Welcome to Clumsy's Complete Guide to the NC Mall!
First off, I would like to say that I am aware that there is another guide already about NC (located here), however it is kind of outdated, so I am going to share my little guide which includes all of the current NC mall goings on as well as a current price guide. In addition, I would like to extend my price checking service to anyone who needs it. I am very well versed in NC values so I would be more than happy to help you out if you needed some price checking done!
(if it is decided that this guide is not needed here, feel free to remove it.)
Current NC Mall Events
(I will try to update whenever there is a new event going on)
On to the guide!
I've heard about this NC (NC=Neocash) Mall, but what is it?
The NC Mall is located here and it is a place where you can purchase wearables for your Neopet using real-life money. 100 NC = $1 USD. Do you want pretty wearables, but don't have enough Neopoints to splurge for the NP wearables? Then the NC Mall is the place for you!
You can get your hands on Neocash in two ways at the moment. Firstly, you can purchase an NC Card. The list of retailers per region can be found here, and of course you can purchase a card directly from Neocodex by clicking here. They come in various denominations ranging from $5-$100 (depending on what part of the world you are buying them from). Once you purchase the card, you can scratch off the back of the card to reveal a nine digit number which is your pin code to redeem here. Depending on the amount of the card you redeem, you will get a certain number of 'gift boxes' (500 NC = 1 gift box) as well as bonus NC (150 NC bonus for redeeming $25 card).
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The second way to get your hands on some NC is to purchase some directly through the Mall itself (click here). This will require you to have a credit card handy, or access to your PayPal account. To purchase NC through the mall, click here. If you are purchasing through the mall, please note that you will *not* get any gift boxes with these transactions.
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OK, now I have my NC - what can I buy with it?!
The NC mall houses various different 'shops' that cater to all your Neopets wearable needs. Want sparkly shoes for your Faerie Wocky? The NC Mall has that! Want some fancy wallpaper for your Neohome? Got that too! Need to paint your Habitarium petpetpets? Heck yeah, the NC Mall has stuff for them too! Depending on the season, there are other shops that are available with seasonal items (ie: Holiday shop at Christmas, Spring Shop in the Spring, etc.). So what can I find in each of these shops?
So I have these items but I want to trade for something else – HELP!!
NC items are just like anything else on Neopets, there is always a demand for trading and exchanging of items. However, unlike NP items, NC items are not so easily transferred between users.
To send an NC item to another user, you need a gift box. What the heck is a gift box, you ask? Well, it is exactly what it sounds like it is, a box into which you put the item you want to send to the other person. Every item (with the exception of those certain Fortune cookies mentioned above) requires a gift box in order to be sent to another account.
Le sigh. How can I get these ‘gift boxes’?
Gift boxes are an extremely coveted item when it comes to NC trading, and that is because TNT regulates how they are released to the public. Currently, they are available in the following ways:
Gift Box Capsules (GBC’s)
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Redemption of NC Cards
Seasonal/Special Mall Events
NC Item – Check! Gift Boxes – Check! OK LET’S TRADE!
Slow down there buddy! There are a few more important things to know before we get to the trading! NC’ers (the NC traders on the NC trading boards) are a very finicky bunch. Due to that fact, you have to try to follow the following trading ‘rules’ in order to maintain a good image on the boards.
Know your abbreviations!
Nine times out of ten trading boards are made with abbreviations of the items being traded/traded for. No one wants to write out ‘Seeking Balthazar’s Bag of Bottled Faeries Offering hard to part with’. You will more than likely see something like this: ‘S: BBoBF O: HTPW’. Acronyms and abbreviations are used regularly on the NC boards and are a very important part to trading.
Here are some abbreviations you should know:
Alright – now you’ve got the lingo down, let’s talk about wishlists. A wishlist is a list of items that you are currently seeking. Most people put them on a petpage, although now Jellyneo has a wishlist option which you can link on the trading boards. Personally, I prefer the petpage option, but to each his/her own. Many ‘professional’ traders will want to see a nicely organized wishlist or tradelist, it aggravates them when it is not easily navigatable. Most people list their wishlist items by order of importance (ie: Priority WL or Casually Seeking).
Now tradelists are the more important factor here. NC’ers hate to see buyables/junk on peoples tradelist. Trust me, no one wants to trade you a GBC for your bouncing tennis balls or polka dot bows. Your tradelist will be more desirable to look through if it is organized in such a way where you have high valued items separated from the junk/buyables. Again, you can put this on a pet page, or visit DTI (dress to impress) to create your TL through them.
OMG I am so ready for this! Lets GO!
