i've got my companion lydia loaded down with some expensive items i want to sell (apparel, plus misc items) where is the best place in skyrim to sell them??

Whiterun.

Whiterun as well. You have Adrianne, Ulfberth, Belethor, and the Bosmer in the Drunken Huntsman.

well that won't be a long trip for me since i bought my first house there (for my current character) it took nearly every septim i had.

You can sell off that junk at Bits and Pieces.

You can sell your items at a vendor where you might buy a lot from.

...and an alchemist too.

Yes Arcadia, but she only buy ingredients and potions.

i just noticed this thread has 0 views but it has about six responses???

weird i just reloaded this thread now it says 8 views.

now i know why because they moved my thread oh well.

It is worth maxing out the Speech perk tree in order to deal with the expensive loot that you will eventually be getting. The Merchant perk will let any merchant buy any item, Investor gives invested merchants 500 more gold, and Master Trader gives every merchant 1000 more gold. You'll still have trouble selling off a lot of ebony loot, which can be worth 1500 gold each. You'll start getting a lot of it after level 40 or so. Prior to 1.9 patch, the Riverwood Trader would get 10,000 extra gold, which I thought was a deliberate gift, but UESP says this has been "fixed."

One other advantage to Whiterun is Eorlund, who not only is a second blacksmith but the master Smithing trainer. I once sold off 20,000 gold worth of loot by training from level 84-89 first. With the others, one trick is to buy enough of their stock to equal what you can sell your loot for (you have to have a lot of cash already, obviously), sell your expensive item(s), wait 2 days and sell back their stuff (or sell it to someone else).

Two other Whiterun advantages: The Drunken Huntsman is open 24 hours, and Adrianne is open for business outside around 6:30 am. You've also got two other good merchants close by in Riverwood. I don't fast travel, and Riverwood is close enough to get to in a few minutes (real time).

If you don't want to use perks in the Speech tree, there are a couple alternatives (though neither is quick).

• You can work through the Thieves Guild quest line out of Riften. Once you join the guild, they'll start assigning you small jobs. If you complete enough of the small jobs (I believe it's five jobs per major city: Markarth, Solitude, Windhelm, and Whiterun) new vendors start to pop up in the TG headquarters: The Ragged Flaggon. In addition, the main vendor for the TG, Tonilia grows her available cash to 4000 septims (more or less). That covers some pretty expensive items (ebony equipment, double enchanted dragon plate etc.).

• You can also go to Solstheim if you have the Dragonborn DLC. The vendors in the main city, Raven Rock, have much larger amounts of cash (1500 to 2100) as compared to their Skyrim counter parts. No Speech perks are needed for these vendors to have that much cash.