What is Trading?

In the world of Black Desert, trade literally refers to the exchange of trade goods with certain NPCs. You can either acquire trade goods from defeating monsters, completing quests, purchasing them from certain Trade Manager NPCs, gathering them from the environment, or crafting them yourself via a town workshop. The fish caught through fishing is also classified as a trade good.

Unlike other items, trade goods will always come with its origin point, and a distance bonus will be calculated based on the distance between the origin point and the NPC you sell it to. In other words, you can earn more from selling a trade good to a trader NPC who is further away from its origin point.

But just trying to sell it as far away as possible is not always the best. In order for the value of the trade good to be properly appreciated, the node of the origin point and the town you’re trying to sell it to must be connected. Thus, you will need to invest in nodes and also consider the traveling time between the two locations as well.

If your purpose is to do more than just trade, then it is essential to find out how you can trade most efficiently.
In order to achieve this, there are a few key words that you must understand. They are explored in the next few sections.

Market Price

The market price refers to the price that the trade good is sold and purchased at.
It rises or falls based on a probability every day at 02:00, 06:00, 10:00, 14:00, 18:00, and 22:00 (UTC), and can increase or decrease by max 15% of their base value.

General trade goods such as ancient gold coins do not fluctuate in price, and in the case of fish, the cost can increase by up to 130% and decrease by as little as 80%.

In the case of trade goods that can be purchased from Trade Manager NPCs, their purchase & sale price can increase up to 300% (3 times their base price), and decrease to as low as 30%.
The fluctuating market price of these trade goods is applied equally to all servers.

Special Price Fluctuation

In addition, at every fixed time specified above, a special price fluctuation in which the market price of trade goods changes significantly takes place.
When a special fluctuation occurs, the current price can increase by up to 200% (twice the price), or decrease by up to 50%.

Please note that special price fluctuations will occur after the 15% market price changes, which occur every 4 hours at 02:00, 06:00, 10:00, 14:00, 18:00, and 22:00 (UTC).
Market prices will change by each territory and category of trade item. Such categories are: General Goods, Luxury, Food, Medicine, Military Supply, Relic, Clothing, and Raw Material.

Before special price fluctuations occur, information can be gathered in advance to predict the change in market prices. You can check rumors in the Old Moon Guild Newsletter window, accessed through the Life (F6) tab in the main menu (hotkey: Esc).
Operated by the Old Moon Guild, these rumors may or may not be applied 4 hours upon circulating, or may even be incorrect.
This can be confirmed directly by checking the residents of each territory who are gathered in town commenting their ideas and pondering what to do.

For example, when there is a rumor that the price of Calpheonian general goods is expected to skyrocket, you can witness in person the conversation in front of the eagle statue in Calpheon where you’ll find people complaining about the difficulty in obtaining materials.

Price Guarantee Time

This is the expiration date for a trade good. When a trade good is purchased, it is kept stored in that node’s order contract log. You have a 7-day price guarantee period from the time of purchase. If the goods are not retrieved within the contract period, they will be sold at 25% of the original price, and the price of the forced sale will be paid after deducting the standby fee.

When the trade goods are retrieved from the order contract, they will have a 3-hour validity period regardless of the contract period. During the 3-hour validity period, retrieved trade goods will not be affected by price drops that occur during the remaining validity period.

Thus, once you retrieve a trade good, you need to sell it as soon as possible before the 3 hours have passed, as you cannot return the trade good to the order contract log once it has been retrieved.

Stock

Remaining Quantity

The limit quantity that can be delivered. In normal trading, there is no limit. The Trade Manager NPCs in major towns will accept all the trade goods you have for sale.
For imperial fishing delivery, the server's delivery quantity is reset every 3 hours from 00:00 (UTC) real time.
In the case of imperial crafting delivery, there is no delivery quantity limit per server, but per family. The daily delivery quantity limit per family is set at 1/2 of your maximum contribution points.

➤ You can read more about contribution points in the [Contribution] pages.

When purchasing a residence, keep in mind the amount of contribution points required. In the case above, the house itself only costs 3 contribution points, but unlocking its purchase by purchasing all required houses costs up to 11 points.

Additionally, some of the materials you will need require the Processing - Beginner knowledge. 
This can be acquired only by reaching a certain level in processing, and then carrying out a series of quests.

➤ You can read more about these quests in the [Processing] page.

For example, the materials that require this kind of knowledge include brass ingot, sturdy pine plywood and fine soft hide, which are required to craft a noble wagon. However, don’t be stressed, since it is rather easy to obtain the required processing level, and the related quests are quite easy as well.

Wagons are consumables, so you will need a new one when the durability wears out in order to continue trading. Thus, it is better to craft more than one wagon in preparation for the future. Of course, selling those you don’t need at the Central Market is also a good idea.

Imperial Crafting/Fishing Delivery

An imperial delivery is when you supply goods that are needed by the imperial court. There are several types: selling horses, packaged dishes & elixirs, and fish.
Since the items are being sought after by the imperial court, their market value is fixed at 250% of their market price. This applies to packaged dishes & elixirs and fish.

Imperial crafting delivery involves packaging a box of a specific item and supplying it to the aforementioned imperial court. This means that you’ll be crafting a trade good and delivering it, rather than buying it from a Trade Manager NPC like you normally do during trading. It requires a lot of preparation and effort, but you can earn a large amount of silver this way.

The imperial crafting delivery resets on a daily basis (server time).

Trading Processed Items

This refers to selling various types of crates that can be crafted in a town workshop.
The advantages are that the ingredients can be gathered by your workers, and the crate items can be stacked in the local town storage. You can also set the origin point of the item quite freely, and earn big amounts of silver through trade by using the fact that delivery is always available.

You can have an unlimited workforce by giving beer to your workers. This is an efficient method that many Adventurers use.

Trading processed items is a simple process. You just need to craft crates from the various workbenches (wood, mineral, crop, mushroom, fish) and sell them.
The most important thing here is the town that workers are affiliated with. This is because the origin point of the item will not be determined by the location of the workshop, but the village where the worker is from.

The materials also need to be within the storage of the town that the worker is part of, as the system involves the worker taking the materials from their own town to the workshop and crafting the item there. (The crafting duration, however, will be lower if the workshop is located in the town of the worker.)