Oblivion:Mercantile

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Oblivion: Skills | Commerce

Skill: Mercantile
Mercantile
Governing Attribute:
Personality
Specialization:
Stealth


Mercantile skill allows you to sell goods to merchants for more while buying for less. (Ties in with Speechcraft)

Contents

[edit] Mastery

[edit] Mastery Perks

  • The gold received by a Novice for goods is reduced because of wear.
  • An Apprentice no longer has prices reduced due to wear.
  • A Journeyman can sell any goods to any vendor.
    • Vendors can also sell any goods to a Journeyman of Mercantile. This "unlocks" a few unique items carried by merchants who don't otherwise sell items of their type.
    • This does not allow you to sell stolen items to a non-fence.
    • This does not allow you to sell quest items.
  • An Expert can invest money in a shop to permanently increase the shop's available gold by 500.
    • Unlike most skill perks, this perk becomes available if you fortify your mercantile skill to 75 (but not if you installed the Unofficial Oblivion Patch).
  • For a Master:
    • All shops in the world have 500 more gold for barter (this is independent of investing in a shop).
    • All transactions with all shopkeepers can be done at a glorious 100/100 ratio (buy and sell items at base cost); this has been confirmed in the patched version of the game.
      • This bonus is not obvious. The haggle slider continues to show buy/sell ratios that are worse than 100/100, and if you push the slider too far to the right, a merchant will still refuse the transaction, however, all the prices shown for items are base prices, for both buying and selling. These prices are not influenced by the haggle slider setting, and are the actual prices for any transactions.

[edit] Skill Increases

You gain 0.4 experience points per sales transaction, regardless of the number of items being sold, the value of the items, or the setting of the haggle slider. You do not gain any experience for buying items, except for spells (for which you gain 0.4 experience points per spell bought). You also do not gain any experience for giving away zero-value items.

To increase mercantile skill, you will want to sell items one by one (for example, if you have a stack of 20 identical arrows, you will gain 20 times more experience if you sell the arrows one at a time than if you sell all 20 at once). The Select One control shortcut (LB on Xbox 360; L2 on PS3) is useful for quickly moving the "How Many?" slider when selling items individually. Even so, increasing mercantile skill can be very tedious.

To increase mercantile skill somewhat more artificially:

  • Buy stacks of cheap arrows from a merchant, then sell them back one by one. Many merchants sell an infinite supply of iron arrows. With only moderate mercantile skill it is possible to lose only 1 gold on each transaction (until you are a master of mercantile, it is impossible to buy 1 gold items for less than 2 gold).
  • Join the Mages Guild or Fighters Guild so you can freely take everything in the guild halls. Take everything (even the cheap items) and sell them to a local shopkeeper.
  • If you're an expert in armorer, there is an easier way to sell large items one by one. If you collect several of one specific weapon, the game will place each one into a stack. However, if you repair these items to 125%, they will become separate entities and be listed individually. This allows you to sell each item one at a time without having to go through the slider screen that is prompted when selling items in a stack.
  • If you have not installed any patches, the Kvatch infinite money glitch also provides mercantile experience every time you sell your weapon.

See also:

[edit] Dialogue

When your skill reaches 70 or higher, NPCs will start saying: "You look like a shrewd businessman."

[edit] Character Creation

The following races provide initial skill bonuses in mercantile:

The following standard classes include mercantile as a major skill:

[edit] Haggling

Mercantile determines your ability to haggle for better prices when buying and selling items from merchants. Normally when you look at an item in your inventory the price shown is the item's Base Price. However, when you are trying to buy or sell items, the prices shown will be significantly different: these are the prices taking into account the current setting of the haggle slider, which can be accessed from the buy and sell menus. When the haggle slider is positioned to the left, you will get bad deals; if the haggle slider is positioned to the right, you will get much better deals.

