I'm new here so I just wanted to know if anyone noticed the chests underneath any of the shops... Example all the items you can buy at Three Brothers Trade Goods are stored in 4 chests that are locked. I used TCL to get there.

I just want to know that I'm not the only one

Yeah those are the chests that the shop keepers goods are in. Shop owners each have a chest linked to them and in those chests are the goods that the cell. The chests refresh evry few days so you can buy more stuff.

Ya ok... I just found it weird that they are underground and out of reach unless you use console commands.

Well they have to be in the same "cell" for it to work.

Because of this they have to be out of the way so players can't mess up the shops.

You mean so people can't steal everything, which rules.

There's a mod that puts them up in the shops, don't have a link on me though...

doing that is also the cheap way of getting free housing goods. FOR FREE!!!

ok, kinda random. But is for free!

soz 4 dble post but forgot that u has to look for the moldy bow of a chest with out a lock for free housing goods!

TTFN
ta ta 4 nowzors

Not at all, although the items need to be in this hidden chest (selling menu is between containers), a copy of the item often is show in plain sight, just to salivate a bit the mouth of the 'stealth' one

If you observe with care, the item sold is disabled (disappear) to be enabled in your inventory, or inversely, to appear on the store somewhere when you sell something (I'm assuming here, I never ever remembered or bothered to verify this last statement, that the one you buy is gone I'm certain).

One could think, why don't just put then in the merchant inventory?
and the answer is simple: just to avoid you over encumbering the poor sod.

I don't want ever think what we can do to the engine 'stealing' this hidden chest via console, maybe nothing bad happens, maybe the whole thing is messed beyond repair.

Not really. When you use a shop keeper, they will list not only what is located in containers owned by them, but also anything within the cell which is owned by them. This includes things which are on display. When you buy those things that are on display, they aren't disabled, they are simply sold to you (same as if you had stolen it without all the legal issues). If you sell the item back, it won't go back on display, it will just go to their merchant container. The item on display will only return when the cell has been purged from memory.

The reason why the chests aren't normall accessible is because it would be too much of an advantage for anyone to be able to walk into an armor store, sell off everything they own, clean out the store, then sell everything back to a fence, rince and repeat. By limiting what can be stolen to only what is on display, you also limit what is available to low level players, and make it eventually less profitable to steal once bandits are running around in something better than leather.

More importantly, these chests are not supposed to be usable by the player so that the player actually has a reason for money. Afterall, once you can get 100% chamelion there really isn't very much preventing you from taking what you want. If you can just steal it, why even bother having money?

Just like most cheats, using tcl to get through to places you weren't meant to access will only ruin your gaming experience. It's there, just ignore them and move on. The chests only exist because the game needs somewhere within the loaded area to store items, and having it all on the NPC would make it too easy for everyone, and lead to an encumbered NPC. Just because you can tcl and kill Valen Dreth at the beginning of the game, doesn't mean that you should.

Well, if someone wants to cheat, he could just use the console to add Gold as he sees fit =)

Edit: Or use the duplicate Cheat, for Xbow and Playstation Cheaters