Merchant NPCs may be used to sell items and raw materials to other characters to generate revenue. Several business strategies are available, such as traveling merchants that follow the money or merchants that are fixed in one location to build a loyal customer base.

Your trading skill and the skill of your Merchants can reduce trade commission fees. You may operate vendors for yourself, or for your faction.

To open a personal vendor, you must meet the following conditions:

• You must be the owner of the Merchant NPC
• You and the Merchant NPC must be located inside of an entity you have access to (owner, commander, operator, crewlist, assign priv) and that has a storage room
• You must speak with the Merchant NPC to open shop, which will set the entity as the Merchant's warehouse from which to access items you intend to sell

To open a faction vendor, you must meet the following conditions:

• The faction must be the owner of the Merchant NPC
• You must be the commander of the Merchant NPC
• You must have the faction privilege necessary to operate vendors
• You and the Merchant NPC must be in the same faction
• You and the Merchant NPC must be located inside of an entity you have access to (owner, commander, operator, crewlist, assign priv) and that has a storage room
• You must speak with the Merchant NPC to open shop, which will set the entity as the Merchant's warehouse from which to access items you intend to sell

Once a vendor is open, you may simply access their shop from the position screen as long as one of the following criteria are met:

• You and vendor are in the same room.
• You and vendor are at the same ground location
• In the case of a vendor using a facility as their warehouse:
• You and Vendor are at the same grid around the edges of (outside the facility) or in the same room (inside the facility)
• The facility is powered and is not disabled
• In the case of a vendor using anything other than a facility as their warehouse:
• You and Vendor are at the same grid (outside) or in the same room (inside)
• The ship/vehicle/station is not disabled

A purchase can be made through a vendor using your personal credits, faction credits, or a faction budget. Once you make a purchase, items will be located in the room you are in unless you opted for delivery. Watch out for thieves!

For added security and convenience, you may pay a delivery fee to have your products be loaded onto any entity at your location that you have access to board. Starfighters and Satellites are ineligible.

If you purchase raw materials, delivery is required.

With the Merchant NPC linked to a warehouse (any entity with a storage room), you must be physically located with the Vendor and at the same exact coordinates as the warehouse in order to add items from the storage room, or loaded raw materials, to the Vendor's sales inventory.

You and the Merchant NPC do not have to be inside the warehouse itself once the Vendor is linked to a warehouse. The vendor may be located anywhere at those exact coordinates. This allows for scenarios such as a Merchant selling goods on a trade station from a docked freighter, or selling goods from the back of their barge. This allows you to keep the items behind latch and key while being able to provide a service to the public.

Once you have added products to the Vendor's list of goods to be sold, you may manage the prices from anywhere in the galaxy through the Vendor Overview page under the inventory sidebar. If you are physically located with the vendor, you may choose to remove products from the vendor's sales inventory.

To continue to adjust prices, the normal criteria for managing the Merchant NPC as a vendor must continue to be met.

There may come a time when it is required to close down a vendor. Maybe you are changing factions and can no longer manage their Merchant NPCs, or maybe your vendor got arrested and hauled off across the galaxy. If your merchant can no longer operate the business, then you can easily close the vendor through the Vendor Overview page under the inventory sidebar.

Public vendors make their information, including their location and available wares, available to all from anywhere in the galaxy. All vendors default to being private; if you wish to change the visibility of your vendor then this can be done through the the Vendor Overview page.

The owner of the Merchant generates revenue for each sale of their products, minus applicable fees. Personal vendors make money for the character that owns them, and faction vendors make money for the factions that own them. The ability for players to open vendors on behalf of the faction allows factions and players to interact in a meaningful way within the market.

Each transaction through a vendor incurs a trade commission fee:

There is a fee levied on the buyer in order to automatically load the cargo on an entity at the character's location: