trading How to make fair trades and profit [Guide]

[PorousBoat 4]

(Note: Not enough information is known yet to go more in-depth. More will be known in the future and I will update the post accordingly.)

Hello everyone!

Looking for the forums, I see that there is no real advice on how to effectively use your resources and time when trying to acquire cards and money in this game. This is one of the most basic and important aspects of a game like BF, and thus I'll take some time to explain how it's done.

Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. Trading
   1. Making a profit by trading
3. Using Auction House
   1. Scouting/Hawking/Low-bidding
   2. Speculating
   3. Flipping
4. Other ways to make a profit and what NOT to do
   1. rPvE Grinding
   2. Begging
   3. Spamming
5. Conclusion

1. Introduction

Do you like making money? Do you enjoy making great deals? Need help gathering those bfps for that sweet new promo? Well look no further, as I walk you through some important aspects of trading and interacting with virtual economics.

When trading in games, or even in general, the purpose is hopefully to have both parties leave the trade happy with what they got. This is what trading is all about, giving away something you don't need to receive something you need. There are several ways to accomplish this, and I will try to cover most of them in this guide.

Let us begin, shall we?

2.Trading

Regular exchanging of wares is the bread and butter of any seasoned trader. It's the most common and basic form of trading which involves two parties exchanging something they value to receive something they don't value; be it money, wares or services. It has existed for as long as we could communicate and has proven to be very effective. The good thing about it is that it's simple, fast and is (hopefully) consensual most of the time.

This doesn't mean that the method is flawless though. Trading can sometimes result in one of the parties being tricked into making a trade that's profitable for the other party without their knowledge. This, of course, leads to some pretty harsh feel-bads when the poor guy finds out that trading his promo Swamp Drake for the sweet-looking Lost Grigori was a really bad idea. That feeling is something we should all work together to prevent. The key to preventing that is making sure to be able to differentiate a rip-off from a good deal. No matter how you look at it, trading a promo Swamp Drake for a Lost Grigori is a rip-off. Even if the person says that he REALLY wants that Lost Grigori. This is because 2 weeks later, when he decides that he doesn't want to play shadow-frost in PvE anymore, he'll really miss that Swamp Drake. One could argue that he would've learned a lesson and won't do it again, but why should that be necessary? If the person with the Grigori would've refused the trade and asked for him to something of equal value, everyone would be more happy in the end.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can move on to the actual process of making good deals. A good deal is achieved when both parties walk away from the trade happy and stay that way. Now you may ask "But PorousBoat, how can I make a profit off of trading while still not ripping people off?". This is a very good question, to which I happen to have an answer.

2.1 Making a profit by trading

If you've ever spent any considerable amount of time, or even any time at all in a game where trading is present, you will have seen people as well as bots (that's another disussion) spamming "WTT/S/B ITEM X FOR PRICE/ITEM X". These messages are often quite annoying, but they're there for a single reason; it's effective. These people often utilize the method of buying things in bulk and selling them of individually for a higer individual price. This method is perfectly viable and can make you a very good profit. The only problem with it is that it requires an immense amount of time.

For instance, say that you find a person selling their collection of 150 commons and uncommons for 175 bfp as a bulk price. If you then sell each of those cards for 3 bfp individually, you will make a 400 - 175 = 225 bfp profit. This was a good deal as both parties were happy and both made a profit in some way. Selling those cards can be easier said than done though, as the demand is probably pretty low. That's why you see those people and bots spamming 8 hours a day.

3. Using the AH

The other main way of making money and acquiring cards is by use of the in-game Auction House (AH for short). The AH lets a player put up a listing for a certain card for a certain price that they decide themselves. Other people can then either bid on the card, where the highest bid wins, or buyout the card, where a price is set prematurely. This price is regulated by the current value of the card based on supply and demand. You probably already know that though, so I won't explain it. Now that you understand the puprose of the AH, we can get into how we make a profit out of it.

