Attacking Merchant to Restock Items / Waiting

[AardvarkPepper]

I've read about saving, then attacking a merchant, then reloading a save, to get the merchant to restock inventory and gold.

My question is rather than doing this, why don't players just use the "Wait" for 48 hours? (two 24-hour waits)

Waiting restocks *all* the merchants.

Is it because the passage of in-game time affects something in-game? I noticed when I waited a while, dragons and stuff would appear when I walked out of the shop sometimes.

[MetaCthulhu]

If a person is looking for a particular item it's usually faster to do the Save, Punch, Load, Punch, Load method since they only have to save once. As far as resetting their gold, I haven't timed anything so I don't know if one is marginally faster than the other. Personally, I use the Khajit caravans, and they can be a hassle to track down, so I mainly use the Punch method. So I guess it's because of the passage of in-game time.

[PandaPo]

For me, it's a matter of convenience. I usually have a ton of stuff to sell after adventuring, and I don't want to wait a few days in-game whilst still burdened. I want to get rid of excess loot and carry on adventuring & exploring