NeoLodge.com - Restocking

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For all of those out there who have no clue on how to go about restocking, this is detailed description on restocking.

Computer Speed
Ok, first of all speed is somewhat essential for any restocker. This isn't the final essential, but it is important depending on the shops you pick. If your computer runs too much under 1000 Kbs, you will find yourself lagging behind in restocking; unable to restock snorkel snouts or bags of peanuts, especially with evil competition of ab’ers (people who use an auto-buying program, which is against Neopet rules). Lately due to changes in restocking, the ab'ers are the worse with profitable items that are under r90. Rule of thumb: the faster the better. Check out your speed at 2wire.com. A good speed to be at is around 2000. I run at 3000 when I haven't been crashing my computer. There are many who run slower and are good, however they know how to work with what they have very well (and they've been doing it for years).

Speeding Up Your Computer
If you find your computer running slow there are a few little tricks that help the speed a bit. The most obvious trick of all is to reboot before you start restocking. Along with rebooting, minimize the number of programs you run while restocking. Windows Media Player and other music programs take up a lot of computer resources which slows the computer down. MSN and AIM also eat away at your computer's resources. Often, a lot of programs install themselves so that they open upon startup when they are not needed. To fix this, go to the start menu, click Run. In the box that shows up, type in msconfig then hit okay. Do not touch anything else except the furthest tab on the right, which says Startup. The items with check marks are the programs, which run on startup. Take off any you don't need but MAKE SURE that you know what they are. You can take off programs like msnmsgr, which is MSN Messenger. If you're not sure, do not uncheck the arrow. To monitor what is running on your computer, hit Ctrl Alt Delete at the same time and it'll show you what programs are running. End useless tasks you do not need.

Another trick is to make sure you run cleanup and defrag your computer routinely. Programs like Norton System Works are priceless (very good at finding Trojans etc.), however it is a costly program. You can use programs such as Tuneup Utilities on a temporary basis (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3891.html). For disk cleanup and defragging without any programs: Start Menu, Programs, Accessories, System Tools: First do system Disc CleanupDisk Defragmenter. This should be done on a routine basis to keep performance up. Also make sure you use Spyware (which can be gotten at http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html) and AdAware (which can be gotten at http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/).

If you are running Windows XP, set Windows themes (right click, properties) to classic. Another memory trick is under properties, use a solid color as the background. Also setting your color back to 16 bit rather than 32 bit can speed up the computer.

Browser
Out of all the browsers, Mozilla FireFox is the best to use with restocking via my own experience, and I have used all of the most popular browsers. It is also the most highly rated by PC World Magazine for speed, trimness, cleanliness and decrease of clutter. IE, still incredibly popular, has a lot of problems with crashing. It's lag is not too bad, but the crashing can get annoying.

Another key reason FireFox is the leading restocking browser is its easy-to-use ad-block program. If you do not have Mozilla FireFox you can download it here, and help support NeoLodge at the same time. Once downloading FireFox, go to https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=10&application=firefox. This will get you the ad-block program. Once the program is downloaded and installed, it can be accessed through the ToolsMenu, Adblock, List All Blockable Elements. Or it can be accessed by doing Ctrl Shift A on the keyboard. If you accidentally block something you did not mean to, go to the Tools, Adblock menu and hit preferences. Scroll down the list and find the image you blocked. To get rid of the block, right click the mouse then hit delete. When done, press done on the window. One word of caution, blocking non-profitable items (instead of just ads) can get you frozen if TNT finds out that you are doing so.

The Basics of Restocking
In Neopets, restock means that the NeoPets run shops restock items at certain times. When each shop restocks, new items pop up all at once. During lag the items may pop up in clusters. The idea of restocking is to quickly find the items that when bought, will sell for higher in your user shop. When I say selling for higher, I mean more than just 200 NP. Usually I refrain from buying anything with less then a 5k profit. Not all the shops restock at once. This is an important factor when picking which shops to restock in. Some shops such as the lower number shops (food, magic, toy, clothes etc…) restock first. I use those as alerter shops to know restock has happened.

