How to Get the Best Offer For Your HTS Items

What is an HTS?

HTS stands for Hard To Sell. It means that there is not much demand for the item. Because of the lack of buyers, an HTS usually sells for far less than its actual worth.

How do I know if I have an HTS?

If it sits in your shop for a very long time, and the item is priced below shop wizard, you most likely have one. The same thing applies to an item in the trading post. You can lower the price on a buyable and it will sell at some point. The unbuyable can be trickier to sell. The best bet in this situation is to head to the boards. Find a restocker board. They will have RS ( restock) in their title. You can find them on the shop and trading post sections. You can occasionally find one on the customization board. However, the customization restock board specializes in wearables. Ask the restockers nicely about your item. Also offer them cookies. They like cookies. Nine times out of ten they will be able to tell if it is an HTS.

The restockers tell me it is an HTS item!!

Now whatever you do, don't panic. Do not accept a fraction of its price. Don't accept rainbow dung for it either. I am going to help you get very close to, if not all of, its full value. First you need to make sure it is indeed an HTS. Make sure you asked experienced restockers. Look for Neopians with older accounts that restock. You are looking for accounts at least 8 to 10 months old. The older the account the better. They will have the experience you seek. Remember, be very polite in the way you phrase your questions. They will be more apt to help you if they are treated nicely. If you are getting the same answer, it's HTS, time to move on to selling it.

Research is the key

You now need to do a bit of legwork. I know you want to sell it quickly and turn a profit. Just keep in mind, the reseller offering you 150,000 for an item priced at 550,000 on the trading post is going to resell it for 500,000. He will take away the profit you could have made. Then the tax beast will take it from him. No one wins. I bet you are wondering how he could make such a tremendous profit from an HTS. I am going to teach you this skill. You need to get rid of the middle man. Before you sell your item, what is it? Is it a rare grooming item or a book? Think of its possible uses. More importantly, put it in one of 2 categories. The two categories are gallery items and trophy/avatar items. One group is just for collecting, the other is to use.

Gallery items include school supplies, grooming, plushies, toys, gifts, and unwearable clothing. Basically things that are only good for collecting.

Trophy and avatar items include books, stamps, and gourmet foods. These three items disappear when used. That makes them quite valuable!

Keep in mind this is only a simple guideline to get you started. Some items fit into both groups. Research the item to find out if there are any avatars or trophies associated with it.

I know my category and wish to sell it now

Now that you have settled comfortably in a category, it is time to sell your item. If it is a book, gourmet food, or stamp, this will be easy. If it is a gallery item, it will take a bit longer.

It is a Trophy/Avatar item

You need to look at the high score list associated with the item. For example, Neopians feed their pets gourmet food to get a trophy. They soon become addicted to feeding their pets yummy foods. They are trying to get higher up on the list for a better trophy and bragging rights. Often, the foods they need are not on the trading post to buy. Many of them are drooling to get their hands on your cheeseburger slushie.

The gold trophy holders will most likely have already used the item you are offering. Start with the silver trophies and work your way down the list. Look at their user lookups. Many of them post the foods they are missing right on their lookups or pet page. I wouldn't bother the Neopians whose pets already ate the food in question. If you find one that needs the food you possess, send a polite neomail. Explain what you are selling and your price. You can also neomail Meopians that do not have a list on their user lookup. Copy and paste the message to send to others. This can save you a great deal of effort. I generally neomail 20 people at a time. Do not go much lower than your asking price. Someone on the list is willing to pay you the true worth of the item. You simply need to find them. Save any neomails with lower offers. If you don't get a better offer you can always accept one of those. You are for all practical purposes a Neopian door-to-door salesperson. Do not accept some pure neopoints and the rest in items, even if they are easy to sell. You didn't sign up to sell a totally different item. You just want to sell this one. Accept pure offers only. Having sold two unbuyable books totaling 3 million neopoints within two hours, I know my method works.

It is a gallery item

Do you have a gallery item and resellers are offering you a fraction of the trading post price? Are they trying to buy it with a piece of rotting driftwood? I have a solution for that as well. Let's say the item is a pea bubble bath. The going price on the trading post is 550,000. Yet, no one is making any reasonable offers. This looks like a job for shop wizard. However instead of shops, you are going to search galleries. Use the keyword pea in your search. For best results, make sure you are searching all galleries containing the keyword. If you come up with things like spear then you can search for similar items like pea soap. The person who has pea soap in their gallery may want your pea bubble bath. Make sure their gallery doesn't have your item. When you find one, neomail the owner with the item name, rarity, and the price you are looking for. This situation is slightly different as you need to include "will haggle" in your price. They will most likely offer you more than the reseller as they will want this item for their collection. Again, you will want to neomail quite a few gallery owners. This will help sell your item faster and get the highest offer possible.

This method is tried and true for me. I have sold unbuyables in just an hour that were deemed HTS. The unbuyables I have restocked and sold are in the hundreds.

I hope this guide was helpful to you. Thank you to all my guildmates and the all the old school restockers. They always give the best advice on item pricing.