Trading isn’t gambling, it requires time and efforts to be profitable. TF2 trading isn’t any different. If you stick to a strategy, you can eventually learn to trade profitably. But it may seem daunting to beginners. It’s a competitive environment and everyone wants to buy low and sell high. So, how to make profits with TF2 trading?
In Team Fortress 2 you typically deal in two types of currencies to buy or sell items; Keys and Metals. You need to buy these currencies using real money, from sites listed on GameZod. There are a variety of ways used by experienced traders to make profits. Let’s see how these work.
Low Tier Trading vs. Unusual Trading
Traders are defined into two types, based on the price range of the asset they choose to deal in. Low Tier trading stands for those items that have a value below 5 Keys. Some players complain that low-tier trading is no longer profitable as bots have dominated that market. However, the bots have certain limitations that you can exploit.
Bots tend to trade in items with clearly defined prices. Some items are bought and sold at definite prices. The bots are programmed to offer certain discrete prices for buying or selling the items. You can trade profitably by dealing in those low-tier items that have an ambiguous pricing.
TF2 Unusuals
Those who can afford to trade in TF2 unusuals find them more lucrative in comparison. Unusuals are items in the price range between 5 keys to 5000 keys. This is where the big profit is. You don’t need to begin trading with Unusuals as beginners, but once you get the knack of low-tier trading, you can move on to the Unusuals. Trading in unusual items is referred to as high-tier trading in TF2.
Have Realistic Expectations
People with unrealistic profit expectations tend to lose money in any kind of market. If you know what selling price is reasonable to hope for, you can close positions quickly and end up with small profits. Once you do this consistently, you can accumulate significant amounts of profit over a period.
When dealing in low-tier unusuals, you can typically aim to gain 1 key in profit per trade. The low cost unusuals are generally priced around 8 keys. You shouldn’t buy at a price above the market price because that kind of risk would prevent you from investing in a long and diverse listing.
You can at-least make back what you invested in, if you aim to buy slightly below the market price. You can find where to buy cheap TF2 keys in Gamezod listing. If you buy a diverse range of items, at least some would end up in a profitable deal. So, being realistic is the first step, if you hope to make profits with TF2 trading. Diversifying your portfolio would help increase chances of making good profits.
Item Types in TF2 Trading
You must have a deep understanding of TF2 items and their true value in the game if you wish to learn how to make profits with TF2 trading.
The game has thousands of distinctive items. There are many ways to distinguish one item from another; one of them is through item qualities.
- Normal Quality – These are the items you start out with, in the game.
- Yellow Unique Quality – It is the default quality and represents the standard items.
- Strange Quality – It is for items that track your kills. But apart from this feature, these items look exactly like their unique counterparts and are also functionally the same.
Other qualities like vintage, genuine, collectors, and haunted are also functionally identical to uniques but differ in terms of from where they are obtained.
- Purple Unusual Quality – This quality is reserved for items such as rare hats, taunts, and weapons that have a special particle effect. These can be extremely expensive since their low drop rates. The price range for these items can be between $10 and $10,000.
- Decorated Quality – it is reserved for weapon skins in TF2 which come in 5 different wears based on how scratched up the item is. The 5 types of wears for these items are; Battle Scarred, Well Worn, Field Tested, Minimal Wear, Factory New.
Weapon drops, taunts, hats and cosmetics are some items that belong to the Yellow Unique quality. These are low-values items that sell really well in the market.
Item Grades
Similar to item quality, another attribute that is used to classify items in TF2 is item grades. The grades tell you how rare an item is. There are a total of 6 grades in TF2. In the order of most common to most rare item, TF2 has the following grades; Civilian, Freelance, Mercenary, Commando, Assassin, and Elite.
The Elite item grade has a drop rate of only 1%. Mercenary items, on the other hand, have quite a high drop rate of about 80%. Due to some identical background colors between grades and qualities, these can easily be misinterpreted.
Selling Items with Add-ons
Due to huge competition in trading, with so many sellers trying to sell the same item, the demand for an item may be less than the supply. It’s challenging to sell something profitably in this situation.
But you can still make a profit by using add-ons with the base items you plan to sell. So, what kind of add-ons can increase the value of items? You can purchase various types of add-ons like Paints, Festivizer, Strange Parts, Killstreaks, Spells, etc.
Most valuable add-ons
Some types of add-ons would increase the value of your item while others won’t make much of a difference. Paints and Strange parts, both typically add 0.5 key to the combined value. Festivizers are so common that they hardly contribute to the item’s value in the market.
Killstreaks can turn out to be quite valuable add-ons. These are tools that can be added to a specific weapon. A weapon becomes a Killstreak weapon once these are applied. Basic Killstreaks can add a value in the range of 5 to 15 Ref (refined metal).
Specialized Killstreaks raise the value of an item to about 0.5 key. Halloween spells can also add great value to the base items.
How to value an item
You can set a selling price with high expectations and not be able to sell it at all. Setting a higher selling price then what you bought an item for is important, but the pricing has to be realistic. Some seasoned traders rely on the prices offered by TF2 trade bots to come up with the baseline item value.
It is important to know that add-ons are more valuable before they are coupled with a base item. Once they are applied to an item, they lose most of their value.
Market Arbitrage
Another way to buy low and sell higher is to use price differences between various markets. You can view the prices for an item on different platforms like Steam community market, GameZod, marketplace.tf, backpack.tf, scrap.tf, tradeit.gg, etc.
Some markets generally have items listed at lower prices compared to other markets. So, buying from sites listed in GameZod that sell low and selling in another market could be your recipe for success! But it isn’t as simple as it sounds. Seller’s fee of 10% is charged on backpack.tf while on steam it is 15%. So you need to incorporate these charges in your calculations, to trade profitably.
What unusuals should you trade?
People typically switch to unusuals when they have had success with low-tier trading but now want to trade items with higher profit margins. In TF2, there are three types of unusual items.
- Taunts
- Weapons
- Hats
The starting price for unusual is usually about 8 keys. But these are low-tier hats with low-tier effects and therefore harder to sell. These are unpopular and you only make minimal profits with these. Bottom line is, there are certain unusuals it’s best to stay away from.
Unusuals that are too common can be harder to sell. Taunts are items valued between a price-range between 2 to 20 keys and are not easy to sell. These usually act as trade fillers. The demand for Taunts is nowhere close to the supply. So, if you want to make high profits, just ignore the taunts.
Weapons are other unusuals that can be hard to sell because they are too rare. When something is too rare, no one wants to buy it. You will rarely encounter these items.
So, what are the best unusuals to make profits while trading? Hats tend to be quite profitable in TF2 trading. These are still quite popular, flashy, and have the potential for profits.
Criteria to choose Unusuals
· Class
Unusuals come in different classes. While some are more popular and easier to sell, others are harder to sell. Scout, soldier and all class are the best to sell, followed by pyro, engineer, sniper, and medic. Demoman and heavy unusuals are the worst to sell.
· Effect
Unusuals with bigger and flashier effect tend to sell better as compared to the less noticeable ones. Rare effects like Darkblaze also tend to sell better since they are harder to find. There are as many as 100 effects in TF2, but these can be classified as rare or unusual effects.
Disco beat down, Blizzardy Storm, and Burning Flames are some of the common effects. Purple Energy, Sunbeams, etc are some of the high-tier effects. Midnight Whirlwind, Silver Cyclone, and Skill Gotten Gains are some of the worst effects.
Rare effects like Amaranthine, Morning Glory, and Phosphorous are extremely expensive and also very desirable.
Value of Base Items
How an item looks plays a role in determining its value. Caps like rotation sensation sells quite well on the market while Metal slug or other items that look like metal scraps won’t be easy to sell at a good price. Unusual Miscs are another great item to sell.
More the Sellers, The harder the item is to sell
When you notice too many buyers selling the same item, you should realize that selling that item may not work out well for you. It’s better to try selling items that have many buyers in the market. Price negotiation can be difficult if there are too many other sellers for the same item.
