My curiosity about the state & statistics of TF2 trading the past year

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

Have had this in the back of my mind for a while now, I wanna get a sort of statistic for TF2 trading the past year. I have mentioned this to a few people every now and then and they do also tell me they have noticed a decrease in trading, however to me it seems so severe the past year, that it's become a bit of an concern for me. When I say severe, I mean nothing I have ever seen in my 8-9 years of trading. Part of this is me also trying to figure out how much consistent cashing out affects a persons trading, since when you cash out consistently, you have a constant lack of keys, meaning you can buy far less new and fresh items; you invest back into the business far less. I personally have been consistently cashing out for a bit over a year now, so I'm affected by a multitude of factors. I also know that as bots become more and more the standard, traditional person to person trading is pushed away further; trading is slower, I just don't really statistically know how much slower it actually is this past year, since my only realistic statistics at the moment is me, which is exactly what I'm hoping to change with this post, get more statistics.

 

Now, if what I've noticed is true, that trading has in fact significantly (and emphasis on significantly, of course) slowed down the past year, more significantly than ever before, then I would like this to also be an open discussion on statistics, data, info and opinions as to why that is so. That means, for the past year or as simple as recently, discussion about trading experiences, trade stats (incoming offers, sent offers, trades done, profit earned) etc. is very much encouraged!

 

So as a TDLR/a summary, what I know:

 

• Cashing out consistently slows personal trading
• Bots slow down traditional person to person trading
• Constant and worsening issues, such as slow load times, glitches, crashes, bad servers, DDOS-ing, hacking, lack of development and innovation etc., with the main TF2 trading services (steam itself and its servers, backpack.tf, next.backpack.tf, bazaar.tf, posts.tf, mp.tf, gladiator.tf etc.) severely slow trading down and makes it quite a drag

 

That bout it

[Macioeus]

Curious to see the results : >

[smokedem]

Not really a trader but as a collector who dabbles in profit trading, I've noticed a significant increase in time-to-sale especially for higher ticket items. I've also noticed a lot of people cashing out chunks or their full BPs. Lower tier stuff seems to be moving at the same rate but I have less experience so that's just an estimate. I'm guessing CS2 has had some effect as I've seen a lot more people advertising that they take buff balance.

[Rainy]

A lot of people have been really overvaluing their items which slows down their movement. CS2 has impacted it as well a lot. I’ve noticed in the past month or two a big increase in the amount of trades my friends and I make though so I think it was just a slow few months. A lot to do with the issues with gladiator and CS. 

[Kolt]

I’ve noticed this, but it doesn’t seem too consistent for me. 

 

The past month (yes, I track my progress each month) for me has been quite successful, one of the most profitable ones in the past 12 months. 

 

There quite a lot of reasons imo for the seemingly slower economy. 

 

1. Economic recession. Like you mentioned, you haven’t experienced something like this in your 9 years of trading, but the world hasn’t experienced this level of economic downturn in a long time as well. Harder financial times for regular people = less money they are able to throw at virtual games. 

 

2. The so called inflation of items. More traders are inflated their items past what they can realistically sell for. More expensive items = less people being able to afford it = less trades. 

 

There are a couple more but I’m on my phone and out of the house so ceebs writing an entire essay.

 

[OGSemper]

all of this is easily avoidable if you just join UGC trade server #69 trade_minecraft_plaza_v34, i always get trades there trust me bro.

 

 

I realistically only use STN.tf for cosmetic and unusual trading, but I mainly use SCM for collecting and pricing, I've been noticing Mann Co Store and STN Trading have been killing it lately when in comparison to their competition, So much so I never use Scrap.tf Anymore because their load times are 10x slower than STN's, Their Inventories are always out of stock, and the prices there are never consistent, Marketplace.tf to me will always be a Second Steam Wallet that is the only thing I see it as Prior and After to seller program closing and reopening.

You forgot the most Important trading site of them all, the TF2 Discussions Trading page on Steam, some bangers there sometimes, I recall a guy asking for a PC on his Arcana Napper's and like 40 people tried telling him what it was worth(happened within the past year)

[LaughingLollipop]

anyone who says 50000+ keys is lyin (or the gladiator hacker)

 

also game is dying qs me all your items

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

1 hour ago, Rainy said:

A lot of people have been really overvaluing their items which slows down their movement.

