Relaxed Restocking: Keep Calm & Earn NP!

     Restocking is a fabulous way to make Neopoints, but it often gets a bad rap for being confusing, difficult, competitive, and risky. And for good reason! When I first started restocking and referencing the majority of the existing guides, this is definitely the way I felt. How could I possibly remember what items were profitable in these stores? How could I be quick enough to get the most profitable items? What if the items I buy are hard to sell and change in value? It was so frustrating!

      One day a few years back I decided to join a mall. For readers who have never been part of mall, a key requirement is keeping multiple pages of stock in your shop at all times. Normally, the majority of your stock must all fall under a certain umbrella like grooming, toys, quest items, etc. Since I needed to keep a substantial amount and a very specific stock of items in my shop, I couldn’t spend hours refreshing in the most profitable shops, waiting for only the best deals to appear. Although I no longer belong to a mall, the experience helped me design my own method of restocking to that is simple and basically risk-free. You don’t have to memorize anything. You don’t have to invest an exorbitant amount of Neopoints for a questionable return. You can even be as slow as a Slorg when you browse the shops! Most importantly, you can earn a substantial amount of Neopoints and keep a fully stocked shop with ease! I call it relaxed restocking, and today I’m going to share my method with you.

      Relaxed restocking can work in any official Neopets shop. My favorite shops are The Magical Bookshop, The Chocolate Factory, The Bakery, and The Grooming Parlour because they have a wide array of profitable items in stock the majority of the time. For the sake of teaching you relaxed restocking, I will walk you through a scenario at The Magical Bookshop.

      When you first walk in, you are greeted by a smiling Blue Nimmo and immediately notice the wide array of books in stock. Many restockers refresh and refresh, surely irritating that poor Blue Nimmo coming in and out of the shop so quickly, as they wait for the rarest and most profitable books to appear. With relaxed restocking, on the other hand, I jump right in and start buying up a collection!

      The first book I notice on today’s shopping trip is Koi Tales. There are presently 13 copies in stock, listed at an asking price of 868 Neopoints. Seems like a fair price, I think to myself, so I open up my shop wizard. This is the key part of relaxed restocking! Since you are not going for the highly competitive items, you have time to run a few searches in the shop wizard to estimate the approximate value of an item before you buy it. After doing some research, I can see that users are currently selling Koi Tales in their shops for between 1,300 and 1,700 Neopoints! It looks like Koi Tales is going to be a profitable purchase.

      When I haggle with the shopkeeper, I normally round down to the nearest hundred. In this example, I would offer about 800 Neopoints per copy of the book. With relaxed restocking, you can take your time with haggling. You do not need to type lightning fast or use a quick keyboard sequence. Just try to get the best deal you can! The kind Nimmo thankfully accepts my 800 Neopoint offer for the book!

      I don’t stop there though. Remember I mentioned there are currently 13 copies in stock? I am going to buy them all. Yes, all 13 copies! Why, you ask? Because this is how your profit will add up. Since all you are doing is farming the same item, it is very easy to truly relax and restock! I will often watch a movie or do other fun neo-related multitasking during my restocking trips. Presuming the shopkeeper accepts the 800 Neopoint offer all 13 times, my total expense for 13 copies of Koi Tales would be 10,400 Neopoints.

      The next part of my method is pricing. There is a lot of misconception in Neopian shopkeeping that you should always price your items lowest on the shop wizard. While I don’t agree with overpricing, I also don’t believe in pricing the lowest! Why? Because it clears your stock too quickly, making keeping up with your shop daunting (especially if your shop is larger in size). More importantly, you will get your Neopoints profit back quickly by pricing so low, but you are seriously shortchanging the return on your investment. My pricing philosophy is to price in the middle of the top 10 on the super shop wizard (or average of the lowest prices you find if using the regular shop wizard). At the time of writing this article, Koi Tales is being sold in user shops for 1,300 to 1,700 Neopoints. If I priced Koi Tales to be the lowest, my net profit would only be 6,500 Neopoints. Alternatively, if I used the middle pricing strategy, for 13 copies of the book I would earn 9,100 Neopoint profit! This is equal to or possibly greater than the profit you could get from traditional “beginner” restocking methods, such as buying Neggs in the Neopian Fresh Foods Store. Another benefit is that you do not need to wait for profitable items to restock! There are literally always profitable items stocked in nearly every official Neopian store! That means your restocking trips can be quicker and more efficient, without spending hours refreshing and risking getting restock banned. And with relaxed restocking, there is virtually no risk since you are price checking everything before you spend a single Neopoint.

      Relaxed restocking is most beneficial to use during Half Price Day, which is the 3rd of every month. On Half Price Day, all official Neopian shops lower their asking prices by 50%. Let’s return to The Magical Bookshop on Half Price Day. Koi Tales is in stock, but this time for only 434 Neopoints. I round down to the nearest hundred and offer the Blue Nimmo 400 Neopoints for a single copy of the book. Assuming that there are, again, 13 copies in stock, I would spend 5,200 Neopoints on Half Price Day compared with 10,400 Neopoints on all other days! If I kept my shop pricing at 1,500 Neopoints per book, this would result in a net profit of 14,300 Neopoints! To maximize the Half Price Day opportunity, I normally hold a “clearance sale” in my shop at the end of each month to clear inventory. That way, when Half Price Day arrives on the 3rd, I have plenty of stock room available in my shop to bring in the greatest amount of profit.

      If you’ve tried restocking before, only to give up and feel frustrated, I’d encourage you to try it again using relaxed restocking. The feeling of satisfaction from running a well-designed, fully stocked shop and earning lots of Neopoints doing so is so great. Explore Neopian shops, discover new items, and take keep your mind cool and calm today by trying relaxed restocking!