i tried getting into ESO like 4 years ago but i got bored, but ive been playing it every day (a lot of the time just logging in for the daily login reward) for like 2 months. i normally hate MMOs but the elders scrolls universe and combat mechanics make me really like it. also the economy is surprisingly not broken after over 10 years of this game existing.
ive been getting into trading to make gold. there are a limited number of traders and each trader can only support one guild which helps limit the number of merchant players. also, every transaction sends 3.5% of the proceeds to the guild and 3.5% goes poof, and this helps prevent inflation. but there are some mats that are crazy expensive. ive been doing alchemy to make money and reagents are normally 100-500 gold each, but columbine is on average 2000-2500 each bc they are a necessary ingredient in a lot of popular pots. anyways, i just spent 1M gold on 600 columbine bc it was a good deal, but i only had 1.2M so im kinda broke until i sell these. it should take less than a week tho and my revenue will be almost 2M (profit is only 350K, but i have most of the reagents already, so ill end the week with 1.7M)
its a fun game! if ur into elder scrolls, get it! there's a bundle for $60 that gets you the base game plus every single expansion. DLC is separate from expansions tho, but if you want to get into trading you have to get ESO+ for the unlimited mat storage. ESO+ comes with all the DLC, so you can buy the $60 base game + expansion packs, then spend at most $15/month on ESO+. i did 3 months so it was $14/month, but when it lapses i might drop $130 for the year (<$11/month) bc i got a bunch of steam gift cards several months back and havent used them all.
research items that sell well. i sell essence of health aka tri-pots (columbine+bugloss+mountain flower) and essence of spell power (corn flower+lady's smock+water hyacinth/namira's rot/crimson nirnroot). to be an alchemy merchant you need max level alchemy (this guide is pretty good) and you need put max points into solvent proficiency, chemistry, and laboratory use. these perks will let you make max level pots, make 4 pots for the price of 1, and use 3 reagents. use this site to track deals on mats, thats the NA link, the same site has stats for EU server markets. look at how much you can sell stuff for and multiply by 0.92 (7% is lost on purchase, and 1% is lost when you list the item), then buy mats at a price low enough that will ensure you profit. you can also max other crafting skills and sell craftable armor/weapon sets, but that requires a lot more research bc you need to know which sets are popular, what traits go well with each set, and you have to have a lot of traits researched. alchemy and enchanting are the easiest to get into quickly.
join guilds with a trader in a high-traffic area (daggerfall, wayrest, mournhold, elden root, rawl'kha, belkarth, etc.). these cities have 5-7 traders and sell items quickly. most guilds with traders in these cities have quotas you have to meet, so be prepared to sell before you join. if you dont meet the quota you may be required to buy a lottery ticket which can range from 10k-30k, and these quotas are typically weekly.
also you can get the Master Merchant addon which tracks all sales from all players of guilds you are in and lists them in a neat table so you can see exactly which items are selling and for how much. read the description of the addon bc there is a very specific way of getting it to work correctly. also Harvest Map is great for tracking where the raw mat nodes are if you want to farm mats instead of finding deals. im on Linux and use Minion to manage my addons, works perfectly and its easy to find addons and their dependencies. almost positive its available on Windows too
best of luck!
Thanks for the in-depth response!