Saturday, April 28, 2007

Bulk Items and Runescape Merchanting

Merchanting in runescape is one the the best methods to make money. The main reason merchanting makes considerable money in runescape is the fact higher level players (skill based players) will generally deal in bulk items.

Bulk items can be any resource (depending which skill is being trained). It is normally 1000 or more of a single resource, so 1000 iron ores would be consider bulk whereas 100 iron ores wouldn't.

The desire of players raising their skills by buying in bulk is obvious, it saves them a lot of time accumulating the resources in bulk rather than in smaller quanities, so they are willing to pay to have a larger amount guaranteed in order to gain the level they desire quicker.

This desire leaves it open as an ideal situation for merchanters to take advantage and offer their services to gather up items in smaller quanitities. Runescape merchants will spend their time gathering up smaller quantities of items initially and building up their supplier line for specific resources. In the long term, they can request their suppliers provide them with higher amounts of items (thereby reducing time taken to acquire resources).

As a supply line of workers is established for a merchant in runescape, it makes it easier for them to merchant other items - they simply ask their supply line to gather up the required items. This enables merchants to diversify a bit, although they shouldn't try and merchant everything, 3 or 4 items is normally enough for novice merchants to handle adequately.

One the supply line for bulk items is in place, it just remains to have an outlet - or a buyer. This is the person or people who will be training a skill and will normally want to buy in bulk to reduce the time of gathering up resources. The profit from merchant trades will vary from resource to resource, but any profit will add up in the long term and improve a merchants communication lines and ability to react to changes in the runescape economy.

Once firmly established as a bulk trader or merchant, any runescape player will have the chance to pursue some of the rare items such as party hats or santa hats. They will likely be able to afford them, but whether they decide to actually merchant the party hats or santa hats is another question entirely. That decision I will leave to the runescape player involved, although massive price growth is unlikely and prices will be unstable at different times of the year... so if deciding to merchant those rare items, tread with caution.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Runescape Bowstrings

Bowstrings in runescape are a member only item and is an easy money making method. The process is very simple and can take a while to gather up enough money to effectively merchant them. However, bowstrings are always in demand by other members who are fletching and is therefore a useful item to stockpile.

There are three methods that can be used to make money in runescape when dealing with bowstrings:

  1. Picking and Spinning Bowstrings
  2. Using Miscellania for Flax and then Spinning into Bowstrings
  3. Merchanting Bowstrings at Seers

Money Making Method 1:
The first money making method is the more labour intensive and requires more dedication - although players will gain some crafting experience in the process as well. It simply involves players collecting up flax at the flax field and spinning their own bowstrings at the spinning wheel near Seers Bank.

Obviously, players can choose to sell the flax or make into the bowstring and sell that. Flax can expect to fetch 100gp while bowstrings should easily fetch 150gp each. Each bowsting will add 15 experience for crafting in runescape.

Money Making Method 2:
The second method of making money in runescape with bowstrings is to use the Kingdom of Miscellania to stockpile the required flax resources. When you collect the flax from the kingdom you can spin it into bowstrings and again expect to get at least 150 gp per bowstring.

Players will need to have completed the relevant quests in order to manage their kingdom and have deposited sufficient money in the coffers to pay the workers.

Money Making Method 3:
This method is basically merchanting bow strings. There are many resources in runescape that players can merchant, with some resources returning greater profit as well as involving greater risk.

Bowstring merchanting is simple. When buying the bowstrings the best location is normally Seers Bank or directly at the spinning wheel near the bank. Players who are spinning their flax may sell frequently in smaller quantities and therefore enable the merchanting player to buy at a price lower than the expected market value. The absolute maximum price to pay for bowstrings when looking to merchant them is 150 gp.

Ideally players will sell below 150gp and enable the merchant player to sell in bulk for 180 - 200gp. This can provide a decent profit margin. It is also a good opportunity for merchanters to build up a chain of suppliers for more reliable returns on their time investment.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Runescape Cow Hides

Collecting cow hides in runescape is an easy way of making money for both free to play and runescape members. The method of making money will normally depend on the person collecting the hides.

There are generally three basic methods to make money in runescape through cow hides:

  • Merchant cow hides
  • Collect them yourself
  • A combination of both of the above
Merchanting Cow Hides:
Many low level players will normally collect up an inventory of cow hides and want a good price for them - they will generally not be able to get a good price and consequently sell cheap. Players can buy up these smaller quantities of cow hides from many different sources and sell their stockpile to another player who is training their crafting skill. In effect, you will be merchanting cow hides.