3.1 Hawking/Scouting/Low-bidding

The simplest way to make money off of the AH is to simply browse it through and bid on cards that are very cheap relative to what they're actually worth. Say that a card is worth 100 bfp, but someone put it up at an auction for 10 bfp. If no one else bids, you just made a 100 - 10 = 90 bfp profit. This method isn't what makes you the big bucks though, as it is very unreliable and takes a lot of time and effort. I only recommend doing this if you see an offer that's too good to pass up.

3.2 Speculating

Another way to make a profit through the AH is to speculate. This method is a lot more unreliable than the others, but can make you amazing profits when pulled off correctly and takes little to no time to set up. It functions similar to flipping, which I'll get into later. Speculating involves buying a card that you speculate will rise in price for some reason in the foreseeable future. This may be due to increasing demand because of meta change or decreasing supply (a promo or such).

Buying a larger amount of that card can possibly make you a massive profit, presuming you were correct. If you weren't, you're stuck with 50 copies of Global Warming that no one wants. This makes the method very much of a risk-reward thing, where you put yourself at a great risk for the chance of making a large profit. I only recommend this method if you really know what you're doing.

3.3 Flipping

This right here is the most effective way of earning money when you know what you're doing, but takes a lot of practice to learn to do effectively. Flipping is a pretty advanced method involving abusing low supply by buying out large amounts of a card to resell them all at a slightly higher price, thus raising the value of the card artificially. For instance, say there are 50 Scavengers on the AH priced at 50 bfp with that being the lowest price. If you buy all of those and resell them for 51 bfp, you will have profited 51 x 51 - 50 x 50 = 50 bfp. This may not seem like a lot, but when done right with large amounts of cards you can net massive profits, with little to no effort. If you want to be really fancy, you can make sure the item you're flipping is on the rise in price, thus making your profit even larger by combining flipping and speculating. 

Note: All of these methods have no guarantee of netting you a profit. They require you to take some pretty great risks, and you WILL fail. Especially in the beginning. Don't let this scare you though!

4 Other ways to make a profit and what NOT to do

"But PorousBoat, are those the only ways to make a profit?" I hear you cry! No! Those are not the only ways to earn money in BF. This guide was made to walk you through the best and most effective methods of turning a profit. That does not mean that there are not other ways to go about making a psrofit in BF. Let me tell you a little about some of the alternatives, along with things you should NOT do.

4.1 rPvE Grinding

As silly as it may seem, unless there are major changes (which there very well may be), rPvE grinding was a somewhat viable way of making money through selling gold and tokens. This was extremely time consuming and ineffective though. Almost to the point where you were better off playing PvP for the gold. I highly recommend you to stay away from this method unless you have to do it for some reason.

4.2 Begging

This should go without saying, but there will be people who think this is a good idea every now and then. Please stay away from these people and don't do it yourself.

4.3 Spamming

This is also something that is very common, which is unfortunate because of how ineffective and annoying it is. People sending random trade requests/messages/offers should not be interacted with, and probably ignored as well. Don't do this, folks.

5. Conclusion

In conclusion, the best ways to make a profit in BF is to utilize the methods I've gone into above. I appreciate any and all feedback you may have, as well as suggestions for points that I may have missed. I look forward to updating this thread with further content when more information is released. I thank you for taking the time to read this guide, and I hope to see some of these methods employed when the game is available!

For further reading regarding these topics, please refer to the links below:

Speculating: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/12/art-of-speculation.asp

Trading: https://www.reddit.com/r/Flipping/comments/1m5jsd/i_buy_and_sell_online_for_a_living_and_am_here_to/

Flipping: http://www.moneycrashers.com/thrift-store-flipping-items-resell/ 

 

Edited September 30, 2015 by PorousBoat
Fixed title, spelling and further emphasized the risks involved.

[Shotty 2]

 

Buying a larger amount of that card can possibly make you a massive profit, presuming you were correct. If you weren't, you're stuck with 50 copies of Global Warming that no one wants. This makes the method very much of a risk-reward thing, where you put yourself at a great risk for the chance of making a large profit. I only recommend this method if you really know what you're doing.

 

  This made me giggle a little. But sadly this guide will only proove its worthyness once we can test the tricks. Its good looking tho!

[Strek0za 22]

Another NOT to do. Don't put a lot of same cards for sale at AH for huge price.