 

1 hour ago, Kolt said:

2. The so called inflation of items. More traders are inflated their items past what they can realistically sell for. More expensive items = less people being able to afford it = less trades.

This, absolutely. But personally I've always accurately valued my items, so I've priced them fairly, but the past ~half a year I've been underpricing my stuff and quickselling a lot of it, again, cause I be cashing out bit by bit. However even then, stuff just doesn't sell, takes insane amounts of time. People are also extremely ignorant on quicksells, if bots disappear which they tend to do, its hard to find reasonable quickbuyers, so I have mostly been selling to bots when they are at their peak buy orders, which are very reasonable to my surprise, far more than when they disappear and suddenly everyone "forgets" the items potential value.

[Kolt]

1 hour ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

 

This, absolutely. But personally I've always accurately valued my items, so I've priced them fairly, but the past ~half a year I've been underpricing my stuff and quickselling a lot of it, again, cause I be cashing out bit by bit. However even then, stuff just doesn't sell, takes insane amounts of time. People are also extremely ignorant on quicksells, if bots disappear which they tend to do, its hard to find reasonable quickbuyers, so I have mostly been selling to bots when they are at their peak buy orders, which are very reasonable to my surprise, far more than when they disappear and suddenly everyone "forgets" the items potential value.

Things quicksell quickly if they’re genuine quicksells - I see a lot of people “quickselling” their hats for like 10-20% then complaining about not being able to sell. 

 

I think the biggest factor is the world economy - not enough money to go around for people and even less disposable income. Trading was a lot more frequent during the pandemic because of lower prices of unusuals but also the stimulus checks that people got - I remember countless people who told me they were gonna spend their stimulus checks on unusuals, but I believe those has stopped (not from the US so idk)

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

1 hour ago, Kolt said:

for like 10-20%

Idk often times I go far above and beyond that and no catch

1 hour ago, Kolt said:

I think the biggest factor is the world economy - not enough money to go around for people and even less disposable income. Trading was a lot more frequent during the pandemic because of lower prices of unusuals but also the stimulus checks that people got - I remember countless people who told me they were gonna spend their stimulus checks on unusuals, but I believe those has stopped (not from the US so idk)

Well before the pandemic we was gucci, like we was eating good, us traders, so stimulus checks made trading roll even better than it already was, I'd imagine, but the past year's a mess.

[LaughingLollipop]

i think one of the primary losses related to the bots was basically an issue with how people perceive orders

it has to do with how classifieds work on this site compared to pure in hand

by donating loads a money bots could easily get many thousands of slots, a slot is a 20 cent donation that doubles with premium

 

so here comes the misleading part, that bot (which did cost like $500 to setup or whatever) can hold a modest amount lets say 1000 keys (<$2k) and present itself as holding millions of keys in liquidity

 

now we reach the really great part, its not 1 bot its >100 bots

so when gladiator folds hundreds of millions of supposedly liquid, available keys (which were really 'only' like 100,000 physical actual keys at most) just kinda evaporated

 

the money isn't really gone because it never existed to begin with

the pump is gone tho

[Kolt]

7 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

 

This, absolutely. But personally I've always accurately valued my items, so I've priced them fairly, but the past ~half a year I've been underpricing my stuff and quickselling a lot of it, again, cause I be cashing out bit by bit. However even then, stuff just doesn't sell, takes insane amounts of time. People are also extremely ignorant on quicksells, if bots disappear which they tend to do, its hard to find reasonable quickbuyers, so I have mostly been selling to bots when they are at their peak buy orders, which are very reasonable to my surprise, far more than when they disappear and suddenly everyone "forgets" the items potential value.

Interesting, imo slowly cashing out ain't too hard - just ensuring you keep that balance. Towards the end of last year, I went through a phase of cashing out, and got about $40k out of the game. It sorta comes down to actively trading, while cashing anything over a certain amount of keys out (like anytime you have over 1000 keys, you cash the remaining out).

The other thing you mentioned in the first part is cashing out slowing down personal trades - which is obvious haha. As keys are the main thing that are used to buy things for cheap, and sell for profit, getting rid of them results in you not being able to "buy low & sell high" as often. That's sorta why tf2 ain't a stable money maker per-say, as in there is no cashflow element. If you want consistent cash flow, you have to jeopardise future profits. 

