HomeMerchant Spotlight!
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Merchant Spotlight!
by Tuff Tiga 20/7/2014, 12:28 am
Hello Merchants!
Welcome to thefirst of many “Merchant Spotlight” threads! This thread is designed to help you get to know your fellow merchants better. How it works is that I interview a random merchant, selected with a random generator, and I interview them. These questions are general and help you understand how that specific merchant thinks when it’s time to flip or invest. To top it off, at the end the selected person will include at least 5 of their greatest flips to back up their statements. Without further ado let’s get onto the interview.
Our second interview is Kelly. She is currently one of the manager's for the mentoring system along with Billious.
1) How long have you been merchanting for?
Since about the same time I joined the SM forums, so since about July-August of 2011.
2) What's the most important thing you've learned about merchanting on the RS market?
How necessary graphs are to make the biggest bang for your buck. I realize that with active and inactive/overnight flipping they aren't usually as necessary, but it surely helps to know what the market is like for the particular item you're taking the time to merch.
3) In relation to Q#2, do you think you could apply any of this in real life?
Probably, yes. I'd go as far to say that nearly everything merchanting could be applied in real life, even if indirectly
.
4) What is your thought process in choosing an item to invest in?
Hmm, well that depends what type of merchanting I'm doing. With active flips I tend to just look around GE for inspiration because commonly traded items with lower limits (like weapons and armor) tend to be very fast flips. Inactive and overnight flips I thoroughly enjoy bulk flipping, and tend to spend immense time looking at graphs to find an item that would be the most profit. I don't do investments very frequently, but with those it's similar to inactive/overnight flipping in the sense that I extensively look through graphs to find the best possible item to invest my time and money in.
5) What would you say your strong point: active flipping, inactive flipping or investing?
I'd say evenly between active and inactive/overnight flipping.
6) How much of your current wealth, approximately, have you achieved from merchanting?
Oh hell I don't know. I'd say I've probably achieved at least 200-300M from merchanting, more or less.
7) Anything else you would like to add about your merchanting career, or anything else for that matter:
When I began merchanting, I joined the Mentoring program and I feel I would not have been successful at merchanting without it.
8) If you would also like to share your top 5 flips/investments that would really help.
Uh… I don't exactly have those. If it's very necessary I could try to scour and find my flipping log from eons ago.
~ Tuff Tiga
Welcome to the
Our second interview is Kelly. She is currently one of the manager's for the mentoring system along with Billious.
1) How long have you been merchanting for?
Since about the same time I joined the SM forums, so since about July-August of 2011.
2) What's the most important thing you've learned about merchanting on the RS market?
How necessary graphs are to make the biggest bang for your buck. I realize that with active and inactive/overnight flipping they aren't usually as necessary, but it surely helps to know what the market is like for the particular item you're taking the time to merch.
3) In relation to Q#2, do you think you could apply any of this in real life?
Probably, yes. I'd go as far to say that nearly everything merchanting could be applied in real life, even if indirectly
.4) What is your thought process in choosing an item to invest in?
Hmm, well that depends what type of merchanting I'm doing. With active flips I tend to just look around GE for inspiration because commonly traded items with lower limits (like weapons and armor) tend to be very fast flips. Inactive and overnight flips I thoroughly enjoy bulk flipping, and tend to spend immense time looking at graphs to find an item that would be the most profit. I don't do investments very frequently, but with those it's similar to inactive/overnight flipping in the sense that I extensively look through graphs to find the best possible item to invest my time and money in.
5) What would you say your strong point: active flipping, inactive flipping or investing?
I'd say evenly between active and inactive/overnight flipping.
6) How much of your current wealth, approximately, have you achieved from merchanting?
Oh hell I don't know. I'd say I've probably achieved at least 200-300M from merchanting, more or less.
7) Anything else you would like to add about your merchanting career, or anything else for that matter:
When I began merchanting, I joined the Mentoring program and I feel I would not have been successful at merchanting without it.
8) If you would also like to share your top 5 flips/investments that would really help.
