a free spin and a berry on the next spin. I dont think its worth the price. Maybe once I have some luck with it I'll like it a little more.

Fruit Machine: Says "Spin the Wheel" so I guess its a wheel. I like this wheel a lot. I won a 15,000 nps, a Blue Paint Brush, and an Evil Muffin. Sold the Paint Brush for 40,000 nps and the muffin for 350. That's a 55,350 nps profit from that one free spin. Definitely worth a 2 second click each day.