Going back to the original point, I think tf2 hasn't changed much in popularity, meaning it is still booming with players. Minus a couple things like steam being a bit slower nowadays and other things, I recon once the economy picks back up, we will see a resurgence in trade frequency. Also the fact that this has caused people to lower their prices (I've done so personally, sometimes), more people are beginning to be able to afford higher tiered items.

I don't see tf2 trading going anywhere, at least not for the next 3-5 years. Just give it some time, and if you want a fix, just spend more time offering. For me at least, the more effort I put into offering on peoples things, and talking with people, the more trades I get.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

8 minutes ago, Kolt said:

The other thing you mentioned in the first part is cashing out slowing down personal trades - which is obvious haha

9 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

since when you cash out consistently, you have a constant lack of keys, meaning you can buy far less new and fresh items; you invest back into the business far less

Yeah

10 minutes ago, Kolt said:

I don't see tf2 trading going anywhere, at least not for the next 3-5 years. Just give it some time

Oh yeah, this ain't that kind of thread, I personally even believe that trading/tf2 won't go till 2030+, however you said "just give it some time" and I can not say that reassures me, I still fear that trading will only continue to slow down, but only time will tell, I suppose.

[AwesomeSause]

Yall typing too fucking much

 

tldr if tf2 dies the economy will probably be the same till a bunch of new generational kids pick up the "cult classic" in 2145

[AwesomeSause]

Also as someone who profited from building fabricators, fuck everyone involved with trading because I can't ever do it again and my addiction to building them will never be quenched due to rising prices 

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

26 minutes ago, AwesomeSause said:

Yall typing too fucking much

My boy, you posted 2 comments in a row :kekw:

[eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

Just now, Master Throne Crimson said:

My boy, you posted 2 comments in a row :kekw:

600+ posts and i still dont know how to merge comments wooo

[Sprekt]

All I can say is that meanwhile some markets certainly has taken a hit(unusual market as an example; oversaturation of objectively good looking hats/effects, people with less money to spend, overinflated market etc), some markets has definitively emerged that generates way better revenue. Changes in market will always put some people out of business - either because they simply do not know how to adapt or that they lack the time or interest to do so. I am certain that most traders that actually quit are those that had a role of circulating unusuals, once the interest for a certain market slowly fades it is easy to get stuck in it if you never analyze what is happening. The unusual market is also particularly interesting in terms of actually knowing what you invest in since it went from tracking past sales, being good at negotiating and having a lot of experience of certain effects/hats to just simply have a look at highest bot buy order to value an asset and buy it "because it is worth that much, look". For those who thought such a system to be sustainable over time is...yes, going to get burned in some way or another. Valve literally flooding us with decent looking effects is something people might not give a second thought about either. If you are stuck with old strategies that was applicable to a time where there was just a handful of actual good-looking effects apart from halloweens, and compare it to now when valve in all honesty releases mutliple effects at multplie times a year that is top tier compared to the old 1-3 gens, you will get what I mean. That is also objectively speaking from the customers view, especially for those new to team fortress 2 - just because an effect once was sought after from traders doesn't mean that the actual target customer feels the same way. Just from observations alone it seems that those who get stuck is trying to trade to get a trade with another trader instead of trading for items that sell to real customers. However, those who succeed, are either really good at sourcing the right items at a good price, are going hard into nische markets, or, are able to sell their items to the final customer. 

 

I'd say it's more about adaptation than anything. People that generally complain about trading slowing down is stuck with old strategies. If you properly evaluate and study the market and keep track of your progress to the tiniest detail you will find new ways to up your success rate little by little. If you are honest to yourself, how many times have you actually tried to implement some improvements to your business? Or are you still recycling "what always works"? If you take it at face value - the interest for online item investing has probably never been higher, although mainly applicable for CSGO, still relevant information to keep in mind. What market is a new trader most prone to enter? Which strategy are they going to read about first? The OLD ones that "always works". If you still continue to stay in a market that is facing an influx of new traders and other factors negatively impacting it without making any changes to your approach, you can not be surprised if you feel like things is slowing down.

 

And with the recent "update" to TF2 we saw a huge spike in players that has been somewhat consistent for this first week; meaning that more customers are coming. How to properly satisfy them is up to each trader to figure out themselves. All I know is that trading is certainly not slowing down as a whole, just moving to other markets inside of TF2. Think like a customer and not a trader and it will be a good first step. The only thing I would agree is slowing down trading is item servers being unreliable, there's really nothing else that indicates that the ability to come out on top has been hindered.

