Buyout Merchanting

Buyout Merchanting can be the most profitable form of Merchanting if performed correctly. Buyout Merchanting, Clan Merchanting, or price manipulation is also the most populer form of merchanting, especially in F2P. It is usually performed by clans, most of the time scamming their members.

It works by supply and demand. The clan leader will pick an item and the whole clan will buy as many as they can at max price. This is raising the demand. As the merch goes on the clan will begin to own a certain percentage of that item in the game. This is reducing the supply as the clan is owning a lot of that item in the game so there is less to be sold. This is all calculated in the Grand Exchange then it will work out how much the price will rise, therefor manipulating the price.

Once the item reaches a certain price the clan leader will tell the clan to dump the item (usually the clan leader will have dumped before this price to make sure they make money and don't loose out by selling too late). When the clan dumps their items this is doing the opposite of what happens when they buy the item. The demand falls and the supply rises. This causes the price to drop.

This can be risky because if someone dumps their items before they are told (usually the leaders) it can cause the item to fall in price before it reaches the set price to dump. This causes everyone who invested to panic sell which overloads the Grand Exchange with the item making it extreamly difficult to sell and leaving many people with a load of items falling in price.

I do not reccomend this form of Merchanting unless you outsmart everyone else by selling before even the leaders.