Restocking Times
Restocking happens at a set time. NeoPets provides a clock on the side bar. For an alert shop, it is best to start refreshing at :00 and to refresh three times each minute because sometimes, depending on lag, it restocks a bit later. Because some people have problems with the clock skipping around and lagging and in some cases disappearing, there are two other options. The first shops, (food, magic, toy, clothes etc…) restock usually between :00 and :05 seconds on the clock.. generally though they restock in the first three seconds. There's more to it, but that's the essential. Shops do not restock at set intervals though. This means they do not restock every five minutes. All you can do is refresh each time the clock hits :00 and wait until it restocks.

I do not recommend keeping up an additional browser window, but if you don't mind the extra clutter try using this site http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Pacific/d/-8/java. Set it to pacific time zone since NeoPets runs on pacific.

Another option is to download the Atomic Clock Sync at http://www.worldtimeserver.com/. I prefer this method due to the fact it does not take up an additional amount of space on the bottom bar. To keep it up to date, simply click the green arrow and the words Ping Now in the upper left hand corner. I recommend Pinging every 5 restockings because the time easily gets messed up slightly. Always make sure to Ping before you start restocking with the clock. The advantages of using this clock is that it fits neatly in the system tray, it's small and you do not have to put it down because it floats in the background if you click off it. Keep in mind that if you ping, you must press “Okay” because when it goes back to floating in the background with the message System Clock has been adjusted. You cannot retrieve the clock and ping it by clicking on the system tray. The message will still be floating in the background even though you called the clock up so you will only see the clock and be unable to use any options unless you minimize all your windows until you reach the area where it floated to and click “Okay”.

Haggling
I am one of the few people who restock well that prefer the numbers on the top of the keyboard, so unfortunately my comments are solely for the top keyboard. You may want to experiment with the right side number pad though (the majority of restockers use it). When you are waiting to refresh make sure you are scrolled down on the page so you see more of the shop than the top bar and the shopkeeper. This will allow you to see the items more quickly. Due to the new top banners, setting the screen at a bigger size is incredibly helpful so you can haggle faster and see more items. (Right click, Properties, Settings, Screen Resolution- do not increase too much. I run mine at 1152x864).

Never use the scroll bar... always use your scroll wheel on the mouse. The moment you think you have a profit item (usually they stock in one… in places like bakery they'll go as high as stocking in 3’s or in pharmacy small profit stock at 15 or more), click on it and have your thumb over the space bar. This takes practice to get fast. A message comes up Are you sure you want to purchase ___ at ___ NP? The OK button is highlighted already so as soon as that message pops up press space and it will accept. If you click too fast (before the okay window comes up) your screen will scroll down the page instead of going to the next page, so be careful.

The next window should be the price haggle page. You should already have looked over the number when you first pressed the item so have your left hand poised ready over numbers you know you'll need. Keep your mouse in the center so you can click in the haggle box as fast as possible and have your fingers haggle as close to the price the shop wizard wants as you can in a smooth motion. If the price is 5562, use something like 5433. I have found doing a smooth countdown or up on the keyboard is faster then going 5555. My favorite and fastest is anything around 1k offer 1232.

Many unbuyables or expensive items over r89 stock at 5000NP now, so keeping 5000 on cut and paste is also another trick. Simply type 5000, control c to copy and every time you haggle for 5k, control v and it will paste all four numbers instantly in the box. This trick can be used for any value (such as 10000) however.

After you have entered the number (your right hand should still be on mouse) comes the current restocking way. Basically it's a picture of a scene with a neopet in it. All I can advise is to have your right hand ready on the mouse the whole time while haggling. Generally you should be able to be moving your mouse towards the picture as you are haggling. There will be a neopet in the picture which you must click on to put your offer in. If you mis-click on the picture, it will not accept your offer and you have to click again. Over half of the neopets will appear at the top of the box. The pets are all the normal colors of either blue, red, green or yellow. There will only be one neopet in the picture. You do not have to click exactly on the image, but click as close as possible. After that, it's goes to the next page and it's either offer accepted or sold out.

