Hi, my name is Alexis and I 've been trading for years, but I've never really shared my knowledge before. I thought that I'd contribute to the community for the holidays this year by sharing my trading methods with everyone. Hopefully someone can benefit from what I know and have learned about trading. Happy holidays everyone.

What is trading?
Trading in the CS:GO scene is the exchange of items between players in order to receive a desired item or profit.

Why should you trade?
Trading is a hobby that anyone can partake in, with a little bit of time and effort, it is possible for anyone to build a decent inventory. If you're looking for a fun hobby and have some time on your hands, try out trading with the help of this guide for new traders. Who knows, maybe someday you'll have your very own ★ Karambit | Fade!

Why should you learn to trade instead of only using the steam market? The Steam Community Market is great, it really is - I use it all the time. But there are drawbacks that not many users think about, the market has a tax for using it.

Steam takes a cut of roughly 13% when you sell an item on the market, and more than 13% if your item is very cheap (cases, 4 cent skins, etc.). That means that if you buy a skin from the Steam Market, then try to sell it again for the same price, you're going to end up losing money! How does this work? If I buy a skin for a dollar off the Steam Market, use it for a while, then get bored of it, I'm probably going to want to sell it in an attempt to regain my investment. Which I could use to purchase another skin of the same value. However, if I tried to sell it for the same price as I bought it for, I would be losing 13% of my initial investment, I would only receive 87 cents from the dollar I spent. I probably would not be able to afford the other skin that I was eyeing that costs the same as my initial investment - all because of the SM 13% cut. Sucks right?

So how do I get around this? By trading of course! If I have an item worth a dollar that I really want to sell in order to buy an item of the same value, without losing my initial investment, I would trade it for another skin worth the same value and use that one instead, bypassing the market altogether!



The Steam Marketplace
Pros
*Easy to browse for skins.
*Can search for stickers.
*Might find a good deal.
*Don't have to deal with other people or negotiate.
*Items sell quickly if they are high turnover.

Cons
*13% cut when selling.
*Typically more expensive than buying with pure keys.
*Good deals are rare.
*Items locked from trading for 7 days after purchase.
*Items may take a while to sell if they are not high turnover.

Trading
Pros
*No value lost from 13% SM tax.
*Get to meet cool people and make friends.
*Learn to negotiate.
*Try out many different skins.
*Can receive overpay. ($$Profit$$)
*No 7 day restriction on trading.

Cons
*If you're not so bright you might get scammed.
*You might deal with some really ignorant traders.
*Takes time.

The keys to being a good trader are the following:

Patience
Your goal is to come out of a trade with profit, what if you were making 7% profit on 1 dollar? That's not a lot is it? But 7% profit on 100 dollars is much more significant, now what about a thousand? Your profit will grow with the size of your wallet, so be patient, and eventually good things will come to those who wait.


Hard Work/Perseverance
Like anything, trading takes practice, sometimes you will mess up (or maybe get scammed), just accept your loss, and learn from it. Try harder next time to do better, you will one day reach your trading goal.

Advertising
To help in your journey towards being a successful trader, good advertising is important. You probably don't have to advertise your stickerless AK Redline, but if you have one with really fancy schmancy stickers on it, you might wanna take some good screenshots (screenies). Just cl_crosshair 0 or cl_drawhud 0 on a nice workshop map like one of these maps and you'll be good to go, upload those screens to imgur and show them off when trading. Not many people want to buy ugly looking skins, and most people want to see what they're buying before they buy it, so go ahead! Take a screenshot. If you're selling something, try to include the float value (fv) of your skin, same goes for a buyer as well, if you're buying a skin, ask about the float. In a world where everyone has plenty of options, make your items stand out! A person who has an incredible screenshot like the one below is a lot more eye catching than someone who says, I have a Karambit Case Hardened, B/O 500000000 keys.



Negotiation
If you personally add another trader and negotiate in a friendly and polite way with them, you can often get a much better deal than if you try to fight it out through trade offers. Despite having to deal with a few rude traders, I've actually met some good friends in this way, don't knock, try it!

Well, you're down on your luck and GabeN hasn't been kind to you, he dropped your buddy a Dragon Lore but gave you a Phoenix Case, sucks huh? You only have an M4A1-S Nitro that you bought with your mom's credit card? No worries! That's enough to get you started. It is easiest to start your trading career with a knife, but trading up from a small skin worth around one key is very possible. Remember, patience is a virtue.

It is recommended that your starting item be worth one key - that's all you'll need! Of course you could start with less, but remember, the more funds you have to start trading with - the faster you'll reach your dream knife/skin! It may be a slow start at first, but the more profit you've accumulated, the more profit will come your way, never give up on the Dragon Lore Dream!

