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When you pick up items in Skyrim it tells you the value of each item. However when I go and sell the items the merchants are only paying 30% of this value, at best.

Discounting any perks or other effects, how high does Speechcraft have to be before merchants start paying full value for items?

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My guess is well over 100. – StrixVaria Nov 24 '11 at 2:41
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Unless the growth is something odd, I don't see any way they'll ever pay over 50% for anything given the values of items and my current level of speech. – Doozer Blake Nov 24 '11 at 2:46
There are items you can wear that help when selling. Vosung mask gives you +20% Amulet of Zenithar give you + 10% I haven't found a ring but there has got to be one somewhere. lol – user18600 Jan 19 '12 at 0:34

6 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

Sounds like you have low Speech

Speech will directly affect the prices paid when buying from and selling to merchants, even without the assorted perks. At 0 speech, merchants will sell items for 3 times their base price, and buy for a third of their base price. At 100 speech, merchants will sell items for twice their base price and buy for half.

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Wow, I though 100 speech would mean the margin was almost 0 (e.g. paying true value but still selling for more to make a profit). I guess I'll have to get used to getting ripped off! – jwaddell Nov 24 '11 at 2:53
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@jwaddell Yeah, it's impressive to me too, but it makes sense in that you acquire the better items through quests, and you move from a 9:1 buying-selling ratio to 4:1. Taking the important perks from the Speech tree (5 in Haggling, 1 in Allure) gets you an additional 35% against the opposite sex, which brings you to 2:1. You get ripped off, but if you could buy and sell at cost, you could essentially rent items for free. – Bryan Nov 24 '11 at 3:37
up vote 2 down vote

Are you using your perks on speech at all? You need to pick the basic speech improvement perk at the bottom of the tree. It'll get the vendors to sell at a much better rate. Simply ramping up to 100 will help a bit, but not nearly as much as the perks.

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up vote 1 down vote

The value in your inventory is the worth of the item. Vendors will give you a percentage of that value based on your speechcraft skill and other factors. Likewise they will sell it for a multiple of that value.

Specifically the price is:

Sell price = [ value of item ] / [ 3.3 - (1.3 * [speech skill]/100) ] * [(1 + Haggling %) * (1 + Allure %) * (1 + Fortify Barter from potion) * (1 + the sum of Fortify Barter from equipment + Fortify Barter from Blessing of Zenithar)

From the UESP Wiki.

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Hi guys just to let you know it is possible to get the full value of an item by wearing amulet of Zenithar which you can get if you follow a dirt trail east of Riftens towers. Cicero's clothes gotten by doing the dark brotherhood quest the cure for madness if you kill Cicero masque of Clavicus vile which you get by doing a daedras best which starts in Falkreath at the blacksmiths you must not kill Barbas to get it you must also have theses talents in speech as well as 100 speech to start with haggling 5 of 5 and allure and that's all people anymore enchantments or armour will not effect the price you get but don't forget to sell your items to the opposite sex P.S to get your speech to 100 quickly go to Riften then go black briar meadery speak to the guy behind the bar ask him about maven then bribe then persuade then bribe again then persuade then keep on persuading until you get 100 speech also if you chose to get the investors perk invest in the Riverwood trader so he then has 10000g to buy your items and if you are a female character you can kill the man so his sister takes over the shop and has over 10000g to buy your stuff. Hope this helps.

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According to the UESP speech above 100 has no effect, and the maximum resale multiplier is capped at below full price, so if that's correct (and the UESP is pretty reliably correct), this is wrong twice. – SevenSidedDie Mar 5 at 15:46
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you can without the speech perks ( accounting for 100 speech skill) easily get the true value. one easy to obtain item with 20% better prices ( also known as fortify barter) is the mask of clavicus vile ( a deadric artifact, and very VERY easy to get) or thieves guild helmets (10% for nooby one and 15% for the better set i think), you can also get Cicero chest piece which is another 20%, the necklace of zenithar (10%) there's also another necklace of some deity with 10% that i found my first character ever and you can sometimes find regular necklaces with fortify barter up to 20% on them in general stores. so with all the best items above you can get 60%+50% from 100 speech, that gets you 110%, i'm not sure if you can actually get more then the true value for items but you could always try.( and i'm fairly sure i didn't list all " better prices " equipment int eh game). Now say you can get all the equipment listed above or for RP reasons choose not to, then there are fortify barter potions, which would be "random of haggling" and the highest I've seen was either 30 or 40% in game. Then there's the fact that many skills can be used to make large amounts of cash such as the normal Enchanting, or you can use Alchemy (easiest i think) or Blacksmith ( after the first 60 levels it starts paying off itself i think). and for those shadey characters you can always pickpocket everyone in Riften and if you get caught and your in the Thieves Guild then you only have to pay half of what your bounty would normally be. And guys if your having trouble with money try doing a bunch of petty quests or some factions Quest line. Faction Quest lines are always very rewarding.

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i also forgot to mention with a necklace you find in general stores that isn't amulet to so and so you can disenchant. so normal necklaces with fortify barter can be disenchanted and used on a ring too putting you at a even high possible %. This really helps for those characters that are RPing. – user24935 May 5 '12 at 0:15
Hey, welcome to GSE. You can edit your post (via "edit" right below it) to include your comment – Sean May 5 '12 at 0:52
up vote -1 down vote

Get speech perks maxed out so you can get up to 100k or 500k gold. 5/5 perks to start req 80 speech, then there's up to allure/merchant/invest/fence/master trader = 9

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Please ask questions in their own page - gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/ask – badp♦ Mar 2 at 10:47

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