Secrets to unusual trading
Here are a few tips that can help you sell your items easily at a good, profitable price.
- It’s a bad idea to expect to be paid fully in pure (keys and metals) for unusual, unless it is highly in demand. Most unusual would sell between their GameZod price and the highest buyer price.
- Only trade in unusuals valued between 15-50 key. Unless you get an opportunity to earn significant profit margins, don’t go higher than that.
- Avoid buying items with undesirable effects or undesirable base items.
- If you have got enough pure currency, advertise ‘buying quick sells’ in Vatican City.
- Demand for gen 3 unusuals is falling low. So, avoid dealing in those items.
- While buying unusuals, aim for a price much lower than Backpack.tf price. If you buy it just a key below the Backpack.tf price, your loss is guaranteed. Only buy when you can get significant discounts. You can find items at discounted price on Gamezod and sell them on the game server.
Two profitable methods in unusual trading
1. Quick buying and Quick Selling
Quick sell is an offer where an unusual is discounted for pure in order to fulfill the trade faster. A good price to offer is typically 1 or 2 key more than the price of the highest buyer. If you encounter items that have only a few buyers on the server, then you should not buy until you can get a 50% discount on it.
While quick-buying and quick-selling, only go for items that you can make, at least, half a key on. This method works for all kinds of unusuals. But to increase your profits, try buying items with a good price relative to the highest buyer price on backpack.tf.
2. Waiting for a buyer
Unlike, quick buying and selling, this method only works when you get your hands on a really valuable item. It could be a rare effect or something that the regular gamers would want. You can list the item on a classified and can expect to be paid full in pure!
You can buy these unusuals as quicksells but to grab some of the most desirable unusuals, you would need to offer 5% to 10% higher than buyers. But don’t pay too much if the gap between the buying price and the selling price for a particular unusual is small. To sell your item, you can list it on Backpack.tf or Marketplace.tf for a good price.
Though this method is much slower than the previous one, you can expect to make higher profits with this method if you have the capital to invest in some highly valuable unusuals. Beginners should avoid this method in the early stages. This is because you will need a really good knowledge of the market to make profits with this method.
Unlike, quick buying and selling, this method only works when you get your hands on a really valuable item. It could be a rare effect or something that the regular gamers would want. You can list the item on a classified and can expect to be paid full in pure!
You can buy these unusuals as quicksells but to grab some of the most desirable unusuals, you would need to offer 5% to 10% higher than buyers. But don’t pay too much if the gap between the buying price and the selling price for a particular unusual is small. To sell your item, you can list it on Backpack.tf or Marketplace.tf for a good price.
Though this method is much slower than the previous one, you can expect to make higher profits with this method if you have the capital to invest in some highly valuable unusuals. Beginners should avoid this method in the early stages. This is because you will need a really good knowledge of the market to make profits with this method.
Is crafting items profitable for traders?
In TF2, you can even create your own items using blueprint recipes available for premium members. You can create weapons or cosmetics using unwanted or duplicate items found as drops in the game. You can craft about 156 unique weapons and 428 unique cosmetic items but tools cannot be crafted.
But is crafting profitable for traders? The cost of crafting items is generally higher than what these sell for. Crafting and uncrafting items aren’t profitable if you intend to trade with the end product. Most of the time it’s not profitable to craft or unbox a crate.
Conclusion
TF2 trading can be a really fun experience for gamers as well as traders who wish to make lofty profits trading game items. There are various TF2 trading sites offering items at competitive rates. We have shared a range of TF2 items that are easier to sell and can give you profitable trades if you buy low enough on sites like GameZod.
If you do it the right thing consistently, it isn’t hard to make profits with low-tier as well as unusual items. TF2 has a huge collection of items to trade. While the newbies find it hard to compete with TF2 trade bots, using our methods you can trade profitably without being affected by them.
In-depth knowledge of various TF2 items and dealing in right kind of TF2 marketplaces is critical to make profits on your investments. If you are new to TF2 trading, you can begin as a low-tier trader and make your way up to the more expensive items. We hope this guide will help you get better at TF2 trading and learn what veteran traders do differently.