Method 1: Post multiple trades on the CS:GO Lounge, bump them regularly or use Lounge Destroyer
For the Lounge Destroyer chrome extension, see resource section. This is pretty self explanatory, just press 'add trade', put the item you have in your 'have' section, and the item you want in the 'want' section. Post the float value of your knife (no point in hiding it if your float is actually better than average) along with a screenshot of your knife. Bump your trades regularly or use LD to bump it for you.

Method 2: Search for anyone who is looking for your item
On the CS:GO Lounge, press the 'search' button, and put your item into the 'have' box, then hit search. You will now be able to find anyone looking for your item. On GO:Trade Reddit, search the name of your item in the search bar, try abbreviations like butterfly knife as 'bfk' and for if its a vanilla knife as 'karanilla' 'butternilla' etc.

Method 3: Search for people who have an item that you want specifically
Go to CS:GO Lounge 'search' again, input only the item that you want into the 'want' box, on all the trades that you are interested in, post a screenshot of your knife, the type of knife it is, and the float value, along with any adds that you may have or desire. Or you can search GO:Trade for anyone selling that particular item, once again, try the search with and without abbreviations. (See method 2 for more details)

Method 4: Search for people who have the item you're searching for, and who want your particular item
Same drill people, put your item in the 'have' under the CS:GO Lounge 'search' button, and theirs under the 'want' button, it is entirely possible that this kind of search is too specific and therefore no results may come up.

Method 5: Post Multiple Trades on GO:Trade Reddit
You can post only a few times a day so use your posts carefully, try to abide by the rules of the subreddit or your post may get removed by the bot. This is especially helpful if you are trying to sell items for keys. For maximum exposure, make sure to include the regular name + abbreviations in the post. Eg. Include Karambit Vanilla in the title and karanilla in the body, by doing this, anyone searching both of these terms will see your post.

How to make profit
Method 1: The Concept of Overpay
Trading is fairly easy, here's how it works. Let's say I start off with a ten dollar item, I downgrade it for 2 items worth 5.2 dollars apiece, now I have a net worth of 10.4 dollars split between two items, let's downgrade those two items into 4 items now, worth 2.7 dollars apiece, my net worth is now 10.8 dollars. With my four smaller items, let's combine them to get an item worth 10.7 dollars, I have now gained 7% profit on top of what I started out with.

What? The numbers don't add up? I know. When trading, the easiest way to make profit is to accept overpay when downgrading, and overpay less than you got overpaid when upgrading. It does not have to be very much overpay, but you should always seek it - how else will you make profit? The concept of overpay is a controversial idea, but I believe that it is a necessary aspect of trading. It is up to you and the other trader to figure out how much overpay is necessary when upgrading or downgrading, then come to an agreement.


Method 2: Items to Liquid items/More than 85% in keys

If I had a USP Orion MW, it is worth approximately 3 keys or 8 USD, no one would pay me 3 keys pure for it, as that would be paying roughly full market in keys, so what do I do if I want 3 keys? Well, I guess I could always sell it on the market and buy the 2.8 keys or something along those lines, and wait 7 days before those are tradable... NAH!

Instead of doing something so silly, I could trade it for an Ak Redline and something I could trade for a key, like a Glock Water Elemental FT! An AK Redline is a liquid item (see bottom of guide for explanation on liquid items), I could sell it right away for 2 keys, which when you include the 1 key item I just received, would put me at 3 keys! Wow, I just got almost 100% market in keys. Why keys though? Well keys are the currency of CS:GO, they have a fixed price, and you can buy items cheaply with them, instead of (over)paying 10 dollars in multiple items for a 9 dollar item, I could buy the 9 dollar item at 83% market in keys, 3 keys! Now I have gone from an 8 dollar item to a 9 dollar item. Wow! Rinse and repeat.






Method 3: Buy low, sell high!
If you snag a deal and buy something for lets say, 82% market, you have three choices, sell it on the market, make 5% and wait 7 days, trade it up by doing the standard downgrade for overpay, upgrade back up and overpay less tactic (takes time), or you could sell it for 85% in keys (fastest method imo). I would recommend the buying at a lower price and selling it higher tactic, in all my time trading, I've found that this yielded the best results, when doing this however, try to avoid Stattrak knives and items as they are difficult and time consuming to trade, and do this only with popular and in demand skins/knives.

Method 4: Buy with keys or trade with skins, then sell the aforementioned skins on the market
Pretty self explanatory really, the only problem with this is that you have to wait 7 days before the items you buy with the steam wallet are tradable again, not really worth it in my opinion, but to each his own.