For example, take an item with a base price of 500 gold. If your haggle slider says Buying Items at 167% of value. Selling Items at 43% of value (i.e. the slider is fairly far to the left), you will only be able to sell that item for 215 gold (500*0.43). On the other hand, if you want to buy that item you will have to pay 835 gold (500*1.67). If you push the slider further to the right, the prices become more advantageous, i.e. at Buying Items at 135% of value. Selling Items at 75% of value, you can sell that same item for 375 gold; you can purchase it for 675 gold. Only once your Mercantile skill reaches 100 (naturally, without any fortify mercantile enhancements) is it possible to buy or sell items at 100% of their base price. Otherwise, sell 96% / buy 116% is the best seen in the game, for Aurelinwae, Mercantile skill 6, or Sinderion, Mercantile skill 8 (see below for more info). This is with your Mercantile skill fortified to 100+ and Disposition charmed well past 100; the Haggle slider is pegged to the right for them. Spell merchants will give rates of 97/115, if your Mercantile skill is above 90. You can't sell to them, so it really doesn't affect much.

You can slide the haggle slider as far left or right as you like. However, if you push it too far to the right, the merchant will refuse to accept your offer and the merchant's Disposition will drop by one point (unless you're buying spells... spells are a great way to determine the exact haggle value for merchants who sell both spells and regular items). The haggling "mini-game" requires you to figure out what is the best deal that the merchant will accept. The best deal is based upon:

  • Your Mercantile skill. Limited experimentation suggests that the haggle slider can be moved one notch to the right for every 6 points that your Mercantile skill increases. Values above 100 (due to spells and enchantments) are treated as 100 when haggling; 100 is the maximum effective value.
  • The merchant's Mercantile skill (these are listed at Merchants and on the individual merchants' pages). Fortunately, these do not increase as a result of transactions, unlike your Mercantile skill, nor do they increase as your level increases (with the exception of six minor leveled merchants, whose Mercantile skill depends on the player's level; see Other Merchants).
  • The merchant's Disposition towards you (which is in part influenced by your Personality). Play the persuasion minigame and/or cast a charm spell before doing lots of selling, if it's below 100. Unlike your mercantile skill, dispositions over 100 (even though you can't see it in the game) will affect Haggle rates. So if you're not sure if it's way over 100 (perhaps 130 or so), use a big Charm spell, if you can! If you don't have access to big charm spells/potions/enchantments, note that factions also affect disposition (including the extent to which it's invisibly over 100). This is why you might see two merchants who have the same mercantile skill and are 100 Disposition to you, having different rates... your Mage's Guild buddy (or whomever) actually has a much higher Disposition than 100 (although you can't see it), whereas the other guy is right at, or near, 100.

The only way to find the best deal is by experimenting, although the merchant's skill level can also be a guide. A merchant's Disposition may drop by one or two points if you haggle badly, but typically small changes in disposition have little effect, and are quickly recovered from with more transactions. As previously mentioned, experiment with spell buying whenever it's available, since the merchant's disposition will not drop when a spell purchase is refused. However, be sure to note the resulting haggle settings before leaving the spell purchasing menu; the settings you determine there are not remembered, and you will have to set the haggle slider yourself before making regular transactions. The "best deal" position on the slider is the same for both buying and selling.

The merchant's Mercantile skill is a major factor. Therefore, you can typically get much better deals by visiting merchants with poor Mercantile skill (see Merchants). However, these merchants also generally have less available gold, and therefore will not give you good deals on individual expensive items. On the other hand, avoid dealing with merchants with Expert Mercantile skill unless you need to take advantage of their high amounts of available gold.

Investing in a merchant to increase their available gold does not cause any change in the haggle slider. Thus, the truly dedicated could, e.g., invest in Sinderion and sell everything worth up to 900 to him, then visit other merchants to sell more expensive items.

The game will remember the previous setting of the haggle slider when you revisit a merchant. If your Mercantile skill has increased substantially since the last time you visited a merchant (or the merchant's Disposition towards you has increased for any reason), you will probably want to try to push the slider a couple notches to the right.

