Trade

Main / Game Mechanics / Trade

Description

The Markets of Wurm are player made areas that can be populated with personal merchants from various players.

These marketplaces work like bazaars of some games. But rather than having a Developer or GM run it, the players are in charge, to offer all fairness and player manipulation of the system.

See also Inns.

Trade command

• Right-click the person, merchant or trader you want to trade with, and choose Trade. A Trading window appears.

Buying from a Personal Merchant

• Merchants's inventory is shown in '<Merchant>'s offer' window top left. Drag items you want to the 'Your demand' window below it.
• Drag money or selling items from your inventory into the 'Your offer' window top right.
• Check 'You accept'.

If you offered a suitable amount, Merchant will accept also. If you offered more than the value of the items you bought, Merchant will give change.

Trading items with another player

To give

• Drag the item(s) you are offering from your inventory into the 'Your offer' window top right.
• The other player sees it in "<Player>'s offer" window, and must drag it to their demand window below it and check their 'You accept' box.
• Check 'You accept'.

To receive

• You will see the other player's offer in '<Player>'s offer' window top left.
• Drag the item(s) to the lower 'Your demand' window and check 'You accept'.
• The other player must check their 'You accept' box also.

Trade chat

The Trade chat tab is a global chat used for advertising your intent to sell (WTS), buy (WTB), trade (WTT), or desire to price check something (PC). Only messages that begin with the abbreviations WTS, WTB, WTT, or PC are displayed in the chat window. Players answering your message will reply to you via private messages or direct in the trade chat by using "@ <your username>", which will only be visible to you. You may toggle this tab on and off in your profile settings.

Read more: Chat | Profile | Private messages

Player Trading

Wurm offers a lot of different options for players to do business with one another. If you are interested in buying or selling something, you can post your request into the chat ingame, or make a separate thread for it in one of the marketplace sections on the forums in order to find your trading partner. You may also browse these forums for somebody who might already have posted about the item you wish to buy or sell, with whom you could immediately get in touch about the trade.

Server Cluster & The Forums

Whether you are a new trader or someone who has already completed numerous transactions, the forums are your best friend when it comes to trading. Each server cluster has its own marketplace. The Freedom Isles Market is the largest within the game, offering several servers and a majority of people interested and willing to trade. The market on Epic and the market on Chaos are a little more complicated, since the cluster is PvP based and people do not easily trust one another. Most of the Chaos trades happen through the Freedom market, and it is recommended to stay cautious when trading with someone directly on Chaos. The Challenge market barely exists. It is therefore recommended for people who wish to trade with others to choose the Freedom cluster to do so.

Within the forums, on each marketplace, you can find different boards to suit each of your inquiries. The Want To Buy board is available for you to post about anything you would like to find a seller for, anything you would like to purchase. The Want To Sell board is there for the opposite request and the right board to choose if you wish to sell some of your own items. Within the Auctions tab you can find items that are being auctioned to the highest bidder. If you have an item for which you expect to be getting a lot of interested buyers, you may consider posting an auction instead of a sales thread. Classified Ads is for you to post about your trades, services and item trades alike (if you offer both), and allows you to summarize all you have to offer in your very own topic to attract future customers.

Trading Process

Finding Your Trade

The obvious first step for every person interested in trading, is to choose a trade. It is difficult, and not recommended for somebody to begin with too many different things, as it is usually easier to cater to a specific one to begin with. As you master your first trade, there is nothing holding you back from expanding your range of service. When finding your trade, look at what you like to do ingame, and see if there is a market for something related, or if you can maybe even create a market for said thing. An example would be, if you like to tend to animals, you may consider breeding and selling your animals' offspring. In existing markets, there are a lot of competitors for each trade, so it is not recommended to focus your trade on making as much money as possible, but to focus on making as much gain as possible within a price range that puts you ahead of your competitors and right into the trade market.

The Markets

In a game that is so focused on trades, a lot of markets currently exist. Here is a list of different groups and types of items that players frequently trade with, and that have established their own, obviously varying, price range.

• Bulk Materials - A lot of materials such as bricks, mortar, planks and more are being produced in bulk and sold per hundred or thousand.
• Rare/Supreme Items - Many players crave tools, weapons, decoration or other items of increased rarity.
• Animals - The biggest market within this category is definitely for horses. However, also all other animal types may sell to the right buyer.
• Enchanted Tools & Weapons - Priests of the gods are able to cast enchantments on items that, if high enough, quickly find a buyer.
• Ships - Difficult to make, a lot of people don't have the patience to build their own ships. Thus there is a steady market for useful ships.