 

With all this knowledge compared to a somewhat basic understanding of how real-life economics might impact the in-game economics, I'd make the bold statement that tf2 trading has never been so easy to reliably make profit from as the last couple of years until now.   

 

 

[Ridley]

When people go "I want X effect on Y hat because it looks cool," and that hat doesn't exist, and it can't ever exist because of how cases & rarity works, or if it does exist it's hoarded in some eterna-virgin's inventory who never even plays Team Fortress 2, and its "suggested price" is $1000, people will just give up and buy a sillier option that only costs them $20. 

 

If TF2 keys weren't so longstanding and stable this game's trader scene would be dead(er.)

[Rainy]

14 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

 

This, absolutely. But personally I've always accurately valued my items, so I've priced them fairly, but the past ~half a year I've been underpricing my stuff and quickselling a lot of it, again, cause I be cashing out bit by bit. However even then, stuff just doesn't sell, takes insane amounts of time. People are also extremely ignorant on quicksells, if bots disappear which they tend to do, its hard to find reasonable quickbuyers, so I have mostly been selling to bots when they are at their peak buy orders, which are very reasonable to my surprise, far more than when they disappear and suddenly everyone "forgets" the items potential value.

I hate to say it but if you don’t sell your items and you think they’re fairly valued, they’re either not desirable or not actually fairly valued. And you do have some pretty cool hats. 

[TheRenegadeSniper]

Marketplace reopening their buyer program actually had a significant rise in my ability to cash out things. Unusual weapons especially. I used to be able to trade unusual weapons and war paints on servers, but as time goes on and most of the servers get filled with the same 32 people, its hard to sell them to people manually. It alone allowed me to sell close to $2k in just random unusual weapons I collected over the years, and a majority of other things. I never really used bots because of it, and gladiator getting hacked doesn't help. 

 

I think most people, including myself, would agree that trading has gotten slower. Profit margins are tighter, and people are getting more greedy. Like, yes, I'm sure if you have 50 god tier hats, one of them will sell for a profit, but for the average person with maybe a dozen or less unusuals, it's much more difficult to reasonably get a good deal unless somebody wants your hat or offers you full pure. Even for me, with 100 of them, my trade offer inflow is meh at best. Granted, I'm not as active trading, but I feel to get a real buck outta TF2, you gotta treat it like a part-time job unless you already have a high value inventory. Money makes money, that sorta thing. I think taking a step back and actually enjoying this game as not a profit and trade simulator has made my experience much better when I swap in and out. 

 

Will TF2 trading stick around? Absolutely. I think the longevity of this game is one of it's strongest points, even if the updates are community based and abysmal at best. But some markets have absolutely taken a standstill.

 

[AwesomeSause]

9 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

My boy, you posted 2 comments in a row :kekw:

still less than: "Have had this in the back of my mind for a while now, I wanna get a sort of statistic for TF2 trading the past year. I have mentioned this to a few people every now and then and they do also tell me they have noticed a decrease in trading, however to me it seems so severe the past year, that it's become a bit of an concern for me. When I say severe, I mean nothing I have ever seen in my 8-9 years of trading. Part of this is me also trying to figure out how much consistent cashing out affects a persons trading, since when you cash out consistently, you have a constant lack of keys, meaning you can buy far less new and fresh items; you invest back into the business far less. I personally have been consistently cashing out for a bit over a year now, so I'm affected by a multitude of factors. I also know that as bots become more and more the standard, traditional person to person trading is pushed away further; trading is slower, I just don't really statistically know how much slower it actually is this past year, since my only realistic statistics at the moment is me, which is exactly what I'm hoping to change with this post, get more statistics.

 

 

 

Now, if what I've noticed is true, that trading has in fact significantly (and emphasis on significantly, of course) slowed down the past year, more significantly than ever before, then I would like this to also be an open discussion on statistics, data, info and opinions as to why that is so. That means, for the past year or as simple as recently, discussion about trading experiences, trade stats (incoming offers, sent offers, trades done, profit earned) etc. is very much encouraged!

