Life without high-level alts...

Personally, I'd try to buy a stack of 10 for a little below the going rate, use one, and sell the rest for a profit. Once upon a time I wrote a guide to flipping salvage. I wonder if I can still find it...

Ah, here we go. From the City Scoop, August 2008. God I've been here a long time. I'm not sure if it includes dead links or lost images, and I'm sure prices have changed since then, but I'll just paste in here and it is what it is:

Market Watch
View on Blue
Career Day part 3
by Peterpeter

In the last Career Day column, we looked at crafting. Common IO crafting is an honest, hard-working, blue collar way to earn influence, which means you'll never get filthy rich doing it. Crafting set IO's can be more lucrative, but it's still work. In order to craft something, you need to spend time gathering materials, and then spend influence converting those ingredients into a finished product. After all that work, you deserve to be paid more than the sum of the parts. Most players agree that crafting is an honest way to earn influence. The idea of flipping, on the other hand, elicits howls of protest from many players.

The first thing I would like to do is to offer up my own definition of flipping:

Other people have other definitions, but since many of those definitions involve killing children and kicking puppies, and since there are neither children nor puppies in Paragon City, we'll stick with my definition for now. This article is about how to flip, not about the arguments surrounding it. If you want to know more about why people are pro- or anti-flipping, or to express your own opinions about it, pop into the Market section of the forums. It's a frequent topic of debate. For our purposes today, there are only two facts that matter. First, flipping can be profitable if done correctly. Second, flipping does not violate the game's terms of service.

Unlike vendoring or crafting, flipping is done when you are offline. This makes it an excellent career for a casual player. You don't need to run back and forth between different stores, or run back and forth between the crafting table and the market. You just place your bids and walk away. Whenever you get around to it, you collect the items you bought and relist them. Once you get the hang of it, you can do your flipping in just a few minutes per day. The main challenge is that you need to be fairly knowledgeable about the market.

Flipping is capitalism at its simplest and most elegant:

1. Buy low.
2. Sell high.
3. Repeat.

Before you can settle into your lucrative little rut, you need to do some research:

1. Choose a time period
2. Choose an item
3. Explore the low end of the price swing
4. Explore the high end of the price swing

The first thing you need to decide is how patient you are. Flipping depends on the fact that prices go up and down over time. The more time you can wait, the more variation you'll see in prices. The price may not move very much during the few hours you are online, but for many items the price changes drastically over 24 hours. Given a week, prices can bounce even further up and down.

The next thing you need to decide is what item you would like to flip. Although anything that moves on the market can be flipped, most people flip salvage. It trades in high volume, and you can buy it in stacks of ten. Look for salvage in which there is a big variation in prices over time. That spread is your profit margin.

To find the low end of the price range, put in a bunch of bids at lower and lower prices. Wait for your desired time period and see how many of those bids fill.

To find the high end of the price range, take the items you just bought and relist them for higher and higher prices. Wait for your desired time period to pass and see how many sold.

Once you have a feel for the range of prices at which this item trades, do a bit of math. After subtracting the sales fee, is it worthwhile to flip this item? If so, get cracking! Buy low, sell high, repeat. I suggest you always have one bid in for less than your minimum price. If that bid fills, not only will you get some cheap salvage, but you'll also get a warning that prices may be dropping. If the bottom price drops, the top price tends to follow.

Over time, the spread between the high and low price will probably close. You'll need to raise your price if you want to keep buying, and lower your price if you want to keep selling. Profits dry up. When that happens, bail. Stop buying and try to sell off your stock. Find another item where the price is bouncing up and down like a toddler who got into his mom's mochaccino.

After I've been flipping for a while, I usually find myself gradually accumulating stacks of overpriced, unsold salvage, like barnacles on the hull of a ship. Scrape them off! If something doesn't sell for over a week, then it probably won't sell until the next special event. It's a judgement call, but you need those slots to earn more influence. Don't let them stay clogged up with items that won't move.

To help you get started, I'll provide a concrete example. Keep in mind that prices change over time, and that the publication of this column may affect the prices of any item listed in the column. Competition is anathema to flipping, so Alchemical Silvers might be a very bad thing to flip for the next couple of weeks.

