Summary and Parting Thoughts
Summary
To summarize, there are tons of ways to make money. You don't have to do auctions, but that's how I do it. Trading is popular, so is restocking, games suck, so choose your own path based on your skills.
Don't play games (for the purpose of making money) if you have more than 100k. You are just wasting time.
Speed on your computer is key to not only winning auctions, but saving time. Bookmark pages that you go to often. It will save you hours a week in mouse "clicking" time.
A lot of times, you are not "buying low and selling high". You are buying low, but selling at market value. It's much easier to buy items cheap, and sell them for market prices, than it is to buy it at market value and sell it "high".
Never take hard to sell items. A hard to sell item is one you have never heard of before or not familiar with. No exceptions. You must've had items that you couldn't sell before. Sucks yeah? Don't take hard to sell items.
Do the christmas petpet paint brush auction thing. You WILL sell around half of them at a markup. I guarantee it. I've been doing it for months, half of them sell. This is an easy way to make 5-15k a day (depending on how often you put it up), and you can do this everyday for a few clicks.
Sometimes you just have to take a loss. The price might go down, or you thought it was worth more, so you overpaid. Don't cry about it. Just take a loss, sell the item, get some points back, and make money elsewhere.
Buy and sell quickly. Yes, the value could go up. War could increase the demand. Items could just slowly rise in price. An item could suddenly get popular and cause the price to double. However, it could just as easily go the other way. People could suddenly not want an item, and the value could be cut in half. Or there are too many people selling it, and the price could drop. Or maybe an expensive item could be placed in the hidden tower for 200k and screw you over. Don't risk it. Buy and sell within 24 hours. 48 max.
If you have to give something, with only a "promise" of something back, it's a scam. No exceptions. Guilds, secrets, non-neopets websites, whatever. Strangers do not purposely want to help strangers make more points. Let me repeat that. Strangers do not help strangers make more points. Friends help, not strangers. Don't trust them. They're all scams.
There is a tendency to bid too early when bidding at auction. Count down in your head, and bid at 1.5-2 seconds. Relax. Don't bid at 4 seconds. Don't bid at 3 seconds. Bid when you are supposed to, and you will have a much better chance of winning.
Auctions are all about anticipating what everyone else will bid, and going a bit higher. You can't really teach instincts, so practice for a week, for 3 hours a day, and I guarantee that when you are done, you will be giving me tips of how to win at auction.
If an item doesn't sell in your shop, don't worry. It usually takes a few hours unless you priced it way too low (in that case it will sell within a few seconds), or you priced it way too high (it will never sell). If you price it the lowest on the wiz, or at least the lowest in your group (for cheap items), it'll most likely sell within a few hours. Also, put scratchcards and christmas petpet paintbrushes at a 30% markup, because those are the great impulse items.
When you go to a cheap shop, stay a while. Look around. When you see someone trading one thing for cheap, go to their trades. It takes an extra minute, but you could make a lot of money.
Don't waste money on useless "items" that you are never going to sell, unless you are up to 5 million points. After 5 million, it doesn't matter how much liquid cash you have. Before that, you don't want to tie up your money in things you don't plan to sell.
Parting Thoughts
I hope you enjoyed reading, I really do. It took me dozens, if not hundreds of hours over a few weeks to put this together, so I hope it was time well spent.
You know you're good when you get neomails like these (these are just over the period of a few days, I get a lot like this):
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Explanation of the neomail over --------------------------> The one on the left was one of the people I tried to help from my guild. She was responding to me posting that I was quitting neopets. She starts by asking "why are u leaving . . . " and my first response was "hmm, I appreciate .. . " I hope you can follow it. |
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I don't expect you to have remembered everything you just read. In fact, I expect you to forget most of it. However, I hope you did learn a thing or two, whether you are a brand new player, or an experienced auction sniper. Actually, if you were a brand new player, I recommend you play games and test out stuff first. Then come back and read this, because this guide is very technical, and very advanced. If I read this guide when I first started, not knowing the difference between a trading post, auction board and shop wiz, I would be totally lost.
You should probably practice the methods here, go back, and re-read the entire site over again. Do this about 5 times, and you might be as good as me.
I'm not sure if I'm quitting or staying, I quit lots times already, heh. Check my user lookup to get the latest information. But seriously, don't spend all your free time on neopets, it's just a game. Don't let neopets take over your life.
Let me repeat that. Don't let neopets take over your life.
Let me say that one more time, just to make sure you understood me. I want to make this point very, very clear. Don't let neopets take over your life. Don't neglect friends, family, your school or job in order to spend more time on neopets. It's a game. Have fun. Spend some of your free time here. But don't let it take over your life.
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This quite sarcastic comment in chat is exactly what neopets
is all about.
Why do we waste our time here? The two posts say it all. 1) To have fun, 2) But in the end, all that we have "worked" for and everything we did . . . it's just buying cute little pixels of color. |
If you want, you can email me at dninomiya@hotmail.com and I will try to get back to you. Put something like "neopets" in the subject, because I get too many spam mails from people with the subject "hi" or "hello", and will probably erase it if the subject says "hi". I also use AIM all the time, same username, and msn (less used) with that email.
I wish you well making money in neopets. It's just a game, remember that. Most importantly, have fun. If you aren't having fun, do something else. Your free time is valuable. Therefore, you shouldn't spend your free time on stressful activities.
Good luck. Thanks for reading. And finally, don't let neopets take over your life.
My last words of wisdom has nothing to do with neopets. It is the words I live by, and something I thought of when I was about 14 years old. It's what encouraged me to ask out the girl that became my first girlfriend, and it is the words that helped me live a better life overall.
"Regret is worse than rejection."
Basically, try new things. Have confidence, and don't regret things, even if you fail. It's better to do stuff and fail, and learn from the experience, rather than never trying and always regretting that. You want your life to be full of stories, both successes and failures. You don't want your life to be a bunch of "I wish I had . . . " or "I always wanted to . . . " or "If I had only done this or that . . . "
If you try, but failed, at least you tried. If you don't try anything at all, you always will fail. Think about it. If you try something new, or if you take advantage of an opportunity, you will either succeed or fail. If you don't try anything new, or if you don't take advantage an opportunity, it will pass you by, and you will have essentially failed. And believe me, you will regret your missed opportunity much longer than you will feel sad if you had failed.
Ask that girl/guy out. Visit that new place you've always wanted to go to. Take on that new project at work or difficult class at school. Take up that new hobby or challenge you've always dreamed about. No regrets. No fear. Just do it. Regret is worse than rejection.
That's all that you have to put up with me. Read the section below if you want to quit neopets. Don't read it if you like neopets.
-David Ninomiya (theseus51 on neopets)
