All the Right Stuff.... Right? by midnightmeadow |  |
Buying items from their original shop is harder then it seems
You read many articles about buying items from their original shops. About
which items can make your rich, or pull the drain on your Neopoints supply.
But, if you don’t know how to buy the items before the shop sells out, you're
lost. Even though I am manipulating my steady Neopoint income by giving you
this information, I feel it’s the best for all of us.
Fast Connection
If you have less than a DSL don’t even bother trying. In laymen's terms if your
modem (the thing that connects your computer to the Internet) has a k next to
a number then you’ll probably get left behind those of us who have a DSL, Cable,
T1 or better connection speeds. It is possible that when shopping outside the
main shops you might manage to snag an item or two, if your lucky. But honestly
I’d stick to the games if I were you.
What do you want?
It is very important to have an idea of what item you want to buy. Otherwise
you’ll be clicking every item you see and end up with nothing. You can find
faeries, motes, books, and expensive chocolates in original shops but paint
brushes and codestones are unfortunately random events only. So, you know the
item you want, now you have to find it’s original shop. This can usually be
achieved with the yellow bar (the search bar at the bottom left-hand side of
your screen), but not every item can be found with this bar. If you cannot find
your item with the yellow bar use your best judgment, where do you think it
would be produced? Often there will be a link to the shop where your item is
located when using the yellow bar, it will say, "See if this item is in Stock!"
Timing
Now unless your timing is impeccable then when you enter your items shop odds
are it will not be there. This is where shop restocking comes into play. Now
I’m not going to tell you the exact times shops restock but I will tell you
some hints. All the shops restock at the same time. Use the Neopian clock (the
clock on the main page), by refreshing the page you will receive an updated
time. Not only can Neopian time differ in hour, but by using your own clock
your bound to be a minute or two off, and believe me--every second counts. The
shop restocking times do change, it’s not very often but it does happen every
now and then. Getting to the shop at least 30 seconds before it restocks is
a good idea, and refreshing the page (rapidly) until your item appears is also
a good idea because getting there as soon as it appears is very key.
The Haggling
Never haggle, especially if you are getting a good profit off the item and if
it sells out quickly. If the item is around 450 NP you could go down to
around 430 or so but not much further or you might have that pesky shopkeeper
trying to get you to raise the price. Typing is key when haggling, like I’ve
said before every second counts. Twenty-four faeries can go out in 5 seconds,
with who knows how many people trying to buy them at the same time. Make sure
you know how much the shopkeeper wants for the item and have your fingers ready.
Also, having your mouse positioned over the number typing box and then immediately
setting it over the buy item button is very key. Practice is very important
with this because you can’t just pick it up and start executing it perfectly.
Go to the garden store and practice, time how long it take you to buy an item,
and then try to buy it quicker. After a while you’ll be doing this in your sleep.
Miscellaneous Hints
Positioning your screen where you are able to see the contents (below the shop
keeper picture) of the store and then refreshing the screen may help on some
computers. That way you won’t have to spend precious seconds on scrolling down
to see the items. Do not just search one area of the shop contents, make sure
that you completely look through it’s item contents until you refresh the page.
Patience is important, if your computer gets locked during a refresh then be
patient it will go through sooner or later, another refresh may take even longer.
Also pace yourself, or else you may come across a little crying Chia telling
you that you can only buy items once every 5 seconds. Well, that’s about all
the advice I have for you, but as you start buying items from their original
shop you may develop you own style and hints and maybe you can share them with
me some day :)
But until then, good luck, because every second counts, and a lot of people
read The Neopian Times. |
