I'm a new trader with only 1 key. How does this "trading" thing work and how should I get started?

[Floop]

I only have 1 key and I don't know what I should trade it for to start gaining profit, I will appreciate any sort of advice.  

[SOLINVICTUS]

man, low tier trading now-a-days is so crap that you're better off skipping straight to unusual trading unless you don't mind scraping a scrap or two with each trade but if you insist on doing that then i suggest looking for items that have extras on them (paint, strange parts, etc.) and buy them for base price and then sell them for higher (that's how i did low tier trading) and then keep doing it until you find some jewel that gives you massive profit. one time i bought a weapon skin for 5 keys and then after 2 months of waiting i sold it for 10

 

usually bots sell stuff with extras for base price or if you're lucky you might find real people selling them for base price. i suggest looking for the higher tier paints (pink, black, lime, etc) and go for the more popular items and if you're buying an item with strange parts then find the ones with 3 parts (max) since from my experience they sell the best and of course only the more popular weapons

 

i suggest just buying keys with real money (like 15 or 20 keys) and start flipping unusuals (quickbuy and quicksell) because low tier trading is not worth the hassle

[nutellatoes]

if you really insist on staring low tier trading just to get ready for unusual trading (which i would recommend) I found that scrap.tf auctions to be really helpful for making profit more than half a scrap. there is also tons apon tons of tutorials on youtube. here are two videos i would recommend watching: https://youtu.be/g-tjkPjQ6L8  https://youtu.be/r_zI-tAzXxs

 

trading can be very fun if you know what you're doing, but it also requires a lot of patience.

 

[Fanaticism]

You can start looking on scrap, stn and others tf2 sites painted hats and selling hats me. My nickname on backpack FANATICISM [ AUTO - ACCEPT ], i'm buying only black, white, pink, lime, team spirit, after eight, mint, gold, purple paints. This is really great start to make profit for you.

[Slam]

Generally there's two things you can do when at such a low starting point:

 

a) Buy/sell painted cosmetics for a profit. This is getting slower every day as bots slowly start taking over painted cosmetics too, but essentially you just buy popular cosmetics with popular paints and try to make a few refined off of them.

b) Buy/sell stranges with high-tier strange parts for a profit. This is pretty hard and time consuming considering it's rare to find stranges that people actually want that have good strange parts (damage, dom's, headshots, etc), but you can usually make a chunk of change off of them.

 

At ~10-15 keys you start buying/selling spelled items for a profit, footprints > high-tier paints > voices = low-tier paints should be your priority when doing so, and you definitely want to do miscs, not hats, as most people prefer spells on items they can equip with unusual hats. (Though, I wouldn't immediately pass up footprints on a top-tier non-unusual hat if it's dirt cheap)

 

At 20 keys is when you start doing unusual trading. Below 20 keys there's very little profit to be made and a lot of bots / supply to compete with, so it's a waste of time even over spell trading.

 

Ultimately I will always recommend you just spend $20-$40 on marketplace/csdeals/etc to get keys to skip ahead, from 1 key it might take you months just to make it to unusual trading, and even if trading these days is more passive and less "spending all day on trading servers", you still probably value your time a little bit more than making 10 cents per day doing this.

[awsommv]

buy low sell high

[Scott Bakula]

Honestly, when you're this new to the game and scene, I wouldn't even worry about trading. When your key is tradeable, sell it for metal, then use that to buy the weapon drops you don't have yet and some cosmetics for everybody. Then, after that, if the game really sticks with you and you do want to get into trading, you can invest $40-50 of starting capital and go from there. Otherwise, trying to start from where you're at, it would be more profitable hunting for pennies on the sidewalk.

[SOLINVICTUS]

56 minutes ago, awsommv said:

buy low sell high

 

have fun making an amazing whole scrap worth of profit with each trade

[Wsdea]

2 hours ago, awsommv said:

buy low sell high

Buy high sell low

[omnii]

12 minutes ago, Wsdea said:

Buy high sell low

the ultimate profit machine

[I_Am_Tortilla]

Card trading is the way to go, this video should help : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4OwhE4kYU8 
it's a bit outdated bit still it works

[PomsonSimp]

3 hours ago, Omnom/Omni said:

the ultimate profit machine

this is what i was gonna do with my strange unusual airdog i just lost to scamming

[ApothicЯ]

0.66 ref to make with a key there (1 ref by resselling on stn)-> GOLD RUSH !