Setting The Price

One of the most essential steps in the entire trading process is setting the right price for what you wish to sell. If you are uncertain, try to find equal sales of other people that have previously taken place, and check the price the items went for at that time. However, the market value of different items varies over time, and if the only topics you can find of equal sales are outdated, you might consider a PriceCheck. This option allows you to put PC (=Pricecheck) into the headline of your topic, in order to let players know you want to hear what they think the value for said items is. If you don't wish to do that, you might ask possible buyers to make you an offer for the items, which you can either accept or decline. In those cases it is recommended to wait until multiple offers have arrived, in order for you to pick the best one. If you are certain about a price, make it known to the community that you will not sell for less than said price, as everybody loves to bargain. In the end, the right price will get you the money you deserve, but not force the player to get out of his budget to acquire your item. In case of wanting to buy an item, the PC works just as well. You may also ask people to message you with offers - just like before - and pick one that you can trust is honest and not overpriced. You may also set a budget for your purchase, letting people know you will not pay more than said budget states.

Finding Your Customer

The next step is to make it known that you do wish to sell or buy. For that, it usually works best to create a thread in the forums. The thread should state whether you wish to buy or sell, what you wish to buy or sell, if you have a price in mind, and how you wish to organise delivery - whether pickup, C.O.D., or plain delivery, and whether this includes an extra fee. Customers might then PM you on the forums, ingame or with a reply to your thread to state their interest in trading with you, or share a thought they have about the transaction.

Organising The Transaction

There are three different ways for you to go about this.

Cash On Delivery - C.O.D.

You may have an item for sale, that fits into a mailbox. These items are the easiest to trade, as you can simply put them into a mailbox, select a recipient, check the C.O.D. tab, select a price, and send the item to your customer. The time it takes for the item to arrive depends on how high the enchantment on the mailbox is, and how far away your customer lives. You will be paid as soon as the customer receives the item. In order to pick up an item sent to you via C.O.D., you simply go to a mailbox and receive the item. In order to successfully withdraw the item, you need the amount of money it costs to be in your bank, as it is automatically withdrawn from there. A courier fee of 1c per item applies (see mail for more details).

Pickup

You or your customer may choose Pickup for an option. That means that you either have to travel to your seller to pick up the item you wish to buy, or that your customer has to travel to you in order to pick up the item he wishes to buy. The likelihood of someone coming all the way to you to pick up their items depends on your location, the distance to them, and the value of the item.

Delivery

When selling an item, you may offer delivery. If you deliver to a location far away from you, you might consider applying delivery charges, which have to be discussed with your customer in advance. For bulk or loadable items, it is recommended to own a ship. However, if you are at a lake with a shallow canal to the outside sea, make sure you have a ship that is able to get through it. The same applies to you if you wish for a seller to deliver to you - they may apply delivery charges just as well, so make sure to clarify on that before they make their way to you.

Alternatively, you may use the new wagoner system which utilizes the highway system and an NPC to deliver the goods for you.

Payment

This is explained in detail below. It is the last step of the transaction with your customer, and often the most problematic one.

Payment

Cash On Delivery (C.O.D.)

The safest way to trade is via C.O.D.. You send the item to your buyer in a mailbox, and as they pick it up, you receive the money. If they do not pick it up, you will receive it back after a while. The money is automatically taken out of someone's bank account upon picking up the item.

Ingame Currency

You may also consider payment via ingame currency - usually silver. In an easy case, this can be traded for the actual item. For example, if you are selling armour to someone else, you can put the armour into the trade window, your partner puts the silver in, and upon closing the transaction you both have successfully received your items. If it concerns items that are not tradeable by window, it is usually a little bit more complicated. You may either find ways to lock your items and give the buyer the key upon receiving the money (For example, if you are selling mortar inside a BSB, you can lock it and trade the key to the bsb for the payment), or allow your customer to inspect the items, but ask him to pay before you unload them from your ship or other means of transport. The usual way in such cases is that players pay before receiving their items.

Real Life Currency

As of March 1st 2020, Wurm no longer allows trade with real life currency.

A Word Of Caution

While the Wurm community and staff try their best to prevent scams, no one but the people directly involved in the trade can be held responsible for the outcome of each transaction. Especially when trading via real life currency, that can become an issue. Scams are less than frequent, but they do happen, and you will wish to be as careful as possible to avoid that scenario. For that, there was an official warning to all players issued by the staff, which you are recommended to read. It is advised for you to trade only with people who have a reputation of completing successful trades, or who have someone respectable to back up their intentions as a first time trader.

Make sure to take screenshots or even record your transactions and keep the results as proof for a successful transaction, or a scam just in case.

If you are victim of a scam, issue a Support ticket and staff will attempt to support you in the matter as well as possible. However, as mentioned above, they can not issue refunds for payments made with out-of-game methods.