My method is to have stockpiles with bins for all the things I usually trade away fast (finished goods of particular types, low-end weaponry, low-end prepared meals, high-end goblets with decorations, etc) right next to the trade depot. If I don't trade them to the first set of traders who go past, they get dumped pretty fast in the nearby stockpiles, not downstairs where the binless stockpiles are (such as binless cup storage, binless weapon storage, etc) and I can move them pretty fast when the next traders turn up. I think it's because I've had "forbid" backfire on me a few times, so I tend to avoid forbidding things where I can.
(If you're wondering why I'm not just trading one glass mechanism for everything, I happen to enjoy roleplaying, that's all. The challenge is in making things that traders would concievably pay sensible rates for in the fantasy setting.)
I'm working on that. But my stockpiles have gotten......fucked up ver the last 6 years.
I'm working on building up a stockpile of bows and arrows to have a bowdorf, and I have all other kinds of exotic weapons I don't want to melt down (I want Lasherdorfs, dammit!) mixed in with the Masterworks meant for wear or trade, mixed in with low-quality metal items that need to be melted.
Rough gems and cut gems mixed together (thankfully just fixed that literally minutes ago by carefully selling off portions Gem Bins, and having fixed the Gem stockpile a year or so back), and stockpiles being in weird places.
Now I just need to kill the deadly dust FB so I can channel the stairs down through the first cavern, and prevent the deep-down Forgedorfs from getting sick every time they come up to help with the trade hauling.
That, or do what I did with the first, web-spitting FB. Ignore it until the cavernlife kills it for me. or it wandered off? DFHack purges deceased, so I'm not sure. I do know the third cavern is littered with bodies.
Regardless, the minute the human caravan leaves, I'm going to be working the staircase up through caverns 2 and 3 in preparation for sun-filled 3x3 staircase.
I'd go for the staircase that serves the deep dwarves, but I'm not confident in my aquifer-breaching capabilities.
Or rather, I'm very confident in my ability to flood everything below the first couple soil layers.
EDIT: to be clear, I'm d-b-f to forbid and d-b-c to claim. I should have enough crap elsewhere that I can easily ride out any Mood.