If you cast spells, use the mini-game, or do quests that change your Disposition relative to the merchant, the Haggle slider will attempt to track the change. Most of the time it tracks it accurately, but it may be off by a point or two, especially with large changes (e.g., a big Charm spell). Conversely, if your Mercantile skill changes, this is not reflected in the slider - unless Disposition has also changed. Apparently, changes in Disposition trigger a revised estimate of the Haggle rate, based on all your other stats. To make a long story short, if you have only done a big change to your Mercantile skill (with e.g. a Fortify spell), you will need to play with the slider. But if you have changed Disposition (including as a regular course of gameplay, such as quests), the slider is probably tracking fairly accurately. Therefore, to avoid a "No deal" fall in Disposition on a merchant you have not haggled with in a while (and Disposition and/or Mercantile skill have increased), go a couple notches to the left and move up again using small buys.

It appears that items of approx. 50 to 100 gold are needed to cause a Merchant's Disposition to increase as a result of Haggling. So if you just had it fall back one, your Apples and Bread are not going to be enough to increase Disposition again. Buy or sell something more expensive. Or use a spell, the mini-game, etc. From personal experience, it seems that selling about 100 gold worth of items in one transaction raises 1 disposition, but this may be capped at some value (i.e a Daedric dagger will not give 15 points per sale); a great way to get better prices is to use the minigame, then sell staves, daggers, and light armor (due to low weights and high prices) to boost disposition.

Sometimes you will find that when you visit a merchant who you have never previously dealt with, the haggle slider is already set. The setting is somehow based upon the haggle settings that you have used for other merchants; it tends to be roughly correct, but you may want to tweak it some.

[edit] Merchants versus Mercantile Skills and Gold

Many Merchants have similar stats, as shown below. We'll call these the usual rates. Best possible haggle rates (HR, Buy/Sell percents) are also shown. Note that these best rates apply to all merchants with a given Skill, regardless of available gold. For example, all Skill 40 merchants, from innkeepers with 50 gold to Morvayn with 1200, have a best HR of 130/87:

Mercantile
skill		 Gold Best Haggle Number of
Merchants		 Notes
Buy Sell
30 600 124 91 7 Bravil and Chorrol Fighters Guild, Anvil Mages Guild, Various/General Goods.
40 800 130 87 18 Many various types of stores, including five Mages Guild alchemists.
60 1000 142 79 12 Mainly general goods stores with a few specialty stores as well.
80 1200 154 72 7 All are specialty stores, of various types.

There are two known exceptions to these usual rates. In addition, three mod-only merchants have more than 1200 available gold:

  • Sinderion at Skingrad's West Weald Inn (basement) has the lowest mercantile skill (without the Frostcrag Spire plugin) in the game at 8, with 400 Gold, HR 116/96. So he's the best place to sell cheap items, by far. He also does the Seeking Your Roots (nirnroot) quest, which helps you get in good with him.
  • Varel Morvayn at Anvil's Morvayn's Peacemakers is the best for expensive goods (again, assuming you don't have the official mods), with mercantile skill 40, Gold 1200, HR 130/87. Unlike the other exceptions, he will buy weapons and armor -- the main money-maker for most players -- without the need to first reach Journeyman skill.
  • Aurelinwae at the Mystic Emporium is added by the Wizard's Tower official mod. She has an exceptionally low mercantile skill (only 6), and she has 2000 gold, more than any standard merchants. When you reach master level in Mercantile, her gold will increase to 2500, however you cannot invest in her store.
  • Rowley Eardwulf at the Wawnet Inn is added by the Vile Lair official mod. He is one of two merchants with the largest available gold in the game. He starts with 2000 available gold. You can invest in his store, so at master-level Mercantile, he has 3000 available gold. However, his mercantile skill is 44, so unless you need the extra 500 gold, Aurelinwae is a better choice to get the best possible bargains.
  • Nilphas Omellian at The Merchants Inn is added by the Fighter's Stronghold official mod. Nilphas is the other merchant who starts with 2000 available gold, which can be increased to 3000 available gold using all the Mercantile perks. As with Rowley, his mercantile skill is moderately good (40), so for items less than 2500 in value he may not be as good as Aurelinwae.