 

 

 

So as a TDLR/a summary, what I know:

 

 

 

Cashing out consistently slows personal trading

Bots slow down traditional person to person trading

Constant and worsening issues, such as slow load times, glitches, crashes, bad servers, DDOS-ing, hacking, lack of development and innovation etc., with the main TF2 trading services (steam itself and its servers, backpack.tf, next.backpack.tf, bazaar.tf, posts.tf, mp.tf, gladiator.tf etc.) severely slow trading down and makes it quite a drag

 

 

That bout it"

 

"This, absolutely. But personally I've always accurately valued my items, so I've priced them fairly, but the past ~half a year I've been underpricing my stuff and quickselling a lot of it, again, cause I be cashing out bit by bit. However even then, stuff just doesn't sell, takes insane amounts of time. People are also extremely ignorant on quicksells, if bots disappear which they tend to do, its hard to find reasonable quickbuyers, so I have mostly been selling to bots when they are at their peak buy orders, which are very reasonable to my surprise, far more than when they disappear and suddenly everyone "forgets" the items potentia l value."

 

"yeah" 

"

Oh yeah, this ain't that kind of thread, I personally even believe that trading/tf2 won't go till 2030+, however you said "just give it some time" and I can not say that reassures me, I still fear that trading will only continue to slow down, but only time will tell, I suppose."

 

"My boy, you posted 2 comments in a row :kekw:"

 

Still less.

 

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

4 hours ago, Rainy said:

I hate to say it but if you don’t sell your items and you think they’re fairly valued, they’re either not desirable or not actually fairly valued. And you do have some pretty cool hats. 

That's the go-to conclusion indeed, but not the only one, I recon

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

1 hour ago, AwesomeSause said:

still less than: "Have had this in the back of my mind for a while now, I wanna get a sort of statistic for TF2 trading the past year. I have mentioned this to a few people every now and then and they do also tell me they have noticed a decrease in trading, however to me it seems so severe the past year, that it's become a bit of an concern for me. When I say severe, I mean nothing I have ever seen in my 8-9 years of trading. Part of this is me also trying to figure out how much consistent cashing out affects a persons trading, since when you cash out consistently, you have a constant lack of keys, meaning you can buy far less new and fresh items; you invest back into the business far less. I personally have been consistently cashing out for a bit over a year now, so I'm affected by a multitude of factors. I also know that as bots become more and more the standard, traditional person to person trading is pushed away further; trading is slower, I just don't really statistically know how much slower it actually is this past year, since my only realistic statistics at the moment is me, which is exactly what I'm hoping to change with this post, get more statistics.

 

 

 

Now, if what I've noticed is true, that trading has in fact significantly (and emphasis on significantly, of course) slowed down the past year, more significantly than ever before, then I would like this to also be an open discussion on statistics, data, info and opinions as to why that is so. That means, for the past year or as simple as recently, discussion about trading experiences, trade stats (incoming offers, sent offers, trades done, profit earned) etc. is very much encouraged!

 

 

 

So as a TDLR/a summary, what I know:

 

 

 

Cashing out consistently slows personal trading

Bots slow down traditional person to person trading

Constant and worsening issues, such as slow load times, glitches, crashes, bad servers, DDOS-ing, hacking, lack of development and innovation etc., with the main TF2 trading services (steam itself and its servers, backpack.tf, next.backpack.tf, bazaar.tf, posts.tf, mp.tf, gladiator.tf etc.) severely slow trading down and makes it quite a drag

 

 

That bout it"

 

"This, absolutely. But personally I've always accurately valued my items, so I've priced them fairly, but the past ~half a year I've been underpricing my stuff and quickselling a lot of it, again, cause I be cashing out bit by bit. However even then, stuff just doesn't sell, takes insane amounts of time. People are also extremely ignorant on quicksells, if bots disappear which they tend to do, its hard to find reasonable quickbuyers, so I have mostly been selling to bots when they are at their peak buy orders, which are very reasonable to my surprise, far more than when they disappear and suddenly everyone "forgets" the items potentia l value."

 

"yeah" 

"

Oh yeah, this ain't that kind of thread, I personally even believe that trading/tf2 won't go till 2030+, however you said "just give it some time" and I can not say that reassures me, I still fear that trading will only continue to slow down, but only time will tell, I suppose."

 

"My boy, you posted 2 comments in a row :kekw:"

 

Still less.

 

Life will always get better, you'll get better, never give up!

[Rainy]

2 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

That's the go-to conclusion indeed, but not the only one, I recon

What might be your other conclusion(s)?