In Oblivion the stores were good - a lot more interesting than in a lot of other games, especially since you could get bettter prices for being a repeat customer, or if you were friends with the shopkeeper.

But where they fell short is if you actually wanted to make money like a merchant - buying and selling between the shops. I hate to draw on Fable for this, but imo Fable is inferior to TES games in everything BUT economic matters. In Fable, you could make quite a bit of money buying and selling if you were clever about it.
But it was nearly impossible to in Oblivion because prices didn't fluctuate at all between the shops - other than price differences because of disposition. But it fluctuates drastically between buying and selling an item to a shop - in fact, trying to buy an item back you accidently sold will have you paying as much as 3x for it as you sold it for!

At the very least, a buyback tab would have been nice for that, or make it not quite such a drastic pricechange.

Now, it sounds like Skyrim's economic system makes Oblivion's seem infantile in comparison - it's been implied that sabotaging a town's food supply will drive food prices through the roof, for example. So it's likely this is already fixed. But in any case, I advocate that the price change between a armor shop in one town, and an armor shop in another, should be much greater than the price change between buying and selling a helmet at the same shop.

What do you think? If you have a superior merchant system to both the aforementioned idea, and the implemention in oblivion, post it below!

I liked Morrowind's style have handling it. In Oblivion it was "sword costs 10gold, you can persuade it cheaper or have a high mercantile skill" But never set your own price.
In Morrowind it was Full fledged barter system. you say i want this this and that and you can exchange items instead of purchasing them. or if you had nothing to trade you could say "im willing to pay 4 gold for this", they may charge 10 but if you where persistant you could force it.
And EVERYTHING had a price. bone's,plate's,silverware,empty bottle's. I used to have a reason to raid a whole house. But thats getting off topic.

I didn't really understand the options.. My brain might not be working so grand right now. So I'll put my opinion.
The prices should fluctuate between dealers, and what they deal in.
An arms deal should have different prices than when you are selling to a armorer, the same thing with the same disposition with the same percent for haggling (say 63%).
You would benefit selling a sword to a sword shop, rather than a cuirass shop. It's just what I thought.

The options are as follows, simplified to clear misunderstandings:

1. Buying a Rusty Longsword in Anvil costs 50 gold this week. Buying a Rusty Longsword in Bravil costs 100 gold this week. The merchant only adds 10 to the price when buying, so if you buy the Rusty Longsword in Bravil and sell it in Anvil, you make 40 gold profit.

2. The Oblivion system. Buying a Rusty Longsword in Anvil costs 50 gold. Buying a Rusty Longsword in Bravil costs 50 gold. The merchant adds 40 to the price when buying, reduces price by 40 when selling. So if you buy the Rusty Longsword in Anvil and sell in Bravil, you lose 80 gold.
In this system, it is impossible to make money by suavely buying and selling between the shops.

I don't know what to vote here - I understand the point but I give up on TES economics - I don't even bother haggling anymore as I collect so much loot it doesn't matter if I miss out on a few septims.

What I never understand is why my selling loot of doesn't ruin the economy.

I would like something that allows me to be a trader but if I can just go into a dungeon and get all my loot for free what difference does it really make?

Mercantile is a very complex thing.
I generally liked how it was done in Oblivion.

One thing I need to point out is that Sell price MUST be much higher than Buy; it's not the shopkeeper who decides what to bargain, but player picks what he wants to sell and buy.
Shopkeeper is buying items that he doesn't necessarily want (in another word, items he's not certain that will sell well) and selling items that he may not be so eager (items that may sell at higher price if demands gets higher). Basically, he's making bets that the items he buys will sell to other people at better terms that will profit him - which may not. On top of this, the merchant is the one who has the shop and pays (or paid) for the place in which the transactions and storage happen. To compensate this risk, it would be only fair that the shop gets at least 50% of margin to make the system believable.

Traveling Merchants would be also nice.
Since they're traveling, it would be expectable that they make very big margin for the traveling expenses and security issue. Suppose you got loads of loot with you, and you don't want to drag your @ss all the way back to town only to travel back to the spot. But suddenly a traveling merchant passes nearby on the road next to the dungeon you just came out from! They may have real rip-off buying price, but it's better than travelling back and forth. You just sell some of heavier items off your back, and you're ready to loot another dungeon nearby. You pay for the convinience they offer for you.

One of the things I appreciated about Oblivion was that different shops offered different items at finite supply and at different terms. This spice things up for the players to actually think and choose the shops to make their transactions to profit themselves better.
For instance, Nilawen at Fair Deal gave the best buying price in whole cyrodiil. The best. But since her gold reserve is only 800, players that want to sell bigger items have to find another shop, such as Archer's Paradox (1000) or go all the way to IC (1200). Only few shops even in IC has 1200 gold reserve, and they only sell/buy certain items.
While not the best pricing, Copious Coins give very decent deal at max 800. It happens to be in IC. If you have a whole bunch of different items with big price range, it'd be reasonable to make your transactions at IC instead of travelling whole Cyrodiil for the best deal.
If you're nearby, Anvil and Skingrad both have smithy with gold reserve of 1200 and general stores 800. Smithy at Anvil gives much better price - potentially the best price for 1200 shop. But the general store there gives a meh buying price.
If you happen to be in alchemy, you'd find many interesting items at different shops - even at the food shops. They're not infinite, so you have to shop around and be conservative with your stocks no matter how much money you have.
Suppose you're an archer. You need a lot of arrows on daily basis. Because you only get so many from loot, it's near impossible to use Daedric Arrows for every fight. Shops sell only upto Elven Arrows, so you'd want to carry different arrows and size your opponents. To secure enough numbers of high-quality arrows for tough fights, you'd have to actively shop around. Some shops have this item and others give better prices. It's actually a very fun process learning which shop does what.

Only thing I want to see is more of this. Many shops offering different items at various terms; Traveling merchant, 24hr convinient store, Special merchant buying at higher price and never sells a thing.(Even the things you just sold)

The sell price of course must be higher - but while we're making points about realistic merchant considerations, prices usually fluctuate between cities enough to allow buying low and selling high to make a profit, despite the price difference.

More traveling merchants would be nice, and I agree with some of the points you made about them - additionally, I'd like to see some of them with some nice unique item's they've picked up on their travels for sale.



Your point of "Its actually a very fun process learning which shop does what" could apply to cities as well - learn which city gives the best price for what. For example, a city with a higher mage population could offer more money for soul gems.


My overall point is to introduce enough complexity to the market to allow players to have more options, whether while hocking loot or trying to make gold as a trader.