What is Merchanting?

Merchanting is the art of playing the market. Simply put, it is buying low and selling high. This concept is how the world's economy thrives, and therefore, since MapleStory provides similar conditions, it can be applied to the game to produce the same result: profit.



What Do I Need to Merchant?

There are several prerequisites you must possess to merchant well:



A simple understanding of money flow (supply & demand)


Understanding the MapleStory Market » What Drives It?

Merchants drive the MapleStory market. And we do it simply through the age-old theory of supply and demand. As the supply of a certain item diminishes, the demand (and inherently the price) will rise accordingly. The items that are most traded in the MapleStory Market are:



Scrolls. Indeed, scrolls are the items that drive the market because they are most demanded & generally abundant. And each particular scroll has a fluctuational power, per se. For instance, take 60% Claw ATT scrolls. Claw scrolls are one of the most sought & expensive scrolls. Therefore, they have a huge power in the market. If in the next patch GMS induced an easy quest, level 20+, that gave out 60% Claw ATT scrolls as a prize, the market would suffer a mass inflation. Because, as supply rises, demand lowers. And while price lowers with demand, it would take a while for it to reach that point. And in the period in which the price doesn't fall, a flood of currency would hit the economy, giving everyone more spending power. Therefore, prices of other items would increase to accommodate such an influx, and inflation ensues; reducing the value of each individual meso.

It's also important to understand that MapleStory has two, intertwined economies. One of them resides in FMs 1-20. And the other resides everywhere else.

I know that was a mouthful, but take the time to read it and comprehend it. To play a market, you must understand it first.



How Do I Merchant?

Again, as I stated in the introduction, playing the market generally means buying low and selling high. The concept is simple; the dilemma, however, lies in how exactly to buy low and how exactly to sell high. I mean, no one wants to sell a scroll for a cheap price if they can sell it for an even high price right? And buying low does NOT entail ripping off ignorant nooblettes. That's why, firstly, you must buy a 1-2 Week Merchant or Shop.



Owning a merchant/shop in the FM is a great asset & convenience for selling. Why? Because, if you never noticed, the prices of items, particularly scrolls, in FMs 1-20 are significantly higher that the prices of BasilMarket or the Free Market Entrance. This is because of one, important fact: convenience. Browsing the FMs for your item of interest is much more convenient than spamming in the FME hoping, often in vain, that someone has that particular item for sale. And, convenience, of course, always costs a little extra. Buying a merchant may seem quite expensive, cash-wise, since this basically translates to roughly $20 a month but the to be comfortably rich, as in having a treasury of at least 1 billion mesos, should take no more than 1 month.

So what do you do after you have your Merchant? Why you merchant of course! (« confusing, I know)

Now that we have a vehicle to sell our goods, we need to obtain the goods. The another dilemma arises: At what prices do we buy scrolls at?

As I stated beforehand, buying scrolls does not mean ripping off people. Quite the opposite, actually. It means paying full price for an item in one market and selling it full price in a completely separate market. Referring to the previous section, the market in the FMs 1-20 is inflated & separate from the market everywhere else. So, despite common belief, true merchants do not rip people off. We just take advantage of the fact that we have dual access to both markets of MapleStory.

Anyway, back the original question. At what prices do we buy scrolls at? The price you'd buy scrolls at are the prices of each individual scroll in the cheaper market. A good source for such prices is BasilMarket. Navigate to the scrolls section of your specific world and majority of the prices should be there.

Please take note that not every scroll is worth re-selling. While sifting through BasilMarket, focus on the scrolls worth more than 1 million mesos; disregard the rest of the scrolls. A full list of the more prominent scrolls can be found here:

Spoiler:

To help organize all these buying & selling prices, I created a neat little template in Microsoft Word :
Download it here http://hpfanfictionrecs.googlepages.com/ScrollPrices.doc (Right click » Save Target/Link As).

Where Do I Buy Scrolls?

Buying scrolls is the tedious part of the whole ordeal. It takes time & patience. And that's because the only consistent place to buy scrolls are where there are constant masses of people. The obvious choices, in order, are:

1. Free Market Entrance (Ch. 1)
2. Carnival Party Quest Main Lobby (Ch. 1)
3. EOS Tower 101st Floor (Ch.1)
And you are going to have spam "B>Scrolls @@@ etc." Tragic, I know. I suppose more than half of you cringe or get annoyed every time you see someone who does such, but don't let you're ignorance rule you. Spamming in CAPS is the best way to capture attention. Here are the two lines you should spam over & over again to achieve maximum height and all around blatancy in your spams:
B>SCROLLS @@@@@@@ @ @@@@@@@ @ @@@@@@@ @ @@@@@@@ @ @@@@@@@ @ @@@@@@@ @@
B>SCROLLS @@@@@@@ @ @@@@@@@ @ @@@@@@@ @ @@@@@@@ @ @@@@@@@ @ @@@@@@@ %%

Another, less fruitful method of buying scrolls would be to bid on every scroll you want on BasilMarket. It's still somewhat effective, but you would have to compete with other potential buyers & also wait however long it is until the auction is over. I much rather prefer method one.

Spamming in the FME or wherever you are can get boring. But patience is a virtue. You don't need to spend countless hours doing so. 1-2 hours a day should suffice and rake you in ~400 mil, in profit, weekly.

What are the Best FM Spots?

Success & profit are directly proportional, possibly even exponentially, to your FM spot for your merchant. when browsing the FMs, you should notice that not only are the prices significantly higher than regular prices, but also that prices in the lower rooms are inflated even more than the prices in the higher rooms.

So which FM spots are the best? Here's a simple breakdown:

The Best: FM 2 - 6, anywhere in each room.
Very Good: FM 7 - 9, preferably door spots.
Decent: Door spots FM 13 - 15. Anywhere in FM 18 - 20.
Stay away from any spot not aforementioned. You'll notice how I didn't include FM 1 in any of my list. This is because of the very ugly population of MapleStory. FM 1 is seething with ACers. There's hardly a guarantee you can keep a spot, if you can get one, for more than a day since you need to reset your merchant at least once a day. ACing a spot is against the rules; don't do it.



How Do I Get a Good FM Spot? All of Them Are Taken

If you go looking for a good spot in the FM, there is a hefty chance you won't find one. Most of them are taken. But are you screwed? No. There's a simple way around this problem. A loophole, if you so choose to call it.

After every Server Check or Patch, all the FMs are wiped. So, every spot is open and people have to try and get spots again. Therefore, it's a good idea to wait until a Server Check or Patch comes around before buying a Merchant. Then, keeping trying to log on ~2 hours before the check up is scheduled to finish since Nexon is NEVER on time. Try once every 5 minutes are so. Once you log on, it should be easy to find a spot.



Conclusion: Wrap Up

We're finally done. If you follow the guide thoroughly, you should be piling in the mesos in no time. As I said before, I use this exact method and make about 400 mil a week. It's easy & simple. The only downside is the necessity of NX, but the MTS has made it so even people without access to cash can receive NX. Hope you enjoyed the guide & take it to heart. Toodles ~



Credits:

Credits go to Kwary from Sleepywood.net