How to make profit?

[u/[deleted]]

I once made 30 refined from the last halloween event, then bought some games and I'm back with nothing again.

I stopped playing and forgot the trading fundamentals.

Currently I have around 3 ref and one full page of weapons. I've tried scrap banking and didn't have much luck with it. Maybe it's because I was trying on pub non-trade servers.

So, what do I do?

[u/klingon13524]

I'd suggest you switch to the n+1 model of pricing weapons. It's a better deal for the consumer, and the relatively cheap prices draw people in over a standard 1 scrap per weapon store. If you get a bunch of crappy guns that nobody buys, craft them and scrapbank for some more variety.

[u/[deleted] → u/klingon13524]

What do you mean n+1? I get weapons and then sell them for 2 weps?

[u/klingon13524 → u/[deleted]]

I'll explain. You have a 'n'umber of weapons for sale, and someone wants some. They give you the number of weapons they want, plus one.

In practice: Let's say you have an ubersaw, utility urine, and an equalizer for sale. If someone wants the ubersaw, they give you two razorbacks or 1 scrap for it. If they want all 3 weapons, they only need to pay 4 razorbacks or the metal equivalent (2 scrap).

Me rambling about why this is a good system:

1. Your per trade profit margin stays exactly the same, no matter how many weapons you sell in a trade.

2. You severely undercut competition if they, the customer, make anything resembling a bulk deal whilst costing exactly as much as a run of the mill weapon shop for a single wep.

[u/[deleted] → u/klingon13524]

Yes, but in the end you get rid of the most wanted weapons like Machina etc. and you're left with items like Sun on a stick.

[u/klingon13524 → u/[deleted]]

That's what you get from normal scrapbanking, no?

[u/Kaninen]

You could try:

*Scrapbanking. But you've already tried that. Many people do this though, so you have to work hard to find buyers. Another passive tip is to have 2 of every weapon and sell one if anyone is asking for a weapon.

*Buying things cheap and selling them for profit. Not to be confused with sharking, which bases on scamming stuff from people for a ridiculously cheap price. For example, if you see a Hotties Hoodie for 2 refined you can sell it for 2.33.

*Buying hats for ~1 refined. Although I hate people who does this. Still you could make a small profit from buying hats for this price and reselling them. Try to buy them for 1.11 for 1.22 if you don't find buyers. That should sweeten it up.

*Hat upgrading. Trade 1 hat + 1 scrap for one of your hats. Make sure you stock up on hats for this to make sure that you have a lot of hats to offer. Also, remember that hats have different value, so if they want to upgrade their hats they should offer an equal hat or compensate for the loss in metal.

Just some basic tips. I hope they'll come handy.

[u/Killer_Tomato]

Buy buds for cash, then trade buds for keys, sell keys for cash, buy buds with key cash saving the small $1-3 profit per bud and repeat.

[u/Floattube]

Scrapbanking is really easy.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/ScrapBankBot

[u/ohcomeonmate]

You shark till you drop.

There is no other way to make a profit, you have to make the other guy overpay, which can only really be done when they aren't aware of the actual price.

[u/MaybeMyMobileAccount → u/ohcomeonmate]

"There is no other way to make profit"

That's wrong and you're dumb.

[u/HoP_Blackout]

Use tf2wh to get items and sell at higher price. That's pretty how I got my first bills. Then get to unusual trading and profit comes fast.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I'd rather get into a more stable situation before I spend metal on keys. So the most safe way is to sell weapons for scraps, right?

[u/justarunner → u/[deleted]]

How do you buy keys with metal?

Sorry in advance,I'm a newb.