Once you get the hang of flipping inexpensive items, you might want to consider flipping pricier items. That's a fine idea, but don't forget to account for the fees. 10% of 3,000,000 inf is a big chunk of change. Something can bounce up and down by a few hundred thousand influence and still not leave enough margin for a profit.

What follows is a Diary of a Flipper:

1. Choose a time period

I will work on a 24 hour flip. I will check in every evening. Flipping takes less time than running even a single mission, so I know I can fit it in even on days when I don't have time to really play. I could go with one week as my time period, but I have a deadline for this article!

2. Choose an item

I'll start at the top. The very first invention salvage in the list is Alchemical Gold. The last five prices I see right now vary between 300 and 1,000 inf. That's a pretty big spread. Would this be a good choice? No. This is where knowledge of the market comes into play. Alchemical Gold is uncommon. Uncommon salvage just isn't valuable. The 1,000 inf sale is only vendor price, and the other trades are lower than that. The number of items for sale is almost triple the number of bids. My experience suggests that most of those bids are from people hoping to vendor Alchemical Gold, not use it. It should be easy to buy Alchemical Gold cheap, but I think I would find it very difficult to resell it for a profit.

What about Alchemical Silver? That's next on the list. Here I see last five prices from 10,000 - 20,000. I have enough crafting experience to know that Alchemical Silver is an ingredient in common level 30-40 Accuracy IO's. These are certainly not vendor bait. If we can buy a stack of ten for 10k and resell it for 20k, we would make 100,000 influence on each stack of ten salvage. This seems promising.

Explore the low end of the price swing

I put in a bid for a stack of ten Alchemical Silvers at a price of 10,007 each. That way I'll outbid anyone who offers an even 10k. I also put in bids at 9,007 and 11,007. Just because there are no trades in the last five for less than 10k doesn't mean it won't happen during the next 24 hours. In fact, I'm putting in bids at 8,007 and 7,007 as well. Why not? I can always cancel the bids tomorrow and get my influence back. I'll put in a bid at 12,007 too, because I want to be sure I buy something for the next step.

Now I wait. Flipping requires patience; that's what makes it such a fine strategy for casual players. If I lived in the game, I'd go crazy sitting here staring at my unfilled bids. Instead, I can log off and go read a book. If I have some free time, I'll try to check in a few times during the next 24 hours, but it's not vital. (I didn't have to wait long to get some! I had bought five for 12,007 each before I even had time to log off!)

A few hours later, the bids at 12,007 and 11,007 and 10,007 are all full. The bids at 9,007 and below have not filled. The last five prices still range from 10-20k. I leave the low bids out to see how they do overnight, while I relist the items I've bought. I own 30 Alchemical Silvers. I list ten at 12,230. At that price, I will make exactly 1,000 inf per item, if I bought them at 10,007. I list another ten at just under 15,000 inf, and the last ten go up for just under 20,000 inf. I log off and let those sit overnight.

Day Two

The next morning I check again. It is the weekend, otherwise I couldn't log in so often. Note: prices over the weekend are not always the same as prices during the week. If I only logged in once a day, the process would be the same, it would just take a bit longer. All the items listed for sale have sold, but no new bids have filled. The last five prices are 12-15k.

I check again in the evening. It has been 24 hours since I put in those first bids. Nothing has changed. We seem to have a minimum successful bid of 10,007 and a maximum successful sell of 19,007.

Now I'll look at volume. I'll keep my stack of bids for 9,007 outstanding, as an alert in case of falling prices. This time I'll put in five stacks of bids at 10,007. Here's a tip: instead of listing them all for exactly the same amount, lower the bid amount by 1 influence with each new stack. That way you won't get a bunch of half filled stacks, since the highest bid will always fill first.

Day Three

Twenty-four hours later... all bids are filled, except that low bid of 9,007. The last five prices are all just over 30,000. Hmmm, could I sell mine for that much? Let's see. I relist one stack for 19,007... and they sell instantly for about 27,000 each. Interesting. I put the next stack up for 25,007. One of them sells for 30,000. This is a judgment call. If I list them too high during a momentary spike, they might not sell for a long time. While I'm pondering my options, the rest of that stack sells for around 27,000. That settles it. I list another stack at 29,007 and one at 30,007. The last stack I put up for 20,007. Those don't sell right away, and now the last five sales are down to 15,000. Did I just overprice most of my inventory? I'll find out tomorrow. You get to find out in the next paragraph, you lucky dog!

