Smokin Mils Flipping Guide: 7 Easy Steps to Profit

Introduction Most people that are new to flipping are very confused by it, even after reading other detailed guides. It may seem like you can never quite get it right, and your buy and sell prices just never work. Even if you have never heard of flipping this short and easy step-by-step guide will show you exactly how to get started with flipping. Instead of flooding you with information I will simply give you the step-by-step process of making profit flipping. I will use Super Strength Potion (4) to demonstrate the different steps with images, and later you should try this with some of the items available in the Clan Items List, which will be linked at the end of the guide. At the end there is also a bonus guide that will help you choose your own items.

The more gold you have to flip with the more you will make. Starting with 5M you can make a billion in 6 months (1-2 hours a day effort), but starting with 200M you can make 3 billion in the same time!

The 7 Steps The first task is to find out what prices you should start buying and selling at. Step 1 Buy 1 of the item for around double its market price (medium price) Step 2 Write down or remember the exact price you get it for and call this the "High Price" Step 3 Sell the item for half it's market price (don't worry, you will get much more than half for it) Step 4 Write down the exact price it sold for and call this the "Low Price" Remember! The High Price and Low Price give you a good idea of the range that the item can be flipped in at the time. Let's call the difference between them (High Price - Low Price) the "Profit Margin". Profit Margin = High Price - Low Price In our example the: Profit Margin = 1,600gp - 1,185gp = 415gp Step 5 Put a buy offer in at 1gp above the Low Price, and call this new price your Buy Price You should start getting some after about 5-15 minutes. If you don't then start again from Step 1 to see if the Low Price has changed. For some items (usually items over 2-5m) it may take up to 15-30 minutes or even more. Step 6 When you finish buying immediately put a sell offer up at 1gp below the High Price, and call this new price your Sell Price Some of them should begin selling after 5-15 minutes. If they don't then repeat Step 1 to find your High Price again. For some items (usually items over 2-5m) it may take up to 15-30 minutes or even more. TIP! Many people believe that using multiple trade slots to buy or sell helps. In most cases it does not. It only helps when you are not offering a unique price, but for any item over about 1000gp you are almost certainly offering a totally unique price. For cheaper items like runes it can help to use multiple slots to buy and sell. Step 7 After some time the item will either stop buying, stop selling, or both. This is normal and is due to natural changes in supply and demand. Things can get a little bit more tricky for people at this point, but the next steps explain how you need to adjust your Buy Price and your Sell Price for the flip to continue working. If the item stops buying: First check that you aren't on limit. All items have a limited number that you can buy in the GE every 4 hours. If you are not on limit then raise your Buy Price by around 1/4 of the Profit Margin, then wait a further 5-15 minutes to see if it fixes the problem. Raise Buy Price by Profit Margin/4. If the item stops selling: Lower your Sell Price by around 1/4 of the Profit Margin, then wait a further 5-15 minutes to see if it fixes the problem. Lower Sell Price by Profit Margin/4 Remember that you can perform Step 1 and Step 3 any time to check the current range, so if you get confused just test prices again. Frequently Asked Questions Q: I've adjusted prices and they still aren't buying/selling. What should I do? A: Test prices again, the margins may have changed. Q: I've bought the GE limit of the item. How do I test price? A: The only thing you can do is ask someone else to check the price for you. That is everything you need to know to get started. As you flip more and gain experience you will become better and better at flipping and get a better idea of when and by how much to adjust your prices for different items. Pro Tip: adding 1gp to the low price and subtracting 1gp from the high price aren't always the best options. Try adding and subtracting more for your buy and sell prices. People like round numbers, so it's better to buy something for 10,001gp than 10,000gp, or to sell something for 9,999gp than 10,000gp since you will be more likely to beat offers that come up at the rounded numbers. Pro Tip: For items like Nature Runes, that are cheap and have many people flipping them, you should use 3 GE slots to buy and 3 GE slots to sell to make it ~3x faster.

Different Types of Flips Active: These are done in one sitting, not leaving the computer. Generally considered to be about 30 minutes per flip, but can take up to about 2 hours. Since this is such a short time to turn over items, your choices of what to flip plays a big part, so common, highly traded items are the focus. Often you will come in more than a few gp from your pc prices to speed flips up. Inactive: Any flip in which you leave the computer for 30 minutes or more. Generally the whole flip is between 2 to 6 hours. Most items are good for inactive flipping, even items that are more active by nature can be inactive flipped simply by extending the margins slightly. However, more often you will be looking for items that are less commonly traded, but still have a demand. Inactive flips are often something people who wish to play the game (i.e., go do a slayer task, or train a skill) whilst still flipping opt to do. Overnight: As the name suggests, generally done overnight or whenever you leave the computer for a long number of hours. These kinds of flips may take up to 2 days to complete. This type of flip is merely an extension of inactive flipping, thereby similar items are used. Items that are traded less often commonly have larger margins, but obviously take longer for your offers to fill.

