Minecraft trading is an important part of this sprawling sandbox game, and although it’s all well and good taking your pickaxe to as many blocks as you can find, there’s a lot more to get up to. Trading in Minecraft can bag you some useful resources and is a great way to get your hands on the things you need to supply your adventures in the Overworld. We’ll go through absolutely everything you need to know in this guide.
If you’re after more handy tips and tricks, check out our guides on Minecraft diamonds, Minecraft potions, and how to craft a Minecraft compass so you don’t get lost on your travels. Plus, if you’re feeling up to it, you can craft a Minecraft end portal to take on the Minecraft Ender Dragon.
Here’s everything you need to know about Minecraft trading:
Minecraft villages
It might seem obvious, but to start trading, you need to find people to trade with. This means you need to locate a village, but these settlements are pretty easy to come by in different biomes. You can find villages in the plains, savanna, taiga, meadows, snowy plains, snowy taiga, and desert biomes, and they’ll each have a different look depending on where you are. Wander around for a bit, and you’ll likely happen upon a village in no time. Once you find one, you can start trading with the NPCs that live there, so you can stock up on everything you need for your adventures.
Minecraft emeralds
Now that you’ve found a village, you need some sort of currency to trade with the villagers. By and large, the most-used currency in Minecraft is emeralds. As you’d expect, they’re not particularly easy to get your hands on, considering they’re precious gems that you need to mine for. But that is the name of the game, so as long as you know where to look, you’ll be filling your chests with emeralds in no time.
One of the easiest ways to get emeralds is to start trading yourself. You can sell basic resources such as bread and sticks to villagers to make a few gems. You can also find emeralds in village chests, though the spawn rate isn’t particularly high. If you happen upon a shipwreck, buried treasure normally holds a couple of emeralds, too, but there is no guarantee, so it isn’t a great investment of time and effort.
As you’ve probably realized, the best way to get yourself some emeralds is to mine for them. You can generally find emeralds in stone mountains, but instead of digging down, you need to reach the peak before you start hacking away with your pickaxe. Head to a particularly mountainous biome, hike to the top, start mining, and you’ll find plenty of emeralds in no time. We all get those days where the mines call to us, so if you just want to plug a few hours into hacking blocks with your pickaxe, then farming emeralds in the mountains is a great way to pass the time. You’ll come out the other end with plenty of currency you can use to trade for much-needed items and resources.
How do I trade with villagers?
Once you’ve got a hefty stash of emeralds, you can start your shopping spree. To trade in Minecraft, all you need to do is interact with a villager in uniform. These uniforms let you know the type of profession the villager belongs to and are a pretty good indicator of what they have for sale. Each villager has a series of levels that increase along with your own, starting with Novice and working their way through Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, and eventually, Master. If you’re unsure what level your chosen trader is, you can take a look at their uniform belt to see an orb indicating where they’re at in their trading career.
However, not every resident of a village can trade. Unemployed villagers won’t have anything for you, although you can place a surreptitious job block beside them until they eventually start to work. Once they have a job, you can trade with them. The only NPCs that you categorically can’t trade with are Nitwits. You can recognize them fairly easily by their green clothing.
Minecraft trading prices
Just like in real life, the prices offered to you by villagers have a number of variables taken into account. If your popularity is high, then you’re more likely to get a better deal. If a certain product is in high demand or even sold out elsewhere, then the trading NPCs will intuitively raise their prices to account for the supply and demand inflation. However, if you want a permanent discount, beat a raid on a village and earn the Hero of the Village status, which significantly lowers all prices.
You can also earn a pretty decent discount by curing villagers of an undead affliction. We’d be grateful, too. Zombies can be pretty aggressive, but you can transform them back to normal by capturing the poor souls, inflicting weakness on them with a potion or arrow, and then feeding them a Golden Apple. They’ll start to shake to indicate their transformation, and when they return to the land of the living, they’ll be so grateful that they’ll offer you a permanent trade discount. You can actually stack this discount as many times as you like by turning and curing villagers over and over again. All in the name of capitalism.
But there you have it, everything you need to know about Minecraft trading. For even more tips, check out how to craft a Minecraft lectern, a complete guide on Minecraft enchantments, and how to craft Minecraft maps. Or, if you’re after something new, check out our picks for the best games like Minecraft and the best sandbox games.