How Can We Learn The Art of Flipping (Part 2)
If it isn’t obvious enough, this is a continuation of How Can We Learn The Art of Flipping. I believe one of the core difference between flipping items for a profit in-game versus flipping items in real life is marketing. There is essentially no marketing involved when it comes to in-game items. You put an item on sale on the open market / trading post / auction house and the value of the item speaks for itself. On the other hand, there are tons of marketing gimmick, loosely termed as classy promotions, when it comes to real life items. You may try a sample and be terribly guilt-tripped by a student trying to fund his student loans. You may take a second glance at the “Buy 2, Get 1 Free” offer only to take a step closer and realise that you’re paying the price of 2 for an additional tiny bottle of almost expiring condensed milk. I believe many people are putting their focus on learning how to market as compared to learning how to spot valuable items to flip. Sure enough, the power of marketing can be huge and the iconic duo we can look at is Coke and Santa Claus.
However, a good item is far better than good marketing, simply because the item speaks for itself.
There is no better way to learn how to spot a good item than to flip for profit in a game. There is no marketing involved. If you picked a lousy item to flip, the result is obvious. Your item is just not sold for weeks and even months, no matter how much of a profit you may potentially make from it. Once we learn how to spot an in-game winning item or items in the long run, I sincerely believe that this skill is transferable to real life too. The application is the same, except for the fact that we need to learn how to market the item as well. The upside is that the item will speak for itself for its worth and value.
Enough rumbling, the question that we all seek to conquer is — “So.. what should I buy and sell in-game to make a profit?”
Short answer: There is no specific fixed item and no one will tell you exactly what to buy and sell for profit. Long answer: The item would most probably be a (1) powerful equipment, (2) beautiful skins/mounts/pet, (3) useful consumables, (4) rare requisite for a quest or a combination of these qualities. If someone shouts in a public channel on the exact items to flip for profit, the competition will be ridiculously high that the profit margin will be shaved to be as thin as a 1-ply tissue paper. The attempt to flip such items isn’t worth it. An important point to note is the demand of an item we’re trying to flip. In all games, there is a certain threshold level that most players are in. For Maplestory, most people loiter between Level 200 to 230, because any higher would require tremendous amount of grinding that people don’t see much value in. This means that equipment loitering between Level 200 to 230 would be most preferred. Other equipment falling below or above that range would be harder to sell. The same concept goes for Guild Wars 2. It isn’t difficult to attain the highest level (given that most people buy the Path of Fire expansion and immediately go from 1 to 80 in a single click), which means that any powerful equipment between level 1 to 70 is practically trash.
There are many ways to find out if an item is in demand and one simple technique is asking yourself on whether would you buy it for yourself.
Surprise surprise, this works for real life items too. But we’ll get back to real life in a bit. If there are three classes in the game (E.g. Warrior, Magician and Engineer) of which for whatever reason, there are significantly more magicians floating around, it is better to put more attention into what powerful equipment this specific class is after. Even though the profit margin for a powerful equipment for a less common class (E.g. Engineer) is higher, the demand of a highly sought after item is much more sustainable and less demoralising, especially when you see your item being stuck in the Trading Post for what seems like an eternity. Naturally, as with all games, most players favour offensive attack stats over supportive defensive/healing stats, so that would be an essential factor to take into consideration too. We simply need to bear in mind that no one will buy a sub-par equipment, so there is no point in trying to flip a lower tier item even though there is profit involved. However, everyone, which includes every class, wants to look beautiful in a different skin/mount/pet. Everyone wants to maximise their play time by devouring some kind of useful consumable to optimise experience gain or some kind of track reward.
Consumables that boost some sort of experience gain and cosmetic outfits are two category of items that will always be in demand in any game.
Chances are, the profit margin isn’t very high for consumables and cosmetic outfits. However, it is imperative to keep in mind that these are items that are easily sold. Our in-game currency will not be stuck in our inventory earning zero interest or stuck in the trading post on an item that is supposedly potentially more profitable. If we can earn 10–30% profit from these two category of item by buying low and selling high, we’ve created another sort of income in the game as compared to only earning in-game currency by physically slaying monsters and completing quests. At the start, the profit may seem little but it slowly accumulates. It is crucial to always expand and test different items, including higher-tiered items when our buying power allows us to.
If you’ve been flipping potions that give 10–20% bonus experience gain, it is wise to check out the profit margin of the pricier potions that give 50% or 100% bonus experience gain.
The turning point would typically be having 5–7 winning items that can be consistently flipped for profit. Once we have enough capital, we would generally aim to flip expensive end-game gear/cosmetic outfits while continuing our daily transaction with our 5–7 winning items. Even though the demand of these items is a lot lower (due to small amount of people not having the purchase power, not to be confused with these items not being valuable), it is the cherry on the cake when we can flip it a couple of times which will likely result us with enough in-game currency to buy whatever we feel like buying. A common mistake, be it in real life or in game, is failing to recognise that the market speaks the truth. It really doesn’t matter how we feel about a particular item. No one cares about our personal opinion that the cosmetic outfit is pretty looking or a particular warrior equipment gear has the best stats. No one cares about what we think of a product, people simply care about what they think of a product. If an item is not sold for a reasonable amount of time in game, it is either priced too expensive or no one wants it. If an item is not sold for a reasonable amount of time in real life, the item is either priced too expensive, no one wants it or no one is able to find it. The way to know whether an item is in demand is going through the honest evaluation of whether we’ll buy it at the price that we’re selling and actually putting it out there in the market to test its value.
