Trading 101
This section contains a mildly comprehensive crash course on trading in TF2 as well as keeping yourself safe as a trader.
Table of contents
Before trading:
Here’s a list of things you should do even before starting to trade:
Set up Steam Mobile Authenticator:
Steam mobile is the mobile app for steam (Shocking, I know), without this you basically can’t trade; this is due to Valve adding trade holds, which make it so that your trades will take 2 whole weeks to go through, which is obviously bad. Setting it up is fairly easy, all you have to do is download the app, log your Steam account into your device and set up a phone number. You won’t be able to trade at all during the next to weeks, but once this period has ended your trades will go through instantly, you will just have to confirm them through the Steam app.
Have a premium account:
This one is self explanatory, it’s basically a requirement to be premium, if you are not sure if you are premium or not, go to TF2 in your Steam library, from there check your DLCs, if you are premium then it should say so there. If you are not premium you need to buy an item from the in-game Mann Co. Store, which leads to the next part:
Learn what to buy to begin trading:
If you are F2P the best items to buy are Mann Co. Supply Crate Keys and Tour of Duty Tickets, as not all items are worth the same. For example, there are weapons that cost up to $5 in the store, while their real value is close to 1/10 of a cent, keys and tickets have the best ratio of cost to actual value, buy as many of these as you can.
If you are premium the best idea is to buy your items from marketplace.tf and/or mannco.store, which is a lot cheaper and your items won’t suffer a trade hold, it’s important to know that your first purchase will take a full day to be delivered, but from there on they should be instantaneous.
Learn important trading websites:
These are the keys to actually get trades, even if you become one of the top traders of all time you will still be using these:
- Backpack.tf: The bread and butter of trading, basically a necessity, this is where you buy and sell items, check prices, etc… important to get familiar with it. Here’s a cool video guide that will explain how to use it
- Scrap.tf: Automated trading website that covers most basic necessities in a fast and simple way, it also houses some important things, like auctions, raffles, automated weapons buying/selling, and more.
- Marketplace.tf: As mentioned in “What to buy to begin trading” marketplace.tf is the place to go when you want to spend real money for TF2 items, it’s trustable, it’s reliable and it’s cheap.
- Mannco.store: The website, not the in-game store is very similar to marketplace.tf, compare prices between the 2 to find what’s cheaper.
Low tier trading:
Assuming you have followed all the previously mentioned steps you are now reading to actually begin trading! You probably won’t have enough keys to begin with unusuals (Not like I recommend jumping straight to them anyways) so here’s a list with a few ways to make profit, alongside the recommended thresholds to start doing them:
Painted hats (<1 key):
This is one of the cheapest ways to start making profit, the premise is simple: Buy painted cosmetics for cheap and resell them at a higher price; for example, you could buy an all father painted australium gold for 13 ref and re-sell it for 15, that’s a whole 2 ref profit!
Strange parts (2-4 keys):
Strange parts are tools that can be added to strange weapons to make them track specific things, like teammates extinguished or airborne enemy kills; same deal as with paint hats, buy them for cheap and resell them for more, for example, you could buy a flamethrower with teammates extinguished for 25 ref and resell it for 30 or more. Here’s an in depth guide to strange parts; credit to SM76 and kiss king kollector.
What should I think when I’m trying to buy a strange weapon w/ parts for resells? You can usually use common sense to see if the item you wanna grab is good, but you can ask yourself:
- Is the weapon good? (nobody wants a strange warrior spirit w/ damage dealt)
- Do the parts match with the weapon? (eg: robots killed on scottish resistence)
- Are the parts expensive? (The more valuable it is, the better)
- Am I paying a good price for it? (The closer to buyers it is, the better)
Great combos:
Depends on the item, but in general, Damage Dealt & Dominations are really good parts in any given weapon, for cosmetics, Kills is the best part there is. They all are highly desired & expensive parts.
Rule of thumb
Let’s say you have a good weapon with no other sellers with the same parts; you can use this as a rule of thumb:
- Equal/more than 4.5 keys of parts: Base price + 1 key (or even more)
- more than 1.5 keys and less than 4.5 keys of parts: Base price + 15 - 45 ref
- more than 10 ref and less than 1.5 keys of parts: Can add very few refs, usually up to 15 refined.
- Equal/less than 10 ref of parts: Don’t add at all. Most likely garbage undesirable parts.
