Getting the Most Out of The Shop Wizard

Searching Properly

Is the Wizard not coming up with any results when you search “Cheese”? This may be because you forgot to select “Identical To My Phrase” from the drop down menu! Always make sure you do this, especially if you are searching for one or two-word items. Items with that word in their name will most likely show up instead.

Furthermore, sure you are using the EXACT item name. The Wizard will not know to correct you if you happen search for “Graeps” instead of “Grapes”. Similarly,

Buying Items

This is the most common use for the Wizard, and no doubt you will find yourself searching to buy items many, many times in your Neopian life.

Users are often put off by many pages of overpriced results when using the Wiz. In this situation, take advantage of the “Max Price” feature! Search for your item of choice, and take note of the lowest price. Go back to the search form, and enter that price in the Max Price box. (You can repeat this as the results keep getting cheaper with each search.) This way, you are getting only the lowest results and the overpriced items do not display!

When you see what may be the cheapest result, don’t jump for it straight away unless it is am obvious snipe (more on sniping below). Open said shop in a new tab or window. Keep refreshing the Wizard until you are 100% sure that no cheaper results are coming up.

Sniping is a method of earning NP that utilizes the Shop Wizard. The best strategy for this: Search for an item that is popular and easy to sell. This includes codestones, dubloons, bottled faeries, petpets, Paint Brushes, etc. If you are lucky, you may see someone that made a pricing mistake, or was naïve enough to have priced the item wrong. At this point, quickly buy it before anyone else snatches it! You can now resell the item later for full price. This may seem like a pretty nasty way of earning NP to some people, but it certainly is profitable. If you feel guilty for taking advantage of someone’s mistake, you can always send the unfortunate person a Neomail reminding them to price their items with the Shop Wizard. In fact, you could even point them in the direction of this guide!

Pricing Your Shop

This is the runner-up for the most popular use of the Shop Wizard. The secret to good shopkeeping not only lies in your choice (or lack) of shop layout, catchy store name and advertising methods, but it also majorly depends on how reasonably you price your items. Ignore those estimated prices and head over to the Shop Wizard if you don’t want to get ripped off!

When searching for the price of items, have some Neopoints on hand in case you stumble upon an accidental snipe. Personally, I find at least one or two snipes every time I price my shop, especially if I am pricing common, easy to sell items (mentioned above).

The trick to pricing items is not to have the cheapest price overall. Usernames are grouped into lists, according to what number or letter they start with. Looking at one list of prices is not an accurate way to price your items, nor is taking the average price of a few lists. You should find which category your username will show up in, and price it accordingly.

Usernames are divided into the following groups:

a, n, 0

b, o, 1

c, p, 2

d, q, 3

e, r, 4

f, s, 5

g, t, 6

h, u, 7

i, v, 8

j, w, 9

k, x, _

l, y

m, z

What this means is that all usernames beginning with the characters f, s, and 5 will be in the same list, and so on. In case you didn’t already guess, I refresh the Wiz until I see the list of users starting with S or F, and then I price my item to match or beat the cheapest price. Do not sell drastically below the Wizard price, otherwise you are wasting the chance to earn more NP. Beating the price by 1-10 NP is often enough to sell your item quickly and make a profit.

Browsing Galleries

This is most likely the least-popular way to use the Shop Wizard. However, this search feature is not to be underestimated! Collectors may find this option very helpful, it may even help you price a very expensive or rare item.

Imagine you need one more item to finish your gallery, stamp collection, or whatever you happen to be collecting for. But, oh no! There is a problem, since the item is so rare that there are no results to be found on the Shop Wizard or Trading Post! If you find yourself in this predicament, there is hope. Use the Gallery search to find other users who have already obtained said item and are displaying it proudly. You may send them a Neomail asking where and how much they got the item for. This may help you find a potential seller and/or get an idea of how much the item is worth when you do find one. If you are pricing the item, this will give you an idea of what to sell it for if there are no others on the Trading Post. However: Do not send the gallery owner a Neomail asking to buy the item; I’m sure they would not appreciate that.

Note: If you are not familiar with the Shop Wizard, chances are you do not know about the Trading Post, either. Located in the Shops navigation, it is two links underneath Shop Wizard. This is where users sell items worth more than 99,999 NP, since that is the price limit in user shops. The Auctions are another place to find expensive items; just make sure you check the right price on the Trading Post first!

This concludes my guide to getting the most out of the Shop Wizard! I hope you found these tips informative and useful. I hope that even experienced shopkeepers can learn something new from these tips! Good luck searching for items!

PS: A tip of the hat to Mr. S. Wizard. Neopia thanks you for all of your hard work! I couldn’t have written this guide without you. ;)

- Saphireblue3