Skyrim is a critically acclaimed game that quickly became a cultural phenomenon, but that doesn't mean it is without bugs and glitches. Some might even argue that these oddities in the code are a part of what makes the game so great. While there are many exciting things about adventuring through the homeland of the Nords, dealing with over encumbrance is definitively one of the most annoying. To make matters worse, it's difficult to pawn off all the gear players pick up because shop keeper have very limited amount of money to trade with the player. This issue can be resolved with an extremely helpful but somewhat violent bug.
Redditor EliteGamer5484 discovered this bug recently, but it's actually a well-known exploit. Players have been using this trick to both sell off insane amounts of goods and purchase supplies in bulk since Skyrim released in 2011. It seems as though the technique was lost to the annals of time, however, as this player and tons of others in the comments are learning it for the first time.
In order to perform the glitch, players need to first save their game. Next approach any shopkeeper and hit them. This will turn them hostile towards the player, but upon reloading the game, the merchant will no longer be hostile and their stock will have completely refilled. This includes how much money they have to buy things off the player as well as the items they have in stock to sell. This is useful for a number of reasons, and can really help players to save a lot of time.
The most obvious application here is for selling a lot of gear. Normally, merchants will run out of money before the player is able to sell all of their gear, but save the game, punch them in the face, and reload, and players can continue selling to their hearts' content. Another great use of this is to stock up on certain materials like iron ore. Players can buy all the iron ore from a shop, repeat the process mentioned above, and then buy more iron ore. This is a great way to level up smithing in Skyrim.
Although this was a well-known exploit at one point, the comments on the Reddit post above imply that many players actually didn't know about this. Without the use of mods in Skyrim to increase carry capacity or merchant sell limits, this is a must-use glitch that will save players so much time and let the avoid this monotonous aspect of the game.
Skyrim is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.