Shopping
Palworld Merchant Guide: Every Shop & What It Sells
Palworld runs on four different currencies, a merchant who only shows up if you build him a mailbox, and a guy hiding near a cliff who'll sell you an endangered Pal for cash under the table. None of that gets explained in the tutorial, so consider this the orientation packet nobody hands you at Small Settlement's front gate.
Who Sells What: The Seven Merchant Types
There are seven distinct merchant categories tracked on this site, spread across 41 real shop instances: Wandering Merchants (fixed-spot generalists, plus one that roams), Caravan Merchants (25 roaming specialists), the Arena Merchant, the Bounty Officer, the Medal Merchant, Black Marketeers (sell Pals, not items), and Pal Merchants (sell common starter Pals). Every one of them is mapped and fully inventoried on this site's shops directory — this guide is the "how it all works" companion to that, not a repeat of it.
Palworld's Four Currencies (and How You Actually Earn Them)
Gold Coin is the default. You get it by crafting it at a Gold Coin Assembly Line from Ingots, by selling spare items and Pals to merchants, or as a rare drop from Direhowl, Mau, and Vanwyrm. If a shop doesn't specify otherwise, assume it wants Gold Coin.
Battle Tickets only come from one place: winning solo matches in the Arena. There's no crafting recipe and no alternate source, so if you want what the Arena Merchant sells, you're fighting for it.
Successful Bounty Tokens are earned by defeating bounty targets — wanted Pals and outlaws with a bounty posted on them. Beat one, get a token, hand it to the Bounty Officer.
Dog Coins are the strangest of the four. They're an all-but-guaranteed drop from Mimog, and you can also find them sitting in chests at the Oil Rig dungeon. There's no assembly line for these — you either find a Mimog or go loot the Oil Rig.
Wandering Merchants: Your Everyday General Store
Six Wandering Merchant instances exist: five sit at fixed spots across the game's three main settlements, and one wanders the map at random. All of them deal in Gold Coin. The split is worth knowing — at Duneshelter and Fisherman's Point, the settlement actually has two separate Wandering Merchants dividing the stock: one sells consumables, seeds, and Skill Fruits, the other sells hat schematics, armor, and ammo. Small Settlement instead runs everything through a single shop that covers both categories at once. Check Small Settlement's Wandering Merchant, Duneshelter's consumables shop and its schematics-and-armor shop, or Fisherman's Point's pair for the exact lists.
Caravan Merchants: 25 Roaming Specialists
This is the merchant type almost nobody explains properly: build a Palbox in an open area of your base, and a Caravan Merchant will set up shop nearby within roughly five minutes. They don't stay forever — they roam between bases — but a fresh one spawns wherever you plant a new Palbox, which makes them the closest thing this game has to an on-demand shop.
What makes the 25 Caravan Merchants worth learning individually is that they cluster into specialist lineages, each scaling from a basic version to a "Legendary" one with a much deeper catalog. There's an ammo line running from the barebones Mercenary Supplier up to the Legendary Ammo Merchant, who stocks nearly every ammo type in the game including late-game energy weapons. There's a pharmacist line (Shady → Authorized → Legendary Pharmacist), a butcher/hunter line, a baker/gourmet line, a grocer line, and a materials line topping out at the Legendary Materials Merchant, who sells rare monster-part drops you'd otherwise have to farm by hand. All 25 are catalogued on the shops directory if you want to hunt for a specific specialist.
Arena Merchant: Battle Tickets for Legendary Gear
There's exactly one Arena Merchant, stationed at the Arena itself, and they're the only place in the game selling certain Tier-4 weapon schematics, top-tier armor schematics, and a wide spread of Implants and Skill Fruits — all for Battle Tickets you earn by winning solo Arena fights. If you've been ignoring the Arena, this is the shop that makes it worth a visit.
Bounty Officer: Cash In Your Bounty Tokens
The PIDF Bounty Officer sits at three settlements — Small Settlement, Duneshelter, and Fisherman's Point — and trades Successful Bounty Tokens for Gold Coin, cosmetic caps, Implants, and stat-boosting fruit. It's a nice secondary payout for a system (bounty hunting) a lot of players already do for the fight itself and never think to cash in.
Medal Merchant: Dog Coins for Cosmetics and Handbooks
One Medal Merchant operates out of four separate church ruins around the map, all selling the same Dog Coin stock: cosmetic hats tied to specific Pals, Accessory Boxes, Elixirs, Starfruit, and the full set of Applied Handbooks that boost specific base-work skills. If your build feels like it's missing a production bonus, this is the shop to check before you assume you need a better Pal.
Black Marketeer & Pal Merchant: Buying Actual Pals
These two get confused constantly, and they're opposites. The Pal Merchant sells common, low-level starter Pals at three fixed settlement spots, tiered to roughly match the region's level range — Small Settlement (Lv.10-15), Fisherman's Point (Lv.30-35), and Duneshelter (Lv.40-45) — all for plain Gold Coin. The Black Marketeer is the opposite experience: four level-tiered vendors selling genuinely rare and dangerous Pals, tucked away near landmarks like caves and church ruins rather than sitting in town. Some of the higher tiers' exact spawn spots haven't been pinned down precisely yet, which tracks — they're called Black Marketeers for a reason.
Which Merchant Should I Check First?
Need a hat or armor schematic: Wandering Merchant. Need ammo for a specific weapon: the Caravan ammo line, or a Wandering Merchant's armor-and-ammo half. Running low on food or Skill Fruit: a Caravan grocer, butcher, or gourmet. Need healing items: a Caravan pharmacist. Want a specific rare Pal: Black Marketeer. Want to fill out early Paldeck slots cheaply: Pal Merchant. Chasing cosmetics or a production Handbook: Medal Merchant. Sitting on unused Battle Tickets: Arena Merchant.
For the full picture — exact inventories, exact coordinates — browse every shop or drop into the interactive map and toggle the shop layer on.
Frequently Asked Questions
What currency do most Palworld merchants use?
Gold Coin covers the large majority of shops — all Wandering and Caravan Merchants, Black Marketeers, and Pal Merchants. The exceptions are the Arena Merchant (Battle Tickets), the Bounty Officer (Successful Bounty Tokens), and the Medal Merchant (Dog Coins).
How do you get a Caravan Merchant to spawn?
Build a Palbox in an open area of your base. A Caravan Merchant will set up shop nearby within roughly five minutes. They roam and move on eventually, so a new Palbox is the reliable way to summon a fresh one.
What's the difference between a Black Marketeer and a Pal Merchant?
Pal Merchants sell common, low-level starter Pals at fixed settlement spots for Gold Coin. Black Marketeers sell rarer, higher-level Pals from four level-tiered vendors tucked into hidden spots like caves and ruins, away from town centers.
Where do I get Dog Coins in Palworld?
Dog Coins are an almost-guaranteed drop from the Pal Mimog, and they also turn up in chests at the Oil Rig dungeon. There's no crafting recipe for them.