RuneScape: Merchant Clans – The Thieves Who are Stealing Your Money?

While doing my weekly shopping at the Grand Exchange I noticed that range amulets had almost doubled in price since the beginning of summer. Two words jumped into my head, merchant clans. Yes, that’s right, those groups of players who all buy into an item at maximum price, forcing the price to rise before selling it for a profit at the expense of the rest of us.

My next thought is whenever Jagex should allow such clans to operate? Merchant clans are nothing new, they were around before the Grand Exchange was introduced and are still ever popular now. However it was reported that during this summer, Jagex started to clamp down on them by locking a number of top merchant clan owners accounts, along side some of their higher ranked players. Though on the contrary, Jagex’s official statement says that merchant clans are allowed, providing their members understand the fact they may lose money. 

With further investigation about players views on this clamp down I found there to be a fairly even balance for and against merchant clans, many of which are expressed on the RuneScape forums under ‘rants’. Those against them tend to claim that merchant clans are ’spoiling’ the economy, while they earn large amounts of cash for themselves, without any effort. However those in favour of merchant clans feel it’s just part of the game, matching supply and demand. Merchant clans gets the supplies which the rest of RuneScape has demands for. This of course happens in real life, as well as in other games. Many of us have played the game ‘Monopoly’. The word itself, which by a dictionary definition states, “exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market”. With no side clearly being right, can RuneScape truly justify banning player accounts for the mass buying of an item?

An old saying goes, “If you can’t beat them, join them”. With that in mind I went hunting for a merchant clan. As anyone who has walked into the Grand Exchange, on any of the popular worlds, will know that its covered in advertising for merchant clans. Spoilt for choice, I decided to join the clan which I saw advertising the most. The theory behind that being, if they had the most members advertising, then they should all together have the most members.

Instantly after joining a players clan, I noticed the clan’s name was ‘Gold Bar480′. Gold bars being the item we were to buy at maximum price and wait till ‘480gp’ being the price we would ‘drop’ (sell) them. The amount of profit I would allegedly make was a very tempting 25%. Good organisation was also very evident, which together was producing very promising results. Gold bars had become number one in the highest rises for f2p items and fourth overall.

It is now easier to understand why so many people join merchant clans, the luring factors are very great indeed. However, it is also simple to see why others may oppose to these easy to earn factors because of they are at a cost to others. Either way I am not paying double for my range amulets. 

Lets see what the leader of RuneScape’s biggest free to play merchant clan, ‘Be Mercher’ has to say about them exclusive interview. His ongoing success has spread so far that his ‘first’ clan has almost become permanently filled and he has had to now open another two accounts to deal with the growing demand, he also runs a popular youtube channel.

History? Hmm.. I started playing two years ago on my main account named ‘arad t.’
We were three friends that started to all play at the same time. They always were better than me but I was the richer one!As I used to make my money by fishing lobsters and when I was at the GE I started to solo merch barrows items.

02. Approximately, how long have you been merchanting for and what made you start?

I have been merchanting for like one year, solo and about three months with my clan. I started to merch because its really interesting and there is never a dull moment…

03. Could you explain how and why you started your own merchanting clan?

I never merched with clan before but I remember that four month ago I was at GE to buy some food, when I saw someone advertise for ‘we make gp’ (use to be the best clan). I asked him what is a merchant clan and how its work but he won’t tell me.
So I decided to open a clan for my self to see how its work, my first clan was ‘merch2rich’. It was a big sucsses so I said why not carry on? But after one month someone report me for advertising a website and I got banned. “Be Mercher” is my new clan and we now have become the biggest because people know that I have the best experience.

04. What would you say is the key to success with a merchanting clan and why?

People like to know things, it makes them feel better, so I always tell them the truth – even if we fail I am not afraid to say it.

05. It’s well know that a merchant clan leader buys before an item has risen in price and sells before everyone else drops. What is your personal view on this?

I will not lie to you and I will say that I use to do that on ‘merch2rich’. But with time I learn that the best way to merch is with your clan. It’s to buy with them. Because if you buy before the update, the price won’t change and if you buy before the rest of the clan, other people may know and dump on you. Also, I don’t sell my item in GE. When the price start’s to go down or we dump I use it as junk in world 2, that way I don’t have to sell before..

06. considering the next item how much profit do you aim for and what kind of price ranges do you look at?

I don’t really have a goal or like you said, an aim, but I always try to do the best I can.
Sometimes we have no luck because when I buy into an item I never know if there is another very rich person that is doing the same item but solo.

07. What other factors do you look at when considering the next item?

I watch the price everyday, looking on the 180 days graph, to see what the max price was. This way I can see if the price is going up, meaning that someone else has started to buy into it, which is never good thing.

I have one more thing I do, but I can’t tell you it here because other clans will do it…

08. Many people feel Jagex should ban merchanting clans, what do you think about this?

Lets say, if merchanting clans were to be closed, a lot of people will stop playing all together. Most of the people who are making money, are making it with merchant clans (well at least the good clans). So if they were to stop people making money, I think they will leave RuneScape. No wilderness? A trade limit? what next…? If people think that they are bad then they don’t have to join.

09. Do you think that instead of Jagex banning merchant clans, the opposite approach of making the whole of RuneScape aware and using them would work?

I don’t think Jagex will ever ban merchant clans. After all they have never broken any rules…
A clan is an account and if it hasn’t broken any rules, then they can’t just ban it for no reason.

10. What would you say to have been your greatest merchanting achievement?

Black med helms. Maybe it’s funny that our greatest achievement is our first item. We had just 100 members but after the helms we had 850 members. We started to merch the helms but I didn’t play for 10 days because I was on holiday, during that time a lot of people left us. So we merched helms to show them that we back,

When I started this merch all my generals thought it was a joke. But after 3 days they said that it was good idea. I merched this item because I knew that there was only 10k of them in the game. That way no one could buy and “lose”…

11. If an opposition clan starts merchanting the same item as your clan but has a lower drop price, what actions do you take about this?

First I will talk to the owner, I will ask him to merge into us. If he says ‘no’ I will make him close the clan because I have a trick. ‘my merch now’ – They were the biggest clan. They had started to merch gold bars a day before us and I wanted to merch this item so I asked him to join me, but he said no.

So we started to merch gold bars and he told all his members (about 50), to dump on ‘Be Mercher’, though after 3 min’s all his members ignored him and came to my clan. I guess you can say that it’s not fair, but I knew he would never merch gold bars with just 50 ppls. So the credit is to my clan…

12. What other methods do you use to keep your merchant clan as the best?

I am always asking my generals what I can do to make this clan better and I am always asking the un-ranks for tips. I am also continually looking for merchant partners in world 2 – rich players that can help us to rise items. There is also one more thing that I can’t tell here. Sorry.

13. Thank you for that interesting insight into the running of a merchant clan. Do you have any final words you would like to add?

Today we have around 1300 members, and I want to say ‘thank you’ to all of them! Me and my ranks will always do our very best to make you happy and continue to enjoy this game.

01. As a player who is very influential on the Grand Exchange, not too many people have heard of you. Could you tell us a little about your RuneScape history?