The Eccentricities of The Neopian Market and How to Benefit From Them

by grimivydown

I've only been on NeoPets for 2 and a half weeks and I'd already discovered where the real money comes from. Not in playing every game daily but in shopkeeping. Nope, this is not another article on effective money-making but on how why shopkeeping is so profitable. The main reason being that NeoPets, much like the real world is governed by market forces and where there is demand for an item, the price of that item increases.

Here's a few examples. Remember the time when Neopkins cost 7000 and there was big bucks in buying and reselling it? I do. Since it was just a few days ago. The price of Neopkins, last time I checked was 3000 and the price should fall to about 300 in a few more weeks. The reason for this is because the Wheel of Excitement skull slot now doles out the Bloaty Belly disease. You cannot imagine my joy when my pet first got Bloaty Belly from the Wheel of Excitement. I immediately withdrew 6k from the bank, rushed to the Pharmacy and bought out every bottle of Flat-U-Less they had. Then, I searched the Wiz and bought my 6k's worth of Flat-U-Less. At that time, each one cost about 300. One day later, the price of Flat-U-Less shot up to 4000 NPs. Pricing the 20 odd bottles I had at 3999, they were snapped up in a few minutes and the end result was a profit of 70,000. A good day's work, my only regret was not buying more.

The very next day, the day I decided to write this article, Flat-U-Less prices has dropped by at least a thousand because people had discovered the poisonous mushroom and Neopox pizza combo. A much cheaper alternative which I already knew about and unfortunately, forgotten about. The price of the mushroom is now 500 whereas a day before they only cost about 200-300. I almost kicked myself when I realised that I had not cashed out on this new trend. There's not much profit in the Shrooms now but I'm predicting that in the future, Flat-U-Less prices will drop while the price of mushrooms and pizzas will soar since they can cure any disease. My box is now full of them in preparation for the inevitable price hikes.

Another case would be the case of Wellington boots. They used to be unbuyable and once in a while, you could get them for 99,999. Now they cost around 10k. People had supposedly discovered that the chances of getting Faeries as random events do not increase when you have one unlike previously believed. When I read about that in the help board, I Neomailed a friend and told her to sell hers before the prices dropped. She managed to get 90k for it which is not bad considering they now cost 1/10th of the price.

Need I even start on why Har, Bri and Orn cost 8k while all the other codestones cost only 6k? And why treasure map pieces #1 and #4 are worth double the price of the other pieces?

My only and final advice would be to browse through the help boards as often as possible to predict future price changes. And give Newbies advice once in a while. :) When I started, many were helpful enough to answer all my questions and I now try to return the favour by doing the same for others.

Finally, something to do with the title of this article, we can't do anything to prevent the price hikes in sought after commodities but we can predict them and maybe make some cash out of it.

Perhaps after reading this, some people might be branding me a shameless profiteer who cheat other people of their money (see Flat-U-Less episode). My reply is rather lengthy and would be that my only gripe out of all this is that sometimes where people see opportunity, other people will suffer. I've stocked well up on the cures but what if someone who is short of cash or just started NeoPets has a pet who catches the disease but cannot afford the cure. There's always the springs but that doesn't always do the trick. Another well argued topic which I might as well drag out would be the case of Faeries and motes. I'm sure the creators of NeoPets didn't foresee that Faeries would become the most popular commodity in Neopia. For people with super snail-like connections like me, getting a Faerie out of Kauvara is impossible, even if I memorised the shop restock times. The only was to get Faeries would be to buy them at 6k and the only for me to afford them is to speculate on goods which may be bad since I'm marking up prices a few hundred percent higher than what I bought them for. Necessity creates some evil and the circle continues.

Well, thanks for reading all this and I welcome any constructive feedback. If this gets a good reception, I might submit another article on economical questing and how you never have to use a single codestone to strengthen your pet.