Trade-Sniping: A Forgotten Art?

1) What is it?

Trade-sniping is almost the same as Wiz-sniping, except on the Trading Post. It means finding underpriced items on the Trading Post and selling them for more. E.g., someone sells you a Brightly Coloured Easter Negg for a mere 2NP, and you trade it again for full price.

2) What do I need for it?

You need a browser (not even a quick one, unlike Restocking), 20K on hand and the Shop Wizard open in another screen. This is not as competitive as Restocking, so don't be afraid to double check your bids. It would also be helpful to have about ten 'junk' items, such as omelettes and jelly, to use if you need to make pure NP trades.

3) How do I do it?

A common misconception is that you type in something; let's say 'LOST DESERT PAINT BRUSH' and refresh there until someone stupidly puts up a trade asking for less than the going price. This will, more likely than not, never happen a) because several other people will have jumped on it first and b) because hardly anyone will ever offer a Paint Brush for a very low price.

Another wrong idea is that you should bid on all the items with junk, hoping that they might accidentally accept. This won't work, because any experienced player wouldn't be that stupid. We've all heard the stories about people accepting junk trades and losing out, but this is very, very uncommon.

Simply, you go to the trades and click on the button saying 'newest 20'. This will bring you to a page with the newest 20 trades created. Then, you scan them and if nothing interests you, you refresh the page and the next 20 will appear. Simple, no? Well, actually, it's not that simple at all.

4) Why isn't it as simple as it seems?

Because of the Lucky 7 rules that every trade-sniper needs to know. And here they are, in all their glory!

Junk trades

Sometimes, instead of donating to the Money Tree, users may decide to put all their junk into trade. But you still think 'I'll be getting something for practically nothing!' so you bid. But when it's accepted, and you put it into your shop, it wont shift. Yep, it'll be stuck there for a long time. Hardly anyone ever buys Junk items like Glowing Jellies, Giant Red Kelps, Toy Sail Boats and Old Boots from the Shop Wiz. It's not a loss, but an annoyance.

Retired items

I know, some retired items are extremely rare and should be grabbed up straight away, but not all retired items will make you a profit. The ones that will make you a loss are usually the items that used to be Advent Calendar prizes. The ones that will get you a lot (providing what the trader is asking for is low) are books, stamps and Paint Brushes (excluding Glass and Stone).

HTS

Scary. HTS is a trader's nightmare. HTS stands for Hard To Sell, and it is basically any item which is not in demand. The opposite of this would be ETS (Easy To Sell). A HTS item would be coloured Petpets, some TGCs and some Battledome items. ETS items include paintbrushes, morphing potions and transmogrification potions. Look out for HTS items using two steps. Firstly, check on the TP to see how many there are. Many of them imply that they are hard to shift. The other is to look at the descriptions. 'Quick sale needed!' or wish lists to that effect indicate that if the trader had to tell people to bid, it must be HTS!

NFT

This refers to 'NFT' (Not For Trade), 'RESERVED FOR ____', 'LIKE THESE? CHECK OUT MY SHOP/GUILD/PETS' lots. All of these are useless to a sniper as there is no chance of getting a bid accepted. SO DON'T TRY. It really annoys the traders.

Tarla's items

Most people love Tarla the Toolbar Ixi, but her constant giveaways have affected the TP immensely. Two of the most famous incidents were when she gave out Icy Snowflakes (Used to be 400K and is also an Avatar item), and a piece of the Laboratory Map (sold for around 150K). With the amount she gave away, the prices have shot down so both of these can be found in the normal Shop wizard. The Laboratory Map piece may inflate again, so people who have lost money due to this do not worry as much as the poor people who were trading Icy Snowflakes. Since these are Battledome items, albeit one use, they will not be used up as quickly as the Laboratory Map pieces and the prices will very slowly rise.

Be on the look out for Tarla's items. They will be worth less than they appear.

Painted Petpets

If you get, say, an Ona for a really low price and think - 'Hey, if I paint this really neat Ona with a Ghost Petpet Paint Brush and resell it, I'll get a bigger profit then if I only sold the Ona!' - You'd be wrong. Dead wrong. Painted Petpets are notoriously HTS and you will 999/100 times never sell it. It would be more profitable to sell the Petpet unpainted.

Description = None

No descriptions are way more annoying than having 'NO TRADES ACCEPTED' on the item. Beware, if you're going to bid on a no 'description' item, you might not even get a response. Some people use them as ways of preventing the Pant Devil from stealing their more precious items without resorting to the SDB.

5) Why not Restock?

Although Restocking is a great way of getting Neopoints, it also requires a quick browser, which is something not all people have. It also is very competitive; getting a UB (Unbuyable) item takes skill and a quick hand. You won't have time to check items individually with the shop wizard, so it can be easy to make a loss.

6) Trade-sniping sounds hard...

Not really. As long as you know what not to bid on, you should be alright. Even though it's less reliable than Restocking, it's also a lot cheaper.

And it could be that one trade that gets you from 0 - 1 million!