Shop Wizard Tricks

For those who don't know, he can be accessed through the quickbar at the top of the page under the "Shops" tab, that is how most people find him. However, he does actually have a permanent home! He has a large tent adorned like his famous hat that sits in the middle of the Marketplace, surrounded by all the user shop huts. He spends his days keeping track of the market to find the best places to send users for the items they seek.

How Does It Work?

There are a few different ways you can use the Shop Wizard! The most popular is to find the cheapest price on an item you want to purchase. To do this, you'll type the exact item name in the field, select the option "Identical To My Phrase", and press Search. He will then begin searching shops and you'll see a list come up. Now, this list isn't necessarily the lowest in all of Neopia. This poor little Jubjub can only utilize so much magic, so he displays only a portion of the overall results. You can keep refreshing to see other portions, and then you will want to repeat this until you are satisfied with the price.

You can also use him to find item names that are all related. If you want to find rainbow items for example, type "Rainbow" in and then select "Containing My Phrase". He will then do a search for every item that has rainbow in its name. Keep refreshing to find more and more items, as well as more shops selling those items.

But shops aren't the only thing he knows how to search through! He can also scour galleries for items. This is especially helpful if you are trying to find super rare items that may be too expensive to sell in shops and too rare to show up on the Trading Post. This is also helpful if you want to find specific themed galleries. Using the above example, maybe you want to find a gallery featuring all rainbow items. Type in "Rainbow" and select the "Gallery" option, then check out the results to see which are actually a full gallery of rainbow items!

Are There Any Restrictions?

Yes, there are a couple restrictions.

Faerie Quests: The Shop Wizard has struck a deal with the faeries of Neopia. When you receive a faerie quest, she wants you to work hard to please her. It would be far too easy if you could just go over to the Shop Wizard and instantly get her item. The faeries want you to work for your reward, so they have made a deal with the Shop Wizard where he will not let you search while you are on a faerie quest. In this situation, the best way to find your item is asking on the neoboards or going through the many malls found in the Marketplace.

Overworked: The Shop Wizard can actually be overworked. If you are working hard to find an item (or many items), he may get worn out and be unable to help you for the remainder of the hour. If you search too many times in the span of an hour, he will pop up with a notification to come back soon. This restriction ends at the end of each hour, ie: once the clock rolls over to a time ending in :00. So if you are banned at 2:34 PM, you'll be able to resume searching at 3:00 PM. Most Neopians don't search that much, but those stocking large shops or trying to find rare items wear him down frequently.

There are a couple other restriction that can be found in the Super Shop Wizard, but that is it for the regular Shop Wizard.

Wait...Super Shop Wizard?

Yes! The Super Shop Wizard is an upgraded, deluxe version of the Shop Wizard available only for premium members. He uses a lot more magic, and therefore he wears out more quickly, but he can do a few more than the regular wizard. The most notable thing he does is that he displays the results of EVERY shop in one search. He doesn't limit your results to just a portion of the population, so you don't need to refresh multiple times to find the best price.

However, there are a few items you can't search for with him that you can with the regular Shop Wizard. The most notable of these items are Paint Brushes and Transmogrification Potions. As these two items are given out frequently in random events, new players tend to place them in shops not knowing their true price. Because of this, the Super Shop Wizard doesn't want to make it too easy to exploit this and if you want to make big profits, you'll have to refresh quite a bit at the regular Shop Wizard.

But he does have a much smaller limit to how much he can search before he gets exhausted. He has to use a lot more magic to display everyone selling an item, and he can only display the lowest ten prices. Because of this you are much more likely to get banned for the remainder of the hour (just like how the regular Shop Wizard ban works).

Is That All?

Yes! That little magical Jubjub isn't too complicated. You'll want to find your groove if you are really hunting for the best deals, or trying to track down rare Paint Brushes, but he is possibly the most useful tool ever put in Neopia. He has many little tricks that could score you big profits if you know what to look for, or if you forget to refresh enough you could end up paying far too much for an item...so no matter what you are looking for, make sure to refresh! Unless, of course, you go for the Super Shop Wizard, then you'll never have to worry about prices again!