Collect the yourself:
This is very obvious - instead of buying the cow hides from other players you will simply fight the cows and stockpile them on your own. This is obviously a more time consuming method but you will be training your combat in runescape at the same time. This can help you make money and improve your overall levels.

A combination of both methods:
The smartest way to make money in runescape with using cow hides is to combine both of the first two methods. To effectively do this, when you are training your combat at the cow field (normally lumbridge), ask other players if they will sell their cow hides to you for a set price. Obviously the price can be negotiated by you but it will have to be lower than the price you intend selling.

Collecting the hides yourself will help improve your combat and asking others to sell their hides to you will help you establish a chain of suppliers. This means you should already have a buyer lined up and that you should have sufficient money available to always pay your suppliers. After all, a happy worker is a healthy worker that will continue to work for you and continue to make profit for you as well as earn a decent income themselves.

Overall, one key thing to note is the prices of items (07 runescape price guide or checking the grand exchange in EoC runescaoe), specifically cow hides in this case. The price is generally stable - but it can vary from buyer to buyer, so it is in your best interest to line up more than one buyer to be able to sell large quantities when you want and not have to wait for that one person to log on to buy. This increases your buying power and can enable you to hire much more workers and stockpile cow hides at a much faster rate. Ultimately improving your overall profit level.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Runescape Air Running

Air running in runescape is a good way for low level players to make money without the need of any particular skills. The main requirement is that a player has the time and dedication to constantly run air runes to and from Falador bank.

As stated, no skill is required for this method of making money in runescape, but patience is certainly a virtue to have. Air runes are not as profitable as law or nature runes, but free to play runescape people can use this method equally as effective as runescape members.

There are two groups of people required to Air Run:

Runecrafters with higher runecrafting levels will be in a much better situation than crafters with low levels. It is generally suggested that runecrafters have level 44 runecrafting in order to get 5 air runes per essence.

Essence runners, there are no skill requirements needed whatsoever and this is what I referred to when there were no skill requirements to make money. It is the running that is required and this can be done by any player whether free to play or a runescape member.

Runecrafters will normally be required to pay the air runners directly in cash, this normally ranges from 1,500gp to 2,000gp per trade. The crafter will be able to offset the cost of training somewhat by selling the air runes produced. It therefore makes sense to have at least level 44 runecrafting.

Runecrafters inventory should be:
  • Noted essence (25 noted traded per time)
  • Money
  • 25 un-noted essence (or 25 air runes).
Air runners will normally need to bring 25 un-noted rune essence to the Air Altar and exchange it for 25 noted essence + 2,000gp (or whatever coin level has been agreed). Runners should also have an air tiara so that they can trade inside the air altar itself. This helps improve the efficiency for the runecrafters.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Runescape Money via Woodcutting

Runescape offers various different trees to cut down and enable players to make money from. Members have more types of trees available to them than non-members and more profit can be made - especially with Magic Logs that generally sell for 900 -1100gps each.

However, non-members can easily earn significant amounts of money from cutting yew logs, oak logs or normal logs. Although it is more limiting and in some cases will require more patience as buyers for normal logs or oak logs may be in shorter supply, while Yew log buyers may not pay premium prices to non-members.

In general, when selling logs in runescape, players must focus on the quantity available. Most players will pay premium prices for significant quantities if they are trying to achieve a skill level quickly. Members will buy logs for firemaking, fletching and construction skills while non-members will buy only for firemaking. In which case they will normally look at using their own logs that they cut when training their woodcutting skill.

The target market is therefore members who are training either fletching or construction skills. For fletching, Yew logs will be desired more while players training their construction skill will favour oak logs.

To effectively collect up large quantities of either Yew logs of Oak logs, players will need to find the relevant trees close to a bank. Time is money, and the closer the trees are to a bank, the better. Some of the better locations for training woodcutting (and consequently stockpiling logs) are:

Free to play:

  • Oak Trees - East of Draynor bank
  • Yew Trees - 3 north of Varrock Palace
Members:
  • Oak Trees - West of Catherby bank
  • Maple Trees - North of Seers Bank
  • Yew Trees - West of Catherby bank - below the beehives.
  • Teak/Mahogany - can be collect via your own kingdom in Miscellania
In addition to this, members will also have a chance to get seeds from bird nests. Seed prices have dropped a bit since farming was released, although some seeds can still receive good prices - yew seed, magic seed and some of the other tree seeds.

Overall, woodcutting in runescape does have some methods to make money for people in the game and it has been a skill used by many players to earn significant wealth over time. Any player is welcome to add to the runescape money tips here or register on my runescape help site and compile a list of your own money tips for any skill in the game.