Past these exceptional merchants, if you don't want to hoof it to Skingrad or Morvayn's and if you don't want to use or buy official mods, there's only one other place that's better than the usual rates: Daenlin, in Bravil's Archer's Paradox (Skill 40, Gold 1000). Daenlin doesn't have as much gold as Morvayn, but is better for 1000 than the usual. Also note that "usual" merchants with 600 gold and skill 30 are better than Morvayn (or anyone else with MS 40+) for items worth 400 to 600 gold.

There are also worse bargains than the usual rates:

  • Fences have higher mercantile skills relative to gold available, compared to the usual. Often +10, but sometimes higher. The incomparable Fathis Ules is Skill 100 (Master), Gold 1500, HR 167/63.
  • Inns often have bad rates, especially outside of cities. But then they usually only have 50 gold anyway. 12 Inns have Skill 30, 11 Inns and Delos at The Feed Bag have Skill 40, and 5 Inns have Skill 50. All 5 of these are outside towns, and say Journeyman in their Haggle window.
  • Suurootan (Bruma Novaroma) is Gold 600, Skill 36, HR 127/89. He is the only merchant with 600 gold who is not skill 30.
  • Hackdirt merchant Etira Moslin is Skill 100, Gold 200.
  • Shady Sam (Skill 51, Gold 400) is a touch bad... but does have lots of good lockpicks.
  • The two merchants at the Kvatch encampment (Batul gra-Sharob and Sigrid) are Masters of Mercantile (Skill 100) but only have 200 Gold (HR 167/63).

For a lot more details, see this page's Discussion of Testing Haggling and/or a zipped spreadsheet showing merchant comparison curves and break-even points, and other math.

[edit] Tips

  • For best results, use spells or enchantments to raise your Mercantile skill to 100 (higher does not do any good); use spells, enchantments, or the Disposition mini-game to raise your Disposition to approximately 130 (even though you can't see anything over 100). Ultimately, only a merchant's Mercantile skill (not their gold) determines how good a rate you get; e.g. all Merc Skill 40 merchants offer the same maximum haggle rate (90% sell, 127% Buy), if your Merc skill and Disposition are maxed, so use Merchants with low Mercantile skill as much as possible. For a listing of Merchants vs. their skill and gold, see the Merchants listing. Or for a more compact view in a spreadsheet that you can sort, etc., get this zipped xls file.
  • You only need to raise your Mercantile skill and disposition long enough to activate the merchant, so a spell with 1-second duration Charm on Touch and 1-second duration Fortify Mercantile on self is all you need.
  • You may still invest in a shop after reaching Master mercantile, thus allowing for an overall increase of 1000 gold in any shop or fence you choose. These two perks (investing to get 500 more at Expert skill, and automatically getting 500 more at Master) are independent of each other.
  • There are several merchants you cannot invest in, including Calindil in Imperial City Market District, Ungarion in Bravil, Ernest Manis in Talos Plaza, and Aurelinwae in the Imperial City.
  • Once your renown reaches 40, you can visit the Sithian heaven doomstone to receive the greater power Sithian Web. One of several benefits of this power is that it fortifies your mercantile skill 20 points once a day for 120 seconds.
  • On the 360, version, when selling single items from a large stack, pressing the LB button will immediately move the cursor all the way to the left, allowing you to quickly sell stacks of items one at a time. This is useful for training your mercantile skill (although still rather tedious).
  • On the PS3 version, when selling single items from a large stack pressing the L2 button will immediately move the cursor all the way to the left.
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