Getting back into trading and TF2, need some tips

[Mango]

After years long abscence I've decided to come back to TF2 and trading. My motivation? nostalgia, flexing and I want to buy back my dlore, howl and fire serpent without spending much of real cash on it - so yea that's quite a goal and I'm not sure if it's even achievable

 

My idea was to start from the scratch, but seeing that low tier trading has been infested with bots i've decided to buy around 30 keys and start there.

I'm looking for some quality tips, even the obvious ones such as where to trade, what to trade, what to avoid, how to identify bad/good deals etc. perhaps links to some handy proven guides. Anything will be very helpful

 

 

Also here are some questions that I want for sure know the answer to:

 

1. I'm assuming I should be looking at unu trades mostly?

2. Is backpack tf a place where i will be making most of my profit? what are other places I should be visiting? how important are trade servers?

3. Do I post trades and wait for people to add me or mostly will I be the one adding people?

4. How long does it usually take for a trader to double their inventory if they are starting with ~30 keys? is it days,weeks or months? - I'm motivated and plan to be very active, but if it's going to take unvelivable amount of time just to double my inventory  then I need to rething if it's even worth getting back into. I also traded in Rocket League and making profit there was easy as pie - easily $0 to $600+ in a month - not so much since the update. From what I've seen TF2 is  the place for trading now

5. What profit monthly can I expect to be making with 300-500 keys worth inventory? - For sure things pick up from there and I'm guessing 300+ keys is where I will be able to scale my operation enough to see consistant profit. How long could it take to reach that stage?

6. Should I be looking at 10k unus? worth the hassle?

7. is it true that CS/TF2 crosstrading can bring a lot of profit?

8. how many trades can I expect to be making in a week with 30 keys in my inv?

9. Also I heard that halloween unusuals are a good place to start is that true?

[Wsdea]

You can start by buying my quicksells

[Retarded Asian Programer]

1.Yes, you can´t make as much profit in any other segment

2. Bp.tf is your main site;  Important Trade Servers are: Vatican City and Firepowered

3.You can do both

4.Depends if you are skilled in tf2 trading, it can take from a week to a year or more

5.idk, i´d try asking Very high traders on that one 

6. If you want a profit more than 0.5 keys? no. (I wouldn´t touch that segment especially after the Crate Depression)

7. Idk, I don´t have any experience in that segment, but Valve has made any newly bought keys from CS:GO untradable, kinda killing the Economy on their part. I´d wait until the market calms down.

8.Again, depends on your Skill and how active you are

9. Yeah, if you focus on the old retired Effects you can make a lot of profit

 

(I don´t have any expirience in price segments above 40 Keys, so take everything with a Grain of Salt)

[metablack20109vr]

after i got scammed i started up with an aussi scatty and i managed to reach my goal which was a golden pan,and some keys and unusuals that i cashed out.

Since there is more sellers than buyers,you'll have to take the approach and reach out to other traders,buy quicksells, and requicksell for a bit higher or sell it for full price or even more depending on the unusual.

If you have the opportunity to get rare items that are discontinued on tf2 aka no longer unboxable,you sell those for a price higher than bp.tf,depending on the rarity and how many are on the markets.

You'll have to spend some time on servers often,i used to come to firepowered and vatican evryday at night to see whats poppin.

And here im gonna tell you the truth,what most people do and never say,they target new players that have unusuals or aussies et...,low level profile and a few hours on tf2,they added them and they try to lowball them and shark them,basicaly they try to get the best deal since the guy have no idea.

You can also make profit during events,halloweens or christmas since they add new items,hats,effects etc...trust me when there is hype,there is room for huge profit,i made hundreds of keys during halloween of 2016 and realised later after i sold my halloween unusuals that they got priced for shit.

Having close high tier trader  friends could help you,i had friends with who we lended to each other keys for trades n shit,asked each other about opinion on trades and deals.

Some famous traders nowdays have scammers in their friendlist,i dont wanna say names,but a lot of them, trade with them because its like laundering money,a guy scams a hat and decide to cash it out fast,since they cant trade bots,they trade with rich traders since they buy in bulk and get even better deals.this will get you banned on bp eventually.

You can use bp premium so you can have auto bump,look for owners for specific hats,people use that feature during events mostlikely to get fresh hats out of the unboxers,some of those guys try to shark and this has been like this since years,

Now i just like to play casually with friends,i literally have items anymore and it does feel weird,but i feel like trading is so slow now and the economy is so inflated.

I would suggest only get in trading if you truly love the game and have free time,if you're here to make money,it's not really worth it.

[Buddy]

don't

[SzMiDu]

Wait, you made 600$ in one month in RL? Then I will tell you one thing, Don't worry about tf2 trading, seriously, You will have higher profits by developing and taking your time in RL economy than starting with 30 (or even more) keys. 

[Adolf Storms]

step 1: invent time machine

step 2: go back in time to 2013

 

[Master of the Hellish Yard]

Trading in TF2 isn't as profitable as it used to be. Crosstrading from TF2 to CS isn't that lucrative from my experience (you'll likely have to overpay in TF2 items for CS items since TF2 items aren't as popular) and if you're only trying to worm your way up to a dlore, howl, and fire serpent you may find dota2 trading to be easier to work with because high tier cs traders use items such as dragonclaw hooks and arcanas as currency for their cs items.

