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What is the best item business to get into?


EvanDog

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Hi Everyone,

          I'm no expert in trading, but recently I have acquired about 8 keys, and I also have over 20 refined metal in my backpack. I'm reluctant to use the keys to buy a Bill's Hat, though, because I have seen how their value is and has been on a steady path downwards for a while now. I know the whole philosophy of tf2 trading is "buy low, sell high," but I feel like if I buy something that is commonly accepted as trading currency, like a Bill's Hat, I won't be able to sell it for more than I paid for it because the value will just keep going down and down.

          So, to the point now-- what is the best item market to get into? That is, what items either have a steady price, or their price will go up in the near future? Except I want something that I can sell for a significant profit, and it won't take forever to sell.

 

Thanks to everyone who responds,

Evan

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Avoid expensive (non-unusuals) items because some of them are going to shift due to keys being more expensive.

 

Best choice, buy/sell in bulk. 

 

But, Stranges/Hats are the best. More specifically stranges/hats that are less than 5 Ref. 

 

P.s. hoarding/holding items until they rise isn't the best idea, for one you often lose as other items shift, secondly the profit you get isnt worth the time it took for them to go up. 

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Two options:

 

1) Buy paint cans and sell them on the Market or Warehouse.

 

2) Crates. Most traders usually sneer at crates, but you can get some of the good crate series from sellers on Outpost and on trade servers. When I had a surplus of 20 refined off of selling Tour of Duty tickets, I put the money towards crates. Planning to save up to 50 now.

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Buy and sell craft weapons (Sharp dressers, AWPs, 3-rune blades).

 

I buy them all for 1.66 and sell for 1.88-2.11 depending on the weapon. Small margin but consistent

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Quickly selling items for more Refined is probably your best choice, like selling items you just got for a scrap more or so for the sake of profit.

 

Also try to get into stranges, plenty of stranges like the shotgun are still expensive and if they don't come out with a crate soon, they will only rise in price.

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Stranges, mid range hats/misc.  Any class should work but any rocket launchers, mini's, scout primary is good.  Like Cleverpun I have done well with Sharp Dressers.  If you want to do trading for profit/fun than you should get any alternate account where you post all of ur buying offers but you need to have access to 2 computers at once.  The easiest is to make a ftp and buy a key/robokey from the mann co store to become premium.  U benefit from the number of slots and from buyers not easily seeing what u paid for ur stuff.  Then transfer all ur metal/keys to the alt.

 

Post an offer to buy a bunch of different stranges between 1 - 2 ref.  U buy 1 rec bellow bp.tf price.  Then trade it over to ur main account and post it at full price.  Don't be afraid to spend a lot of ref early and if u get more than 3 - 4 of the same item right away, close that item offer.  The market may be telling u something.  Don't try to buy 1.33 ref craft hats for 1 ref but I do take craft hats as payment.  If you can't sell them go to scrap.tf and turn them into metal.

 

Stay away from spending keys right away until you feel comfortable with them.  As mentioned, the S Shotgun is good to buy for 1 key and sell for a little above that.  Ther are other items like that too  It won't take you long to turn 20 ref into 25 - 30.

 

Good luck.

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Well from my past experience I can tell you specifically which item I find the easiest and fastest to flip while keeping an okay profit.

Item (Buy, Sell)

Tosslecap (2.22, 3), Anger (2, 2.66-3), Kringle (1 key 0.66, 1.6 keys), Last Breath (1 key, 1.6 keys), Sharp Dresser (1.33, 2), Merc's Muffler (1 key 0.66 ref, 1.6 keys), All-Father (1.2 keys, 1.8 keys), Villian's Veil (3.33, 4.33).

That's pretty much it. The last 80 ref or so I have earned came from these items. (I mainly chose these items from the trends section in trade.tf, before the robo update)

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I dont understand how you guys find all these people to flip items with. Everyone knows prices nowadays.

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u think hiding your buying price/ wealth is a big factor?

In part, a lot of times a buyer will ask for a link because they don't remember why they added you. From one link they can see all.

 

Also, its about more slots for selling.

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yes, im running out of slots. i need an extra pc to have an real alt.

 

but i rarely send my links out, they mostly know what i sell. if they dont, i tell them to check my bp.

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yes, im running out of slots. i need an extra pc to have an real alt.

 

but i rarely send my links out, they mostly know what i sell. if they dont, i tell them to check my bp.

You know that you can expand your bp by another 1000 slots, right?

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You know that you can expand your bp by another 1000 slots, right?

 

And he definitely does not need another pc just for an alt account.  

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In part, a lot of times a buyer will ask for a link because they don't remember why they added you. From one link they can see all.

 

Also, its about more slots for selling.

 

im too lazy to use the quote button. we were referring to listing slots on op. 25 listings is not enough for me.

 

anyway i think its a great time to get into the new unusuals, the big price discrepancy/ price knowledge can be profitable.

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The only way to get more listings is to donate more. ;)

 

It's still just a side feature from the site.

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  • 9 months later...

A piece of advice that I haven't found here is that a bunch of keys in your backpack won't do you any good unless you get into the key trade (and bots do it better). You're much better off with a large stock of items than a large stock of cash. Sure, you might save a scrap by buying craft hats at .88 ref instead of 1 ref, but you lose on the many rec you would have made when sellers go to others instead of you. This is as an example, by the way. The same can be said for buying 1 key items for 5 ref instead of 5.33-5.66 or 1.5 key items for 7 ref instead of 1 key.

 

Ideally, you want to buy at such a volume that your inventory is always stocked with at least one of every item that you're wanting to sell and you actually don't have more than a page or so of whatever currency you use to buy said items. That way, you have the maximum chance at making a sale. Keys and ref don't do that. Saving a scrap by waiting an extra week for an item when you could have bought and sold about a dozen in that time don't do that, either.

 

Miscs and stranges are what I do. Festives seem okay, but they don't buy or sell as fast as those do in my experience. I go with buying and selling several items that have the same price. 20 items or so with a price of 1 key, 8 with a price of 2, and 6 with a price of 3. I do this more for ease of use than for maximum profit and volume of sales. I don't want to have to deal with a dozen trade offers every time I bump my trades. I'd rather deal with 4-5 trades per day with an average profit of 1 key per day than 20 trades per day with an average profit of 3 keys per day, and don't try to sell me on 100 trades for 10 keys. That will never happen. If you want maximum profit, go with the small trades. If you don't mind sacrificing profit for ease of use, then go with the larger trades, where items will take longer to buy and longer to sell.

 

Avoid new items. Sure, strange australium Black Boxes are 1.4-1.5 buds right now, but they debuted at 2. New items tend to start with a very high price and drop extremely quickly. It's better to go with items whose prices have stabilized. It might have seemed tempting to buy that Big Mann on Campus when it first came out for 2 keys, but what if you can't sell it fast enough? Now you paid 1.5 keys for an item that's worth 3.33 ref. This also works with items that have had a rather sudden jump in price. Chances are that that jump won't stabilize. It will benefit people that had the item, but if you try to get in on it, you'll end up losing money.

 

Also, random piece of advice: Thursday seems to be the day when people are buying and selling the most, followed by Friday. I imagine that this is because people are preparing to debut their loadouts on the weekend when they can get the most play time.

 

Edit: Oh, and very nice necro, Happy Balloon. I didn't even notice that.

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