Of course there are some exceptions. ‘Themed’ parts may not exactly apply to the suggested rule of thumb (per example, headshot kills in weapons that can headshot), again, use this as a reference, not a bible. Ask for a 2nd opinion if needed.
Pro tips:
- Check if the competition is tight on bp.tf classies1 before you buy something for resells. It good if you find a really good weapon with a good part but there’s like 2 other sellers with the same part, or a seller with an even better part for a lower price
- Quicksell.store and scrap.tf can be useful, sometimes you can snipe good stuff there (especially weapons with parts) and get yourself a nice profit.
- If the parted weapon2 has a KS/botkiller, check classies1 for the KS version as well as the non KS/botkiller
War paints (>4 keys)
This is probably the hardest one of the bunch since war paints can be hard to price and more than one person will tell you that they are not interested in them, but they can be really profitable, here are some steps to follow:
- First of all is what skins to buy; I usually don’t recommend buying non strange war paints, as they are really hard to sell, other things you should also avoid are bad wears, Battle Scarred and Well Worn must be avoided at all cost, Field Tested can sometimes work, but it’s a bigger gamble, Minimal Wear and Factory New are good, and you should go for those.
- Another important factor is if the war paint looks nice, this isn’t surprising, but no one is gonna want an ugly christmas sweater like war paint.
- Next we have add-ons to the weapon, with this I mean killstreak, strange parts, festivized… it’s important to remember that these don’t add full price, for example, a festivizer costs close to a key (at the moment of typing), but once applied it could add 15 ref to the weapon.
- Probably one of the most important things is the weapon it’s applied to; unnaplied war paints are always worth the most, from there the worse the weapon the lower the price; for example, a rocket launcher or scattergun will keep a lot more value than a disciplinary action or a backscratcher.
How to not get scammed:
Not everyone in trading is nice, and there are a lot of people that are gonna go down the dirty part and try to scam you. Let’s go over some of the most popular scam methods:
Impersonators
A lot of people will pretend to be others, for example, dozens of people everyday pretend to be Nervous Pyro, one of the richest traders in TF2, or other people pretend to work for companies like Marketplace.tf or valve themselves. It’s really easy to catch these people, since a trading webstie would definitively never contact you through steam and the chances of you getting contacted by a top tier trader are as unlikely as winning the lottery.
Cash trades
Cash trades are a thing in trading, but usually this only happen with higher tier items and either through websites (See above) or between very trusted people. That’s why if you ever receive a cash offer you should reject it instantly; they will ask you to go first, and once you have sent the money they will just run away and not make their part of the deal, this also includes middlemans, so you should also beware those.
Item deposits
“Hey I want to buy your items, but first I need you to deposit them in [Insert website] to check if they can be sold.”
You will get a lot of people like this too, what they will do is ask you to deposit your items in a random website and then they will switch to an alt account that is an impersonator of the web (As said before), these are also easy to identify and you shouldn’t fall into these if you know your stuff.
“Accidental” reports
These are also simple and easy to see through, they will tell you that they have accidentally reported you to Steam for whatever reason and that you need to talk to an admin, these are of course impersonators that will ask you for your items for whatever stupid reason and run away with them.
Festivized/Festive and Uncraftable/Craftable
This one is a bit harder to notice, there are certain items in TF2 that are “Festive”, these are rare, old and limited weapons that are no longer obtainable, thus they go for high prices; but in 2015 valve added the festivizer; these are common and a lot cheaper than festive versions, and their looks change from Festivize weapons, as someone might try to sell you a strange Festive Grenade launcher while it’s actually a festivized version, which is way cheaper. The best way to know if it’s festive or festivized is to check if the weapon has the limited attribute, if it does it’s festive; if it doesn’t it’s festivized. Same thing applies to uncraftable (Cannot be used in crafting) and craftable (Can be used in crafting); for example, the lucky No. 42; an UNCRAFTABLE version is worth 5.5 keys; while a CRAFTABLE version costs a whopping 39 keys. To check if a weapon is craftable or uncraftable head to the item’s stats and at the bottom it will either say “Not usable in crafting” (Uncraftable) or it won’t say anything (Craftable).
That covers more or less all the basics on how to begin trading, if you have any questions that haven’t been answered here head to the Discord server; ask your questions in #trading-discussion.