Transport Trading Guide

What Is Transport Trading?

Transport trading — also called city flipping or hauling — is the practice of buying an item cheaply in one Albion city and selling it at a higher price in another. Because each royal city has an independent market with its own supply and demand, the same item can sell for dramatically different prices across Bridgewatch, Caerleon, Fort Sterling, Lymhurst, Martlock, and Thetford.

Unlike Black Market flipping, which relies on the BM NPC's fixed demand, transport trading is pure player-to-player arbitrage. You're exploiting the fact that players in each city don't always know — or can't easily act on — price differences elsewhere. Your job is to bridge that information gap physically, by actually riding the goods from the cheap market to the expensive one.

Transport trading is one of the most accessible silver-making methods in Albion because it requires no crafting skills, no gathering gear, and minimal combat ability. The main investment is silver for inventory and time for the rides.

Why Prices Differ Between Cities

Each royal city is the economic hub for its surrounding biome. Gatherers farming in the zones around Lymhurst bring forest resources (fiber, wood) into that city's market. Gatherers around Bridgewatch flood that market with steppe resources (ore, stone). This creates city-specific supply surpluses that depress local prices.

At the same time, demand is local too. Crafters in Fort Sterling who specialize in plate armor (aided by the city's ore bonuses) need a constant supply of metal bars, but they may not need as many fiber bales. Those bales might be abundant in Lymhurst and scarce — and therefore expensive — in Fort Sterling.

These asymmetries are persistent but not static. A popular event in one region can drain supply from a city's market quickly, causing prices to spike. A guild setting up crafting operations in a new city changes demand. Monitoring the spread across cities consistently is the edge transport traders rely on.

How to Calculate Real Profit

The raw price difference between two cities is not your profit. Albion Online charges taxes on every sell order:

• Listing fee — typically 2.5–4.5% of the listing price, paid when you post the order
• Sales tax — typically 2.5–4.5%, paid when the order fills

Combined, plan for approximately 7.5% total tax cost on each sale. The Albion Forge Transport Routes tool applies this 7.5% figure automatically when calculating route profit.

Reducing your effective tax rate through city reputation (Fame rank) in your destination city can meaningfully improve margins on high-volume routes. Max city reputation cuts your tax roughly in half.

What to Transport

The best items for transport trading share a few characteristics:

• High trade volume — items that sell quickly in the destination city. If you arrive and post 50 units but only 3 sell per day, your silver is locked up.
• Reasonable weight — heavier items (ore, stone, refined bars) limit how much you can carry per trip. Lighter items (cloth, food, runes) let you move more value per ride.
• Consistent price gaps — some routes have structural, recurring spreads due to geography and city specialization. Others are one-off spikes. Structural routes are safer.
• Resources and refined materials — these are the bread and butter of transport trading. T5 and T6 refined resources (metal bars, cloth, leather) typically have deep enough markets to absorb large quantities.

Planning a Route

A transport run typically follows this process:

1. Scan for spreads — Use the Transport Routes tool to find city pairs where the sell price in one city significantly exceeds the sell price in another, after tax. Sort by profit margin or absolute profit per unit.
2. Check the destination market depth — Before buying, look at how many units are currently listed in your target city and at what prices. If there are 200 units already listed at 11,000 silver and you plan to post at 11,000, you may be at the back of a long queue.
3. Buy at the source city — Purchase as many units as your mount can carry while staying within a comfortable risk threshold. Don't carry more than you can afford to lose.
4. Choose your mount — Cargo carts (ox, transport mammoth) carry the most weight but move slowly. A fast horse carries less but reduces road exposure time. Match your choice to the route's risk level.
5. Post in the destination — List slightly below the current lowest sell price to move inventory quickly, or match the lowest price if you're comfortable waiting.

Managing Risk

Transport trading carries the most physical risk of any market activity in Albion because you're moving silver-equivalent goods through a contested world:

• Road PvP — The roads between royal cities pass through flagged zones. Gankers specifically target cargo mounts because of their high value and low speed. Ride roads at low-traffic hours or in a group with scouts.
• Market saturation — If you arrive and post a large stack, other traders may undercut you immediately, driving the effective sell price down below your buy price. Don't overcommit to a single route.
• Stale data — Prices from the Albion Data Project reflect the last submitted data point. A route that looked profitable 30 minutes ago may have been filled or the spread may have closed. Check prices are recent before buying.
• Position sizing — Experienced transport traders size their hauls to a fixed percentage of their liquid silver. Losing one haul to a gank should sting, not be catastrophic.

Profit-per-Weight: The Advanced Metric

Raw profit per item doesn't tell the whole story. Two routes might both yield 2,000 silver per unit, but if one item weighs 0.1 and another weighs 5.0, you can carry 50× more of the first item per trip. The real measure of a route's quality is profit per unit of weight.

Calculate it simply: divide your per-unit profit by the item's weight. A 2,000 silver profit on a 0.1-weight item yields 20,000 silver per weight unit. A 2,000 silver profit on a 5.0-weight item yields only 400 silver per weight unit — 50× worse per trip.

Focusing on high profit-per-weight routes maximizes your silver earned per hour of riding time, which is ultimately the metric that matters for transport trading efficiency.