Guide to Instant Flipping

[Xenolith]

One big change with the implementation of the free-trade was a bit of tweaking with the Grand Exchange.

Gone are the days of limited price ranges - but there is one other change: no more buy/sell limit.

Before, if you bought an item, you had to wait four hours before you could sell it again. Yes, there are still on limits on how many items you can buy at one time, but you can buy and sell as you please.

 

EXAMPLE: I can only buy 10,000 bars at any one time in a four hour window, but if I sell 500 of those bars through the Grand Exchange, I can immediately buy 500 more. Make sense?

 

This fact is what we're going to take advantage of.

Depending on what items you flip, this method can make up to five million gp/hour (or more!)

 

And now here's the meat of the guide:

 

Now, with every item, there's usually a gap between what people are selling for, and what people are buying for. We'll be exploiting this.

 

First, you're going to want to pick an item that is traded a LOT.

http://services.runescape.com/m=itemdb_rs/top100.ws?list=0&scale=0

This list is usually a good place to start.

 

Secondly, hop on over to the Grand Exchange, and put in an offer for ONE of your item, usually at a higher price (I usually just click the +5% button. These items are cheap enough that you're only going to be losing ~500gp at the most on the initial test)

 

Once you've bought your item, note the price that the deal completed at.

 

Sell the item right back, clicking the -5% button, and again, note the price (you might have to add/subtract more to your item, but that's not a big deal.)

 

So you should have something like this:

So you bought the coal at 293gp, and it sold back at 288gp.

This means that the highest offer for buying coal is 288gp, and the lowest sell offer is at 293gp. Now let's undercut that!

 

Put in a buy offer for however many you want (maybe you should start small), at one or two (maybe even five, depending on the spread) gp above the lower number.

Disclaimer: Sometimes, this can take a while, but you will start rolling in the items very soon - granted somebody else isn't undercutting you!

 

EXAMPLE: I'd put in a buy offer for 10,000 coal @ 289gp each

Since the highest offer before me was 288gp each, I'll get all the coal.

 

Once I get all my coal (you don't even need to let the offer complete - here's the beauty of this), collect the coal, and immediately put in a sell order for one or two gp below the lowest sell price (as found through the initial test)

 

EXAMPLE: I'd sell the coal for 292gp each, because before I came, the lowest price other people were selling at was 293gp - so my coal will be bought before theirs.

 

Now, let's do some math.

10,000*289 = 2,890,000gp

10,000*292 = 2,920,000gp

PROFIT = 30,000gp

 

30,000gp for doing very little work!

 

Now, usually, this whole process will only take ~5 minutes (maybe a bit more until you get the hang of it). Sometimes the spread will be in your favor, meaning you'll make more profit, and other times, the spread will only be 1gp, meaning that you should move on and find another item.

 

Sometimes, your offers will stop completing. You'll then have to cancel your items, and do another initial test to see where the price margins are at, and then adjust your pricing likewise.

 

Some items will make more money, some less - it all depends on the item, the day, and even the time of the day.

 

Good luck, and let me know if I need to clarify anything.

 

-TIPS-

1. Pick an item that is traded a lot. We're relying on a large amount of recycling of items here, so this will not work with, say, Santa Hats.

2. Check your buy/sell prices often, using one of those initial tests again. This will prevent you from not offering enough for an item (meaning you won't buy an of the item) or selling the item for too high of a price (meaning you won't end up selling any of your item)

 

Sorry that this guide doesn't have many pretty pictures - I don't know what else to put. Examples are sort of redundant I feel, since I already have one. And I don't want to post big screenshots of me standing at the Grand Exchange...

[Helm_Lardar]

Ineteresting. I'll be sure to try this come the holidays, I had no idea the 4 hour limit was removed :) .

[armybuilder]

Ineteresting. I'll be sure to try this come the holidays, I had no idea the 4 hour limit was removed :) .

 

It hasnt been removed as such just you can buy and sell things which highers your limit or lowers it. You can still only buy 10k of say spirit shards every 4 hours

[Hegelstad]

I know, this is so great, especially when 4 hour limit was (partly removed). I usually profit about 20-40gp per item, brings in neat profit.

[Kata_Phfract__the_slayer]

thanks for the tip!

nice short guide.

[Corbuk]

@xenolith

Did you know that you can buy 25,000 coal(that is the max buy limit for all ores),making your profit from 30k-75k per flip,but all in all, it's a nice beginners guide to flip merching.

[Sir_Squab]

Finally, a simple explanation on how to flip stuff. Really got tired of all the people saying "flip it's good money" when I had absolutely no [bleep]ing idea whatsoever how to.

[Xenolith]

@xenolith

Did you know that you can buy 25,000 coal(that is the max buy limit for all ores),making your profit from 30k-75k per flip,but all in all, it's a nice beginners guide to flip merching.

 

That was more for example than for moneymaking - I don't actually flip coal (Just like every merchanter, I've got my secret list of babies that roll in the moolah.)

Thanks though.

 

Glad you guys are benefiting from this - let me know if I should change anything or explain in more detail.

[Hegelstad]

Finally, a simple explanation on how to flip stuff. Really got tired of all the people saying "flip it's good money" when I had absolutely no [bleep]ing idea whatsoever how to.

 

People doesn't usually wanna tell details because for every single persons that learns flipping, it becomes harder for those that already know it. I learnt i all by myself by trying out different item, now i have a couple that rocks the world!

[LitterBug]

I just wanted to say that you shouldn't only be looking at items that sell at a volume. Granted the money invested in these will be much much more fluid - but at the same time, they probably won't make that much profit.

 

You might want to look at some quest item/hard to get item/things of the sort that trade at a relatively low volume.

This way, you can have a better control of the market.

 

A few things though - the cash invested in these will be much less fluid, and you won't be able to sell them off as easily

But if you pick the right item, people will pay a LOT over GE a times because they want to get their hands on these and they rather not waste an hour or so trying to get random items for a quest.

[Xenolith]

I just wanted to say that you shouldn't only be looking at items that sell at a volume. Granted the money invested in these will be much much more fluid - but at the same time, they probably won't make that much profit.

 

You might want to look at some quest item/hard to get item/things of the sort that trade at a relatively low volume.

This way, you can have a better control of the market.

 

A few things though - the cash invested in these will be much less fluid, and you won't be able to sell them off as easily

But if you pick the right item, people will pay a LOT over GE a times because they want to get their hands on these and they rather not waste an hour or so trying to get random items for a quest.

 

That's a good point, but for me, I like to play it safe.

The lower trade amount can be sort of a double-edged sword, especially with this sort of flipping - the prices are going to be much more volatile, but in that same breath, you can exploit these volatile prices to make some great gains (or some great losses).

 

The way I look at it is that this method is almost guaranteed profit - consistent profit. Though like you said, most items you're not going to be making a whole bunch of profit on an individual item basis, but you're counting on the fact that you'll be flipping a lot of item to compensate.

 

You do bring up an interesting point though - I'm sure there's quite a niche for anybody looking for good items in the questing scene to merchant.

Thanks for the input.

[LitterBug]

It was just an option to explore. I don't do it too heavily - I only do it when I need the items and I notice that a good amount can actually be made selling them.

 

Additionally, same for the quest items. I would read a quest guide - figure out I need x. Check the GE to figure out that there's none of "x" in the GE. Leave my offer in there for a few days, get a few of them bought at normal prices - stick those items minus what I need for a fair bit above GE mid and they sell. Yeah, they don't sell like 10k in an hour but it's surprising how well/fast they do actually sell considering that these items are used mainly for questing anyways.