I always try to increase the disposition of a merchant before bartering, in the hope of getting better prices. As far as I know this works for buying spells and training.
Recently I noticed that, though my mercantile skill was approaching 100, I got much lower prices from some of my regular merchants.
A bit of experimenting on a new merchant showed that I get higher prices when his disposition is LOWER.

For example an Item worth 10:
Disposition 60: Offer 6, bartered up to 8
Disposition 65: Offer 3, bartered up to 5

Higher disposition -> lower prices? I don't get it.

Vivec works in mysterious ways. :D

bribing people works....
buying a deadric bow: disposition 55 = 43000 to buy
disposition 100 = 28000 to buy....

yes i have that much cash kicking around at level 5

Yep, that's how it works. The only problem I am experiencing is that the price for items I SELL also lowers with higher dispositions.

Maybe I should insult a merchant just to see if the price he/she offers for my items increases...

it works, just make sure they don't end up attacking you [img]tongue.gif[/img]
or try and buy an item for a ridiculous amount, so there disp. goes down then try and sell [img]tongue.gif[/img]

On the topic of prices:

Is it possible to sell an item for more than its value?

Or do you need a mercantile skill of 200 to sweettalk merchants like that?

btw you can BUY deadric weapons? Nice. (or am I being a total newbie now)

I've never met a merchant who sells Daedric stuff, and i've played the game 3 times now. If there is one, he damn well knows how to hide himself.

If I'm not mistaking, you can buy the daedric long bow from an archery merchant in Vivec. I don't remember which canton he's in though :(

Merchantilism is bugged:

High disposition -> lower buy prices BUT lower sell price AS WELL

Sell everything you have at low disposition: to decrease that non permanently, just ask for an unreasonable price and click repeatedly the sell button. Every time you click and get a refusal, the disposition lowers one point. Do that for a bit, then cancel and check the disposition: anywhere below 50 you will get good sale prices, but don't go below 25 or 20, otherwise the trader will refuse to barter.
If you say goodbye and talk again, ta dah!, the disposition is still at the same point it was before the whole thing.

Of course, i know about the Daedric longbow, that's the first item i'm after when i start a new game. But that doesn't really count, since it's a plugin.