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There are many ways of earning large amounts of neopoints, and sniping is one of them which doesn't require an excellent connection; it's also quite easy to learn, not to mention exciting. Essentially, just like restocking, you buy low and sell high. The exception, however, is that you're not buying from the main shops, instead you're buying from individual neopet user shops. What should I buy? This is a difficult question to answer as it really depends on how many neopoints you have to start with, how patient you are, and generally how much profit you want to gain each day. For example, if you only have 50,000 neopoints in total, then trying to snipe nerkmids is probably a bad idea. This is because you can snipe nerkmids at 99,999np and at least double your np, but are less likely to snipe them at less than 5000np. This is why if you have small amounts of np, you probably want to go for things like codestones, dubloons, faeries, and similar. These are also very fast movers, so they will sell quickly even if priced 'correctly'. If you're a patient person, willing to wait weeks, even months to sell a sniped item at the right price, then it'd be perfectly fine to go for slow moving items like high priced furniture, plushies, and the like. If not, then you're probably going to want to go for things like avatar items, snorkle snouts, piñatas, etc. Avatar items are fast sellers because so many people collect them. If you want high profits then going for codestones, etc isn't going to work, whereas searching for paint brushes and secret lab maps are going to earn big money. Why did the user price so low? Users will price their items incredibly low for a number of different reasons. The most common reason is the new user. A new user, unfamiliar with how the neopian economy works, will not price their item according to the shop wizard or trading post price. Instead they will use the 'estimated price' found on the item. Or they will just sell it for whatever they feel like at the time. To them, 1np is better than 0np. Another common reason, and an unfortunate one at that, is mispricing an item. Imagine thinking you've priced your item at 50,000, but you accidentally forget a 0 and so it's in your shop at 5,000. There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying an item even if you're fairly sure it was mispriced. It's the users fault for not checking and it's not against any rules to take advantage of this. The third reason a user may price an item so low is because they want a 'quicksale'. The item may very well be easy to sell or hard to sell, but if the user wants np quickly, they'll settle for whatever they can get in a short amount of time. This may mean an item that goes for 50k may be in a shop at 30k, or maybe something worth 5k is in at 1k. It really depends on just how quick the user wants to sell their item. You need to decide if the item is too difficult to sell in the time you're willing to wait. If you believe the potential profit you will make will take too long, you could decide it's just not worth the effort. It's all very well if the shop wizard 'says' an item is worth 50k, but if nobody will buy it at that price, it's not really worth that much. Similarly, a price war can develop between two players, both eager to sell their item. The item could have been priced correctly at 50k, but if two users really want to sell that item, they will undercut each other until their item is sold. This can often mean that both users lose out but they won't realise it until it's too late. It's possible that a price war could in fact mean that both items can be sniped to your benefit. Just remember, if you think a price war is the reason you can snipe the item, it's probably a little difficult to move. Another reason is simply a generous user who wants to share their wealth. Fairly uncommon these days, but it does happen. Some people just want to do a good deed and so will put an expensive item in their shop at a very low price. The last reason a person would price their item so low is to get you into their shop. Many 'mallers' or just regular shop owners will price maybe 5 items throughout their shop at 1np to get people in. You then search around hoping to find other good deals and this will encourage people to buy items spontaneously. Be wary and always double check if you want to buy any other items. Unless you know for certain an item's worth, check the shop wiz. How should I search? There are two ways of shop wizard sniping – using the regular shop wizard or the super shop wizard. To be able to use the super shop wizard, you must be a member of premium. This shop wizard will find the absolute lowest of all shops and so of course if one shop is priced significantly lower than everyone else, it's worth buying. The problem with the SSW is that you can't search for just any kind of item. You aren't able to search for lab maps, nerkmids, transmogrification potions, and paint brushes (some others too but I can't remember them all). Also, you aren't able to perform as many searches as the regular shop wizard (you wouldn't need to refresh as often though so it balances out for the most part). Whether you're using the SW or the SSW, you should open up the page in at least one tab/-blocked- I prefer to have a few open at once with different items entered. This way, I don't need to keep copying and pasting different items into the box. To open the SSW in a regular tab, launch it in a new window from your portal, then copy the URL of that window into a regular tab. I bookmarked this so that I wouldn't have to repeat this every time (in case you're wondering - I don't currently have premium, but have in the past). It is wise to only search using 'identical to my phrase', as this will avoid problems which arise. For example, if you're searching for mau codestone using 'containing my phrase', you will find both mau codestone AND mau codestone plushie. Whereas, if you searched using 'identical to my phrase', you'd only find mau codestone. Remember you can get shop wizard banned, which will make you unable to use the shop wiz until the next hour ticks over. What price should I buy items at? This really depends on you. You should base each purchase on either Xnp profit or a X% profit. If an item doesn't qualify, you simply don't buy it. Different items are going to need different baselines though. Buying an item worth 3000 because its priced at 2000 is quite different to buying an item worth 50,000 because it's priced at 49,000. A dubloon that goes for 3000 could be bought at, say, 2500 or below; or you could decide only to buy when it's half price, etc. It's entirely up to you. Remember that the higher the profit, the less likely you are to find the item at that price and the more competition you will probably have trying to buy it. How much money should I have out? This depends on what you're trying to snipe. If you're searching for rare, expensive paintbrushes, then you'll need at most 99,999 out because that's still a huge profit. If you happen to find 2 at the same time, however, then you'd have to waste time going to the bank to get more. If the items you're searching for are all usually unbuyable, keep maybe 200-300k on hand. Just hope like anything that the tax beast doesn't come. It's unlikely, but not impossible. If the items are much lower, then you can have less out. How do I snipe? Right so you know what you want to search for and what you're going to use to do it. The next step is actually sniping. Depending on how many items you want to search for will depend on how many tabs you have open. If it's something fast moving like codestones, then you'll want to refresh every 10 seconds, maybe up to 30 seconds. If you're searching paint brushes, those are not likely to come into the market too often so you can spread out your refreshing a little more, maybe every 30 seconds or once a minute. Refresh the tab and if there's nothing to be sniped, move on to the next tab. Keep doing this until something becomes available. If you find something, quickly open it and be ready to click and press enter to confirm the purchase. Watch out for people who will change the price shortly after you go into the shop, this can be just a coincidence or malicious, either way - be careful. I believe for the regular shop wizard that you can do 180 refreshes per hour now, this may be changed as it only recently was reduced from 200 per hour. 180 searches per hour means one search every 20 seconds. Anything less and you will get shop wiz banned before the hour is up. In saying this though, if you want to do all your sniping in 30 minutes then feel free to just search as fast as possible and get shop wiz banned. There's really no harm in being shop wiz banned. Just don't start any quests if you're already banned or close to it or you will fail the quest. Last but not least, remember to stock your items often. If you have more than 50 items in your inventory, you can't buy anymore items. Also, keeping your stuff stocked will also lessen the chance of the pant devil or some other event taking the item. |
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