The economy in Skyrim is not ideal. Still, there are a few good opportunities to earn some gold if you have the necessary skills. You will earn the majority of your gold through looting and trading. Meaning you will loot some Ancient Nordic Ruins or Dwemer Ruins and trade your “junk” back to eager merchants that dot the cities and settlements of Skyrim. There’s one minor setback when it comes to this strategy, as merchants often don’t have enough gold to buy the most valuable items from you, at least not with fair prices. There is a possibility of investing in stores and, thus, increasing the amount of money a certain merchant has at its disposal. Before we move on to a more detailed analysis, let’s see how to invest in stores in Skyrim.
You can invest in stores in Skyrim as soon as you acquire the Investor perk from the Speech skills tree. This perk will allow you to invest 500 gold in merchants, which will increase the gold that they have at their disposal permanently. As soon as you activate the perk, the option to invest in a store should appear among other dialogue options as soon as you interact with merchants. However, keep in mind that many merchants in Skyrim are bugged, and in some cases, it’s impossible to invest in their stores.
Now that we’ve answered the main question, it’s time to analyze the issues of investing in Skyrim in a bit more detail. If you want to find out how to make the most money out of every transaction in Skyrim, stay with us and keep reading!
Can you invest in a store in Skyrim?
It is possible to invest in a store in Skyrim as soon as you reach level 70 in speech skill and unlock the Investor perk. Investor perk gives you to option to invest 500 gold in a specific merchant and thus increase his pool of money. It’s not much by any means, but it can really make a difference if you invest in several – or all possible merchants in the game.
As you know, merchant’s gold is reset every 48 hours, and the sums they have at their disposal can range anywhere between 100 gold to 4000 gold depending on their specific merchandise, factions, and your own skill in Speech. There are several ways to increase the merchant’s total gold, and if you’re looking for a list of merchants with the most gold in the game, we’ve covered this in the past, so you can check out that list as well.
How to invest in stores in Skyrim?
As we’ve already mentioned, you can invest in a store as soon as you unlock the perk Investor in the speech skill tree. To unlock the Investor perk, you need to have speech skills at least level 70, and the Merchant perk likewise needs to be activated.
As soon as you unlock the Investor perk, a dialogue option will appear when you interact with the merchant offering you the opportunity to invest 500 gold in his store. There are some limitations, however. You cannot invest in innkeepers and jewelers. The same goes for thieves guild fences. You will never get an option to invest in their stores.
Certain bugs are affecting some of the merchants in the game. For example, Lod and Zaria from Falkreath can never be invested in unless you have an Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch. Most such bugs were eventually patched, but still, they might resurface at any time, barring you from ever reaping the benefits of the Investor perk.
Still, there are alternative means to increase the available gold of merchants even if you can’t invest in them.
How to increase merchant gold in Skyrim?
You can increase merchant gold in Skyrim through investing and through the Master Trader perk. We’ve already covered the investing, and now it’s time to analyze the Master Trader perk in a bit more detail.
Master Trader perk can be unlocked when you max out your speech skill, this means that you need to have speech 100 and the Fence perk unlocked. As soon as you unlock the Master Trader perk, every merchant in the game gains additional 1000 gold for bartering. This is a hefty sum of gold, and it really makes a difference if you want to sell a large amount of cheaper items or some high-end items in the game like Daedric items.
Master Trader perk, however, does not affect jewelers, meaning that the gold those specific merchants have at their disposal is pretty much limited to what they have at the start of the game. It affects every other type of merchant, and if we combine it with the additional 500 gold from the Investor perk, you can easily increase the gold of merchants in the game by 1500 gold. It all depends on your willingness to invest your precious perk points into the speech skill tree, and it’s easy to acquire and allocate those points when the legendary skills are taken into account.
How to increase merchant gold in Skyrim by using commands?
You can increase the amount of gold that Skyrim merchants have by using the targeted “additem” command. To do this successfully, follow these steps:
- Open the console by pressing “~.”
- Click on a merchant whose gold you would like to increase.
- Type additem.000000 f [amount of gold you wish to add], and press enter.
- Exit the console and interact with the merchant again. The merchant should have a specified amount of gold to barter with you.
When you use this command, try not to go overboard with the money. If you add more than 32767 gold to the merchant, the whole bartering system will be glitched, and you will not be able to earn money from transactions. It’s always a good idea to limit them to 32000 gold and simply repeat the additem command if more funds are needed.
And that would be all. If you’re interested in more Skyrim-related content, check out our guide on selling your house in Skyrim!
