Personal merchant
Contents
Description
Merchant_<name> is here selling items on behalf of <player>.
A personal merchant is an NPC that tries to sell anything you give him to other players. Then you can come back and collect the money.
Unlike traders, personal merchants will not buy anything, they only sell items that the owner gives them, and the owner sets the prices.
Contract
You can buy a personal merchant contract from a trader for 10 silver coins. 25% of this purchase price will remain on the trader you bought from.
Merchants trade ownership when the contract is traded. You can sell or give the contract to another player. If done on the same server, the merchant does not need to be dismissed - note that all items remaining in the merchant will stay in the merchant for the new owner once the merchant contract is traded. If you wish to trade the contract on a different server, the merchant must not be placed; otherwise, the contract will not cross the server with you.
If you change kingdom, you will NOT lose the contract anymore, as long as you dismiss the merchant. This has been confirmed by Rudie, Garfunkal, and Longshanks(Hexd). If you fail to dismiss the merchant and switch kingdoms, you will not be able to take items off or add new items too it - but you will still be able to manage prices (Per Rudie).
Placed contracts do not change servers and will remain on the server where the merchant was placed until you return to it. Contracts which are not for placed merchants will transfer servers within the same server cluster.
Placing
Merchant can be placed either inside a finished house or on a tile that has a market stall. Go on the desired tile, and make sure no other creatures than you are on it. Right-click the Personal merchant contract in your inventory and select 'Manage traders'. Name your merchant, select the gender and click 'Send'. If the name is too long, a random name will be picked for you.
If you want to place a merchant on a deed in a building as a non-villager, you need to be on the writ of the building. If the merchant option is set on the deed, non-villagers may place personal merchants in market stalls.
If the building the merchant is in rots away, he will still be able to trade and be managed.
Stocking
To add items to the merchant, right-click him and select 'Trade'. Drag items from your inventory into the Your offer -window, and the merchant will drag them down to his Demand window. Note that the Prices shown there are his evaluations; if you have set the prices manually, the selling prices will be those. (To set the price yourself, right-click the item in your inventory, select Prices > Set price, and set the desired amount of Gold, Silver, Copper and Iron coins you want for the item.) Once finished, check 'You accept'.
You cannot put containers with items in them nor items inside containers onto a merchant, the container must be emptied first.
The inventory limit for a merchant seems to be about 50 - 55 items.
You can remove items from sale by dragging them from merchant's Offer window down to your Demand window and checking 'You accept'. You do not need to pay for them. If the merchant has gained money, he will give that to you as well.
Managing
After placing the merchant, you can manage it by right-clicking the Personal merchant contract in your inventory and selecting 'Manage traders'.
Use local price means that the merchant will use his local supply when determining price for items. This is the default. Otherwise the price used will be the standard base value for the item. Price modifier is the value he will apply to the price; default is 1.4 times the Get Price. If you set specific prices on items, those prices will be used regardless of these settings.
If you see that the amount of money has increased in the Sold columns, remember to go to your merchant to collect the money. Note that merchant takes a 10% cut of the sales.
Changing Prices
To change prices of the items in stock, check Manage prices and click 'Send'. A window with all the items and their price fields comes up. Note that in a very busy place, the item may be bought before you change the price. To prevent that, begin a Trade session and leave it open to "lock" the merchant until you have set all your prices.
Dismissing
To dismiss a merchant, for instance to move it somewhere else, check the Dismiss box and click 'Send'. A dismissed merchant's items and money disappear, so make sure to take them all out beforehand.
Forced Dismissing
- If you are away for several months, the merchant may leave or be forced to leave with all the items and coins in his inventory.
- Mayors can dismiss merchants on their deed if the owner has not logged on in over one month.
- If the merchant is wizkilled (an instant kill that GM's and developers can do), he is dismissed, but he can still be placed again as usual.
Notes
- You can also do Get Price etc in the Trade window. This will show you the Set Price of the item, if it was set.
- Items held by a Merchant can be Examined, by anyone, via the Trade window.
- Putting large numbers of low-value items on a Merchant is hardly worth the effort, as you have to set the price on each one individually, even if they are all identical.
- You can now sell low quality items when standing next to a Merchant. See Sell for more information.
- Merchants have the same inventory settings as players. If it decays in a player inventory it will decay in a merchant's inventory.