[Shotty 2]

Another NOT to do. Don't put a lot of same cards for sale at AH for huge price.

Thats nothing you can say consdering BFR , if one person buys all the scavengers in tha auction house , there might be non in it for the next couple of days unless you buy it of that guy.

[PorousBoat 4]

Another NOT to do. Don't put a lot of same cards for sale at AH for huge price.

Flipping is a perfectly viable thing to do. If you price it too highly, no one will by it. It's as simple as that.

[ikke2902 8]

#3 is very risky

A card price can crush down for several weeks, making your BFP getting stuck in those cards. This is very bad for traders

[PorousBoat 4]

#3 is very risky

A card price can crush down for several weeks, making your BFP getting stuck in those cards. This is very bad for traders

Indeed. Do you think it should be more emphasized?

[ikke2902 8]

I think it would be good to emmphasize the risk about that method. I'm not sure if it is easy, but it seems like one need lots of patience and time to sell all cards with let's say small 1bfp profit.

 

[PorousBoat 4]

I think it would be good to emmphasize the risk about that method. I'm not sure if it is easy, but it seems like one need lots of patience and time to sell all cards with let's say small 1bfp profit.

 

Advice taken, post updated!

[youto000 0]

when i was playing what i did was i kept the mail that said what i had bought the card for and so i knew what to sell it for to get a profit (or break even)

[Ultrakool 773]

2 hours ago, youto000 said:

when i was playing what i did was i kept the mail that said what i had bought the card for and so i knew what to sell it for to get a profit (or break even)

I guess that works if you only use AH to buy things which you later sell.

[youto000 0]

4 minutes ago, Ultrakool said:

I guess that works if you only use AH to buy things which you later sell.

but trading directly form player to player it is hard to test what is fair or not because say i badly want your promo harvester and you want my shaman and juggernaut. if i don't play fire or nature i would accept the trade and if you don't play shadow you would accept the trade. so it is just relying on who wants what and why.

[Kaliber84 153]

@PorousBoat Concerning speculating. Actually you can greatly decrease your risk (with a more average reward) if you track prices in AH over a period of time. Buy a card when it's cheap and sell when it's expensive. The great thing about this is that you don't (have to) influence the market yourself and just ride along. However this requires quite some time and great experience (and intuition). Tracking one card over several days or weeks is already work enough but to be efficient you need to keep track of several cards so that you always have one that's currently cheap.

The risk is that you might buy cards when they are at an artificial high that doesn't last. In that case you bought a pile of overpriced cards. This shouldn't happen if you tracked the card long enough though.
Additionally this only works well for cards that got a consistent flow with varying supply and demand. Core cards that are widely used and supplied like Shaman, Dreadcharger and Hurricane are good examples. The prices of those cards are between a few dozen and hundred BFP. You want to use cards that are obtained by the masses for that consistent flow and UR's and other cards that cost 1k BFP might seem like a good profit margin but in the end the flow and variation in price is usually too abrupt and unreliable so that's more speculation.

[youto000 0]

41 minutes ago, Kaliber84 said:

@PorousBoat Concerning speculating. Actually you can greatly decrease your risk (with a more average reward) if you track prices in AH over a period of time. Buy a card when it's cheap and sell when it's expensive. The great thing about this is that you don't (have to) influence the market yourself and just ride along. However this requires quite some time and great experience (and intuition). Tracking one card over several days or weeks is already work enough but to be efficient you need to keep track of several cards so that you always have one that's currently cheap.

The risk is that you might buy cards when they are at an artificial high that doesn't last. In that case you bought a pile of overpriced cards. This shouldn't happen if you tracked the card long enough though.
Additionally this only works well for cards that got a consistent flow with varying supply and demand. Core cards that are widely used and supplied like Shaman, Dreadcharger and Hurricane are good examples. The prices of those cards are between a few dozen and hundred BFP. You want to use cards that are obtained by the masses for that consistent flow and UR's and other cards that cost 1k BFP might seem like a good profit margin but in the end the flow and variation in price is usually too abrupt and unreliable so that's more speculation.

that is why you should remember what you bought it for so you can sell it for more

[Ultrakool 773]

6 hours ago, Kaliber84 said:

@PorousBoat Concerning speculating. Actually you can greatly decrease your risk (with a more average reward) if you track prices in AH over a period of time. Buy a card when it's cheap and sell when it's expensive. The great thing about this is that you don't (have to) influence the market yourself and just ride along. However this requires quite some time and great experience (and intuition). Tracking one card over several days or weeks is already work enough but to be efficient you need to keep track of several cards so that you always have one that's currently cheap.