Yeah. Well, you’re almost ready. Let’s talk about values for a second. NC is just like money, except since you cannot trade your Isca Wig for an NC card to redeem, we assign ‘cap value’ to everything.
WHOA cap value?! What the heck!?!
Yes. Cap value. A good rule of thumb is that 200 NC = 1 Cap. This means that if you have your Isca wig over there that you want to trade, you need to figure out how many ‘caps’ it is worth. HOW?!! Well, the kind NC’ers have worked out a value guide that is fairly accurate and updated often and it can be found here and the text only version of this can be found here. Now the values found there are not to be taken as gospel, they are merely a guideline.
So, if we were to look up that Isca wig, we would see that it is valued at approximately 40-50 caps. Now you might find a trader that will offer you 40-50 GBC’s but that is unlikely since it is such a box heavy trade. You are more likely to be able to find a trade for various items that add up to the value of the item you are trading off. There is a petpage set up that shows recent trade values so you can see just what kind of items certain things are fetching, and it can be found here.
Values fluctuate daily, and these fluctuations are based on the simple supply and demand aspect of Neopets. TNT has been re-releasing retired items up the ying-yang recently, and this is causing previously high valued items to plummet to 1 or 2 cap values. A great example of this is the AC wig. Before its re-release this month, it was valued at 120-150 caps. Today it is essentially buyable for 600 NC (3 caps) buy purchasing the Flashback Pass in the mall. This alters the whole trading market and causes the NC boards to go insane, which is actually fairly entertaining to watch.
SIDE NOTE!
Since you CANNOT sell for $$$ here, this is just an FYI type dealy incase you wanted to know how cap value translates into 'others' value!
Now all of that explanation of values was just in reference to trading ON SITE. If you are purchasing items for real money (ie: off Neopets, and somewhere like Neocodex) the rules are a little different. Good rule of thumb to follow is that 1 cap = 1-2 'others'. Depending on how the market is, and how much your item is sought after, you can set the cap value anywhere between 1-2 'others'. Generally, 1 cap has been selling for 1.50 'others'.
So, let’s go back to that Isca wig example. Isca is valued at 40-50 caps, so if you wanted to sell it for real money, you’d be looking to get anywhere from 40-100 'others'.
Realistically, you should be trying to sell it for around 40-50 'others' if you actually want to unload it.
Important side note here: NEVER EVER refer to trading NC for $ on the boards unless you want to get reported/harassed by the NC’ers. Just don’t do it.
Sucess! I am ready to trade!
I guess you are! You have your item, you have your WL/TL, you know your abbreviations, and you know your values. OK let’s do it. Firstly, make a thread on the NC boards (click here), use a title that is eye-catching and witty if you can. Something like ‘Trading wig’ is less likely to get attention than something like ‘O: Isca S: WL’. If you have a specific wishlist for whatever you are trading, that is good! Personally, I hate it when people are all vague like ‘just offer’. How can I offer if I have no baseline to show what kind of items you are interested in?!!
You will likely have to do a lot of back and forth with a bunch of different people to get to a trade agreement that both parties are content with. Key tip, always use full names of items when you are agreeing to a trade. Especially if it is via neomail. Just saying Isca does not necessarily guarantee that you mean the wig, as there is also an Isca’s Dress that is frequently traded but much lower in value than the wig. Some users will try to take advantage of the fact that you didn’t use the whole item name and send you what they ‘thought’ was the item you were looking for when obviously you were not going to trade for an Isca Dress at a 50 cap value (it’s worth about 8 caps). Once both sides of the trade are clear on what you are each trading for you are ready to start the sending procedure. Just go to your inventory and click on your gift box and choose the item you want in it to go inside. You will then need to enter the username that you want to send it to, as well enter your password/pin if you have that option on. Then click send, and away it goes! The person you were trading with will be doing the same thing (hopefully). It is considered good trading etiquette to not accept the item that the other user has sent until you send yours and vice versa.
If by chance your trade goes awry, there is no cause for panic initially. If the other user has not sent your item, but they have also not opened yours (you will get a NM stating that they received your item when they open it), don’t panic. If an NC item is not accepted within 48 hours it will be returned to you along with the box it was sent in.
Now if the user accepted your item, but sent you nothing in return, now you have a problem. If you attempt to NM them and get no response or they block you, report it to TNT right away. TNT will generally act pretty quickly when it comes to NC scams as it all deals with real money and they want to keep NC’ers happy!
WOW! That was a lot of information right? Well now there are just a couple more tid-bits that I am going to share with you. Other things of interest that are beneficial to be aware of:
Edited by Clumsy, 24 June 2013 - 03:15 PM.
You could add that it's possible to win NC from the Qasalan Expellibox 
Thanks for the heads up - I've added it 