Uh… I don't exactly have those. If it's very necessary I could try to scour and find my flipping log from eons ago.
- Billious:
- The first interview is none other than our merchanting general Billious. Since joining SM Ranks as a trainee, he’s been acknowledged for his merchanting abilities. Later being promoted to rank and then general, his drive for merchanting hasn’t stopped. Now onto the interview:
1) How long have you been merchanting for?
A little over 2 years. I never flipped before finding SM forums, but once I did I took every opportunity to learn more about it and didnt leave the GE for about 8 months straight lol.
2) What's the most important thing you've learned about merchanting on the RS market?
That's really hard to pin down to just one thing. I could say research and knowing the items, but even I sometimes flip things I've never used, or I could say constant experimentation as the good flipping items change over time. But I guess THE most important thing is persistence. If you fail, and we all do from time to time, learn what you can from it and keep going. People tend to learn faster from failures then successes. So don't get discouraged, just keep plugging away and you will improve.
3) In relation to Q#2, do you think you could apply any of this in real life?
You can and I do. Everything in life has a learning curve and failures are inevitable. Persistence goes a long way and failures are just opportunities to learn. What was that quote from batman..... "Why do we fall? So we can learn how to pick ourselves up." or something like that.
4) What is your thought process in choosing an item to invest in?
God there are a few methods I use which are all different and all take a bit of explaining. For everyday investing I guess I use one of 2 methods in which I check the graphs for both. With items I commonly flip I keep a record of all my pc's and from these I can see when the price is around it's usual low point. From there I check the graph looking for a sign that the fall is slowing down. If it is I check the patch notes, just in case it got nerfed which is rare, but can save you a big loss. If that's ok also then I'll invest.
For other items I look at the biggest losers looking for signs the fall is slowing down then check the history to make sure it's not over inflated and just stalling as it continues to fall. Both of these methods allow me to buy before it starts rising and also gives me time to stock multiple limits if needed. Of course I have to think about the cost/limit to make sure it's worth investing. No point in investing 10m if your playing with 1b and I rarely buy more than 5 limits as selling becomes hard to do without the price falling as they sell.
Update investing is pretty straight forward as you search news posts and patch notes looking items either mentioned or hinted at. But even this can get complicated now that things are announced on twitter, twitch and even high level forums also, plus they try to not mention specifics that relate to items if they can avoid it. Personally I stick to the RS homepage and the patch notes, but I have friends who love the game and tell me about things from the other sources. Often the problem is if you don't buy in the first hour or 2 after the announcement then the price is over inflated and likely to fall slowly until the actual update. Note this can sometime give you a second chance to invest. Also you never really know if the update will live up to expectations or not, so I like to sell just before the actual release.
I'm sure I've left out heaps but there simply is no short answer.
5) What would you say your strong point: active flipping, inactive flipping or investing?
They are all pretty strong. The first 6-8 month I purely active flipped. I think less items flip in 30 minutes now, but I still do it at random times. My investments generally get 10%+ as an average although I probably inactive/overnight the most these days.
6) How much of your current wealth, approximately, have you achieved from merchanting?
I updated my log the other day and have over 4b logged. Only about 2b in gp atm but I have lots of toys I don't sell.
7) Anything else you would like to add about your merchanting career, or anything else for that matter:
I remember early on I was flipping a divine ss which took most of my bank. It was ~650m at the time and it crashed hard on me. I kept lowering the price but it just crashed harder and harder until it was like 400m. Being the stubborn type I decided to keep it until it rose back again. It left me with about 100m to flip with so for me it was basically starting over. It took about 4-5 months to get back to where it was, but I learned a few valuable lessons from it. By starting over my flipping improved massively, I went back to cheaper items learning I could make just as much from those flips sometimes as I could from expensive ones. I also learned I should have sold it because by the time I did I had made back 600m or more. Imagine what I could have made if I had that extra 400m over those months.
8) If you would also like to share your top 5 flips/investments that would really help.