The risk is that you might buy cards when they are at an artificial high that doesn't last. In that case you bought a pile of overpriced cards. This shouldn't happen if you tracked the card long enough though.
Additionally this only works well for cards that got a consistent flow with varying supply and demand. Core cards that are widely used and supplied like Shaman, Dreadcharger and Hurricane are good examples. The prices of those cards are between a few dozen and hundred BFP. You want to use cards that are obtained by the masses for that consistent flow and UR's and other cards that cost 1k BFP might seem like a good profit margin but in the end the flow and variation in price is usually too abrupt and unreliable so that's more speculation.

Regarding that, it will be very hard to trade in the beginning for this very reason. AH prices will fluctuate greatly and I don't think the staff setting some prices is going to help much with this situation.

[youto000 0]

2 hours ago, Ultrakool said:

Regarding that, it will be very hard to trade in the beginning for this very reason. AH prices will fluctuate greatly and I don't think the staff setting some prices is going to help much with this situation.

true. with the AH prices it is hard to keep the prices the same because people see cards differently like i think lyrish knights are bad but other say otherwise so i would sell them for less but others would sell them for more

[Ultrakool 773]

4 minutes ago, youto000 said:

true. with the AH prices it is hard to keep the prices the same because people see cards differently like i think lyrish knights are bad but other say otherwise so i would sell them for less but others would sell them for more

The real trick in the beginning will be seeing which cards are underpriced and that's really hard to do because you would have to guess which card will be in highest demand. Also taking into account the amount of people active etc.

[youto000 0]

1 minute ago, Ultrakool said:

The real trick in the beginning will be seeing which cards are underpriced and that's really hard to do because you would have to guess which card will be in highest demand. Also taking into account the amount of people active etc.

but with the small (tiny) community of BF Reborn i don't know if it will be easier or harder

[Ultrakool 773]

4 minutes ago, youto000 said:

but with the small (tiny) community of BF Reborn i don't know if it will be easier or harder

Harder, the bigger the market is the more stable prices will be, due to the market being competitive

[ikke2902 8]

 

8 minutes ago, Ultrakool said:

The real trick in the beginning will be seeing which cards are underpriced and that's really hard to do because you would have to guess which card will be in highest demand. Also taking into account the amount of people active etc.

I've experienced this when amii expansion was released. I thought fenetic assault would be a high demand card (from a casual rpve player point of view). However, things is not like what I'd expected. The card prices seems to be heavily influenced by it's uses in pvp.

I think traders with pvp experience will have a good start.

Edited February 18, 2016 by ikke2902

[Ultrakool 773]

25 minutes ago, ikke2902 said:

 

I've experienced this when amii expansion was released. I thought fenetic assault would be a high demand card (from a casual rpve player point of view). However, things is not like what I'd expected. The card prices seems to be heavily influenced by it's uses in pvp.

I think traders with pvp experience will have a good start.

That is due in part to the very high amount of charges PvP requires to be competitive. So not even counting the playerbase of rpve+pve to PvP players, more of a particular card will always be bought for PvP indeed

[youto000 0]

i wonder if there will the 2 bfp booster that gives you a common or an uncommon still in the game

[Ladadoos 1082]

26 minutes ago, youto000 said:

i wonder if there will the 2 bfp booster that gives you a common or an uncommon still in the game

The 1 (2) BFP boosters will be removed: http://forum.bfreborn.com/index.php?/topic/823-battleforge-reborn-course-set-out-by-devs/

[youto000 0]

ok thanks

[ikke2902 8]

I've always seen commons as dead cards regarding to trading. Now I need to develop a sence of value for them. This will feel so strange.