[fgsfds]

9 hours ago, Master of the Hellish Yard said:

Trading in TF2 isn't as profitable as it used to be. Crosstrading from TF2 to CS isn't that lucrative from my experience (you'll likely have to overpay in TF2 items for CS items since TF2 items aren't as popular) and if you're only trying to worm your way up to a dlore, howl, and fire serpent you may find dota2 trading to be easier to work with because high tier cs traders use items such as dragonclaw hooks and arcanas as currency for their cs items.

this. i wouldn't even bother trying to make money in tf2's economy unless you have a bot ready to go, and even then it's only going to mildly profitable.

[Mango]

20 hours ago, Master of the Hellish Yard said:

Trading in TF2 isn't as profitable as it used to be. Crosstrading from TF2 to CS isn't that lucrative from my experience (you'll likely have to overpay in TF2 items for CS items since TF2 items aren't as popular) and if you're only trying to worm your way up to a dlore, howl, and fire serpent you may find dota2 trading to be easier to work with because high tier cs traders use items such as dragonclaw hooks and arcanas as currency for their cs items.

 

11 hours ago, fgsfds said:

this. i wouldn't even bother trying to make money in tf2's economy unless you have a bot ready to go, and even then it's only going to mildly profitable.

 

You mean Dota 2 trading as for DOTA/CS or trading up within dota 2 economy? I couldn't find much info on Dota 2 trading, it doesn't seem to be as developed as TF/CS trading. I don't see how one would go from $50 to $1k like it was for example in CSGO before 7d trade CDs

 

Also I see that being repeated a lot, that TF2 trading is not profitable and every time It's being posted by people who haven't achieved much inventory worth - no offense

But then there are people with $5k-$10k or even $20k inventories and it seems like they get steady, healthy profit. Sometimes shooting up by couple grand in a span of 1-3 months. It almost always goes like this, not much action in $100-1.5k range and then profits get greater and greater. Only today when I was on Vatican i've seen a dude with inv worth close to 20k

 

Clearly they are doing something right and I don't believe it's throught scamming, or else they would for sure get banned. Whatever they are doing it clearly works.

 

Perhaps the reason why they make so much profit on weekly/monthly basis, is because they can afford to hold many unus at once, both low and high tier? or maybe i'm missing something and those numbers are inflated

 

I don't know, I'm just asking

 

 

[Master of the Hellish Yard]

19 hours ago, Mango said:

Also I see that being repeated a lot, that TF2 trading is not profitable and every time It's being posted by people who haven't achieved much inventory worth - no offense

But then there are people with $5k-$10k or even $20k inventories and it seems like they get steady, healthy profit. Sometimes shooting up by couple grand in a span of 1-3 months. It almost always goes like this, not much action in $100-1.5k range and then profits get greater and greater. Only today when I was on Vatican i've seen a dude with inv worth close to 20k

 

lmao you say you're just asking but you've dismissed everyone who has commented earlier as "haven't achieved much inventory worth" even though all these people still have higher inventory values than yours

 

In all seriousness though, you can still profit in TF2 but it's a matter of how much time and capital you're willing to sink in. If you think it's worth it spending hours and hours on trade servers trying to worm your way up from what you have now then go right ahead. It's definitely still possible, but it's also a waste of time. It would be quicker to get a real job if you're going to sink in that much time into trading.

 

TF2 items aren't accepted on most csgo skin trading sites and are not as liquid so most csgo traders use dota 2 items as currency, which was why I brought up dota 2 trading.

[creepio]

On 12/17/2019 at 12:59 AM, Mango said:

You mean Dota 2 trading as for DOTA/CS or trading up within dota 2 economy? I couldn't find much info on Dota 2 trading, it doesn't seem to be as developed as TF/CS trading. I don't see how one would go from $50 to $1k like it was for example in CSGO before 7d trade CDs

 

Also I see that being repeated a lot, that TF2 trading is not profitable and every time It's being posted by people who haven't achieved much inventory worth - no offense

But then there are people with $5k-$10k or even $20k inventories and it seems like they get steady, healthy profit. Sometimes shooting up by couple grand in a span of 1-3 months. It almost always goes like this, not much action in $100-1.5k range and then profits get greater and greater. Only today when I was on Vatican i've seen a dude with inv worth close to 20k

 

You can't judge the state of the economy off certain people's backpack values. There are a numerous active traders that had non-existent backpacks earlier this year and last year and now sit at $10K+. Little to do with smart trading and more to do with investing throwaway money into the game. Some of the best items in the game are either locked up or marked up at this point.

 

I know there is that one guy that dropped like $60,000 of inheritance money in the game this year and the flex factor made him a well-respected trader for some reason.

 

In my experiences, most of the people I've seen in 6-7 years of trading that trade up thousands of dollars from nothing in no time at all end up being exposed as sharks and scammers.