Godswords. From the very beginning I loved AGS, then EOC came and it changed to SGS. Guess what? Now legacy has come and it's back to AGS. These are generally fast flips for a good mil or 2 and so I have often flipped them every 4 hours. Sure sometimes margins aren't great, but more often than not they aren't that bad either. If you flip them often noting your pc's down you can also get a jump on them when investing.
Black mask/black mask (10). Such a cheap flip but I can't count the amount of times I've made mils/limit on these. Best flipped overnight as they are sluggish, but even on an acc with 1b in the bank I still flip them.
Gnome scarf. Another solid overnight flip. For years this has been a go to overnighter with pretty nice margins and a steady demand. I can't ever remember losing on these and they are great to learn inactive/overnight flipping with. Nice to see these back around 6m, but even when they were 3m I still got great margins on them.
Glacor boots (ragefire/steadfast/glaiven). Steady margins for the most part and good speeds. Tend to be more on the active side so huge margins only happen from updates generally.
Dragon Pickaxe. Sometimes its hot, sometimes its not, but in general a go to item with decent speeds and 1-200k margins much like glacor boots.
Well there you have it, everything you need to know about Billious and his thought process behind his merchanting. There will be another one of these next month where you will get the chance to get to know another merchant on the forums.
Enjoy!
~ Tuff Tiga
Last edited by Tuff Tiga on 30/8/2014, 9:55 pm; edited 5 times in total
Tuff Tiga- Grandmaster (2000 posts)
Re: Merchant Spotlight!
by KillerHart 20/7/2014, 11:42 am
Really interesting read. Love the idea, as you can really learn a lot and get to know the person better. The one thing I will take away from this is that all merchants will make mistakes and you may be better off cutting your losses 
Thanks both.
Thanks both. 
KillerHart- Forum Fanatic (1000 posts)
Re: Merchant Spotlight!
by Fatal 20/7/2014, 6:18 pm
Love this idea, and kudos to interviewing possibly the best in the business currently for the first post. Hard to top that one Good read, good insight.
Good read, good insight. 
Fatal- Forum Addict (750 posts)
Re: Merchant Spotlight!
by lil_me 20/7/2014, 9:14 pm
who is this Billious?
My Vouches!
My Flipping Log! My Investment Bank
jk :p nice interview. I enjoyed the read
_____________________
My Vouches!
My Flipping Log! My Investment Bankjk :p nice interview. I enjoyed the read
lil_me- Grandmaster (2000 posts)
Re: Merchant Spotlight!
by gonecase 21/7/2014, 11:04 pm
Nice interview and Billious those gnome scarfs are monsters haha. Great profits and great losses for me too so I dont use them. But honestly best person you could find to start off this series Tuff. So kudos to you. Billious, Divine and Gummy have been the reason I keep finding my inspiration to merch again and again.
gonecase- Forum Addict (750 posts)
Re: Merchant Spotlight!
by piramatrix 22/7/2014, 2:58 am
really great initiative, really enjoyed reading this and lookong forward to the next one
piramatrix- Forum Master (1500 posts)
Re: Merchant Spotlight!
by Fatal 23/7/2014, 1:42 am
gonecase wrote:Nice interview and Billious those gnome scarfs are monsters haha. Great profits and great losses for me too so I dont use them. But honestly best person you could find to start off this series Tuff. So kudos to you. Billious, Divine and Gummy have been the reason I keep finding my inspiration to merch again and again.
I agree with you here, made millions from them, but occasionally you get screwed.
Fatal- Forum Addict (750 posts)
Tuff Tiga- Grandmaster (2000 posts)
Phileep- Tier 3 (300 posts)
Re: Merchant Spotlight!
by Julij2 30/8/2014, 11:59 pm
Some quality read here
Looking forward to more interviews (unless next one in line is Minato, then I don't).
Looking forward to more interviews (unless next one in line is Minato, then I don't
).
Julij2- Grandmaster (2000 posts)
Re: Merchant Spotlight!
by KillerHart 31/8/2014, 12:12 am
Thanks for the read Kelly and tuff, very interesting
KillerHart- Forum Fanatic (1000 posts)
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