Day Four

The Wentworth's representative has a lovely surprise for me. Every single buy order is full, even the one for 9,007. At the same time, every single sell order has sold, even the one for over 30k (the whole stack sold for 390,000 for ten of them). Sweet!
I put in a new set of bids, ranging from 8,007 to 10,007. I list the items I have bought for anywhere between 20,007 and 40,007.

Day Five

Every bid has filled except the 8,007 one. Perfect! Every item listed has sold. Almost perfect! I'd actually prefer to see a few unsold items. Not many, just one stack. That way I would know that I was butting up against the top of the price swing. I'll have to list one stack even higher next time. The highest a stack of ten sold for last time was 724,999. That's a strange price for someone to bid. Anyhow, this time I'll list items for... wait, what is this? My stack of bids at 8,007 filled as well? The last 5 prices now show 7500 - 8,000. Odd. Is the price crashing? Were yesterday's high prices just a fluke? Well, there are 2,075 bids but only 588 for sale. It's not much to go on, but demand seems strong. Well, what the heck. I list my items for 25,007 up to 50,007. I put in bids from 7,007 up to 10,007.

Day Six

Everything sold except the 50,007 stack. Perfect! All the bids filled. Even the one at 7007. It seems like prices are on the wane. Good to know. I'll keep that stack out at 50,007 for a while longer and list the new ones from 30,007 to 45,007. I put in bids from 5,007 to 10,007.

Day Seven

Definite price slip. Sold everything priced below 40k, but not the top few stacks. Ironically, one stack sold for over 450k, even though it was listed for less than 40k. Buy orders from 8k up were filled. The price gap is narrowing. That's not good, but there is still lots of room for a profit.

I list my new stock for 25-35k. At this point, I have some stacks that probably won't sell. Maybe I should take them down and relist at a lower price. I probably would if they didn't sell through the weekend, except this just happens to be the week when the Rikti invade. Arcane prices might nudge upwards. I put in buys from 8k-9k. Left the 7k bid up, but I don't expect it to fill.

Day Eight
Everything sold except the 50,007 stack. Ha! Only one stack of buys filled, so I canceled some of the lower bids and put in new bids mostly at 10k and one at 11k. The one stack I bought I relisted for 35k.

Day Nine
Overnight I sold the 35k ones, and the old 50,007 stack as well! I guess there was a buying frenzy late last night, while I was sleeping. I love making money while I sleep. If I hadn't been mid-flip, I would never have known that prices jumped that high. The last five transactions don't show anything like that. They are all 10-15k. Also while I lay sleeping, all of my bids from 9k up were filled. I list things for 30-45k and put in my new bids at 9-10k. The market shows 2,700 bids, 383 items for sale. Oh, and I timed myself. From the time I clicked on the WW rep to the time I was ready to leave the market took 90 seconds.

Day Ten
Enough is enough. Everything sold. I canceled that 7,007 bid. All of my other bids filled, so I took those items and listed them for 35k-45k. Once those sell, I'm done. It gets boring. I did make about 17 million inf so far, though. More importantly, I have quite enough data for an article.

Also, be sure you level them to 11 in AE not on regular missions. Below level 4 only TOs drop, below 10 only TOs and common salvage. The tickets you get in AE before level 10 will be worth millions, the TOs and salvage only tens of thousands if you are lucky.

Nope. You can get but you cannot send.

But I have a few 50s I have no interest in playing any more so they are my market alts anyway.

Really great point I had completely forgotten. Also, doing AE means you don't have to run all over the place with no travel power*. When you gank, you rez right in the same building and can buy inspires right as you leave the vator. I am somewhat chagrined to note that I leveled most of my guys doing hollows missions.

The email thing is also why I suggest same server/SG group. Because even at 11 it is tedious to email dozens of things back and forth. Money is no problem but if you are selling lots of IOs and salvage...ugh.

*(although Ninja Run does help)