Profit Percentage Now that we have gone over the basic idea of flipping, I'm going to explain an important part of keeping track of your progress. This is not an important point, but profit percentages are a good way to measure how successful a flip has been. They can also be a good way to see how you are improving when you flip the same item numerous times. Over the years here there has been a lot of debate as to the correct way to find your profit percentages, but there is now a standard that Smokin Mils has settled on. The standard agreed upon equation is: (Sell Price - Buy Price) / Buy Price * 100 Or another way to put it is: Profit / Cost Price * 100 This gives you the percentage profit you made from the money you invested.

Summary of this Guide First test the prices of the item: buy an item for nearly twice its market price. The price you get said item for is the "high price." Sell the item for roughly half its market price. The price you get will be your "low price." Now to make profit: put in a buy offer at 1gp over the low price. When you get some of the item, put a sell offer 1gp below the high price. What next: when the item stops buying, raise your buy price a little bit. When the item stops selling, lower your sell price a little. What to flip: try the clan items list, or look at peoples merchant logs to see what items are working lately. Alternatively, look around you in-game, see what people are doing or wearing, as this may give you some suggestions of what to merch.

What items to flip One obvious question you might have is "What should I flip?" On this forum, we provide you with a long list of good flipping items for you to try, but bare in mind they may not be completely up to date, as they're only suggestions to aid you in flipping. They range in limit price and speed, so you can find items that suit your budget and style of flipping. Billious put together a lovely list of potential items to flip in the Clan Items List, found in the Flipping Items section of Merchanting Discussion. Please note that the list is just possible flipping suggestions, as it may not be completely up to date. However, hopefully it will still hep spark some suggestions of what to flip nevertheless.

Bonus Guide: How to Choose Your Own Items to Flip After you have tried flipping items from the clan list or looked at other people's merchant logs you, might want to start choosing your own items to flip. Picking the right items is one of the most important things you do as a merchant. This bonus guide will help you choose items for yourself and get you started. What is a the best item to flip right now? There is no simple answer to that. It depends on your wealth, how actively you are flipping, and the profit from any item varies hugely hour by hour. You need to read the rest of this guide to find out how to choose items most effectively. What makes a good flipping item? The more commonly traded an item is the faster it will flip. However, the more commonly flipped an item is the lower it's profit margin will most likely be. This means that, in general, items that are quicker to flip have lower profit margins. Finding a good flipping item is about finding an item that has a good balance between speed and profit margin. Sometimes the profit margin on commonly traded items can fluctuate. The profit margin might be 0.5% at some time and then a few hours later increase to 10%. This is why you should keep testing different items to find one that is good at the time. The more you test the more likely you are to find the perfect item for the time. Before you choose an item, you also need to decide if you are going to actively flip them (i.e. watch them constantly and refresh offers when they complete) or if you are going to inactively flip them (i.e. leave offers in and go away for a few hours). If you are actively flipping then a fast item with a small profit margin is best. If you are inactively flipping then a slower item with a large profit margin is best. Many of the items on the Clan Items List can be tried out daily, but you should also come up with more of your own items. Try out ones that are in your wealth range, and take their percentage profit as an estimate to help you decide if they are good at the time or not.

Now that you know the basics of flipping, you should practice until you get the hang of it. It will take some time and at first it may seem hard, but if you put in the effort, you will see what an excellent way this is to get rich.

Great guide Mr J. This should greatly help new users, and but an end to the "how do I flip" messages.

+rep

Awesome, you never stop helping people

Great guide J, +rep

Great guide.
There is one thing I personally would add and that is that you should not always under/overcut peoples prices, if there are say two people flipping something the two of you can massively decrease the profit margin and you would have both been better off staying at the original buy/sell prices. If you are undercutting each other you will (on average) buy 50% of the item each, whilst spending time constantly updating offers and cutting profits. If you both buy at the same price you will get 50% each and have bigger profits.

I would not recomend this style for flipping items that are more than around 5-8M.
Bare in mind the reducing the price by 1gp or so can be potentially more profitable, depending on the circumstances.

Hope this helps people.

+rep for Mr J

thx!!! made over 2m profit with your nature rune method:D

Great guide!

Thanks for this guide. Im quite new to flipping items.

This goes more in depth of how it works, so thanks.

Like it glad I came across this

This is gunna help me alot thanks

OMG.
That was just the guide I needed, finally understanding the flipping aspect a little bit more !
Thanks bro

I've added a BONUS GUIDE that is worth a read.

Great guide.

Very good guide. Makes it all clear for everyone. Tyvm

Great guide! Kinda funny you always make these things so easy.

thanks helped alot

I've updated this guide to be more simple and added pictures.

thanks for the guide...i just started and didnt know very much so thanks

Nice guide, this makes every1 to understand how to flip. I got huge help from the bonus guide about the items, thank you


▲▲▲Ca$hmaker▲▲▲

nice guide, it really was helpful for me since i am new to this kind of thing.

Thank you for this guide, it puts everything into terms that most can understand so thank you!

This guide is really helpful thank you

thank you so much! i used to merch with this clan back when they did clan merchs and i made around 600m and then i got hacked, i never knew how to flip but i just learned and used my 3m tht i have and i made about 4m in a day i love you!

Awsome guide Mr. J, THanks for all the great help!!!!

just been using this guide with the items listed for my price range and worked really well made about 4mil in an hour and half so not bad for a first try, I'm used to doing long term merches and new to flipping but think i might do this more often now.