F.A.Q
Now my most frequent question… what shops should I use? Well it is truly a big experiment on what you like the most. Key shops to avoid if you're a beginner and looking for the bigger profits: magic (shop 2) and stamp (shop 58) and main petpet (25). Those are favorite shops of the best restockers and the prolific ab’ers. Toy is semi-hard but it's do-able for nearly everyone. Booktastic (70) is also a very fast shop, but good profit. If you are not a very good restockers do not expect to get the unbuyable books (any of the newer books that are r90+) but there are several lower profit books that sell well. The competition is fierce and sometimes impossible. Do not go to Tiki Tack (shop 21) It restocks’s one unbuyable; the rest of the items are useless.

What you need to do is as far as your bar at the bottom goes.. have up a internet browser with an alert shop first. Those are the lowest shop numbers. If you choose to restock in one of those… Food (1) has collected more ab’ers recently but it is still one of the best choices if you are not looking for serious haggling such as in toy. Book (7) is also a very good option. Those are the shops that start the restock at :00-:05 seconds. Next you will have a shop that restocks after the alert shops. I most often use Spooky Foods as to restock. If you're new, I do not recommend it, competition is fierce. Many beginners use chocolate (14) or bakery (15). It's been a while since I've been there though because the profit is usually only 6-8k’ish per item.

The one thing to watch out for is with this style of restocking now, you only have time to restock one thing so even though 8k profits add up, it's not much for the hours you spend restocking. To newer restockers, I recommend keeping up 3 shops and your clock if you use one. Your last shop(s) past the first three should generally be less popular shops that rarely restock, but when they do it'll be most likely a profit. Examples: Brightvale Fruits (81), the specialty petpet shops etc… As you become more used to it, you may want to use more shops. And don't stick with a set of shops; explore. I usually rotate my shops. I try to change my shops once every few days.

Watch for new items: When the neocola tokens came out they restocked a lot in bigger quantities. Go to shops with new items to bring in great profit. In some newer shops (i.e. Brightvale Armoury #80) every item that stocks is profitable. Also watch the news for newer low rarity items. When they first come out like the sloth food in Food (1), they can sell for 99k. Sell newer items of lower rarity for around 20k under what you see posted on the shop wiz or you won't get rid of it faster than it deflates. If it's selling for 99k, put it up for around 70k.

Watch seasons: Near Christmas, Winter Petpet (61) is an awesome place to be. Everyone's buying winter petpets for Christmas gifts and their value inflates.The same goes for Easter and Valentine itmes.

Key shops to avoid due to difficulty are battle magic and defense. They are the two shops you can lose the most from.

The Most Recent Updated to Restocking
(Modifications made February 16th)
100 NP (Low rarity)
250 NP (Around 65-79)
2500 NP (r80-89)
5000 NP (r90-95)
10000 NP (r95+)
These are bare minimum prices for items of those said rarities. Items of rarities such as r91 can still stock higher than 5000. They make stock at 6,301 NP.

If your account is under a month, you cannot see r90+'s when they restock. If your account is under three months, you cannot see r95+'s when they restock.

Final Notes
Do take time to get to know a shop, do not get frustrated when buying many non-profit items. If you really have the wish to learn fast, www.neoitems.net inventories most items in different shops. Look those items over, especially the ones for specialty shops, and find out which are profitable and which are not. You have to have an account because it is no longer public. It is free, all you have to do is sign up. If you have hotmail the verification of your password will go to your junk inbox! Make sure to look there or you will think you did not receive it.

When you are restocking, do not spend three hours straight just refreshing and waiting around for restocking then come complaining how boring it is. The restocking only happens in a five second slot. Use the other 55 seconds each minute to do something else! It may sound like a short amount of time but you'd be amazed what you can do in 55 seconds. I personally consider sitting there not multi-tasking as a waste of time. than

Credit:
Written exclusively for NeoLodge.com by Silver.
Edited and revised by Georgie.

05/2006