Feel free to leave a comment on which method worked the best for you so others may benefit.

Rules to live by:

*If something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Do not panic rush into a trade offer without first carefully inspecting the item from the trade offer window. NOT THEIR INVENTORY. I cannot stress this enough.

*Always double check the wear of the gun you're putting into the trade window.

*Ensure that the other party does not get on CS:GO when dealing in sticker trades, they may scrape the sticker.

*If something is suspicious, remove yourself from the situation immediately. Do not carry on with the trade.

*Check SteamAnalyst for the average market price of the item, try not to trade onto the item if it is on a downtrend. Make sure that you use SteamAnalyst for the other trader's items, you wouldn't want to trade onto an overinflated item and end up losing money.

*Check to see if an item has been duped on the CS:GO exchange.

*Check the floats if the float matters during your trade. The difference between a 0.12 FV M9 crimson web mw and a 0.07 one is a few hundred dollars, don't let yourself lose your hard earned money.



*Always put the item you want to trade for in the window first, then your own. If you forget to put your items in, so what, the other trader will get offended, big deal! If you forget to put their item into the window, you're outta luck, you've lost the product of all your hard work.

*Check their steamrep, see if they're clean, or a well known scammer.

*Make sure you're trading with the right person and not an impersonator. Examine the +reps, are they real?

*Try to avoide rare stattrak knives/unpopular stattrak skins and case hardeneds unless you're sure you can turn a profit or you really want the item.

*Lowtier patterns such as urban/safari/etc. are hard to trade, steer clear of them if you can.

*Falchion/Gut/Flip/Shadow are among the less desired types of knives.

*Inspect the item one last time before sending an offer.

*Stick to offline trade offers, too much can go wrong in a live trade.

*Make sure that they have mobile authenticator enabled, you don't want to be skinless for 72h.

Float Value (FV)

A numerical value that determines an item's wear (Factory New Vs. Battle Scarred items have vastly different floats). Float values are often indicative of the scratchlessness of an item. However, scratches may sometimes not appear in visible positions and therefore it is possible that an item with 0.010 float may appear more scratchless than an item with 0.0010 float. Items with good floats are often very desirable and may augment the value of an item. Keep an eye out for items with good floats!

BTA refers to better than average float/looks on a skin, and 0.00x refers to an exceptionally low float skin.

When you have an item that you don't know the price of, what do you do?

1 - Check the float value, is it special? Eg. 0.007, James Bond float value? Hey! Maybe its worth something! Or 0.00x? Wow! It's so scratchless *_*.

2 - If the item's float is average, does it have a special pattern/fade%/phase/blue%? Is it available on the market?

First consult the Steam Market to see how much a knife similar to yours is being listed for, if it is not listed then you can check Csgozone or Csgoexchange (resource section) to find the phase of your knife if it is a Doppler. For certain fade knives, CSGOZONE also checks the fade % for you. If you still have no idea, take some screenshots and post it on GO:Trade (resource section) under the tag [PC] for pricecheck to try and get it price checked. Keep in mind that a pattern's positioning makes a big difference in price, for example, Karambit Slaughters with diamonds on them, is the diamond centered? If it isn't centered, it won't be worth as much as if it was centered.

3 - If you have identified your item however, and still do not know what to price it at, go on GO:Trade and search it up! Look at how much knives of the same pattern with similar float have been selling for.

4 - If nothing is found, make a pricecheck! (See step 2)





What patterns are above market?

*Blue Gems (Case Hardeneds with large amounts of blue)
*Special patterns, Eg. sloth face
*Special floats, 0.420, 0.1337, 0.007, 0.00x
*Max red tips on M9 marble
*Slaughter Patterns like heart, angel, diamond
*Phase 2/1/4 + ruby/sapphire/black pearl
*Fire and Ice
*Max color Dopplers/max fire and ice
*Katowice 2014 stickers
*Rare stattrak knives that don't sell on the market



Guides for you to consult on your patterns before getting a price check:

Check here first.

Karambit Fade Guide

M9 Fade % Guide[csgoxchange.com]

Bayonet Fade % Guide[csgoxchange.com]

Butterfly Fade % Guide[csgoxchange.com]

Falchion Fade % Guide

Gut Fade % Guide[embed.gyazo.com]

Flip Fade % Guide[csgoxchange.com]

Shadow Daggers Fade %[imgur.com]

Huntsman Fade %[imgur.com]

Liquid Items are an important part of the CS:GO economy, they are the most in demand items and are desirable to trade with, they can be traded for fixed key values.. They can be defined as:

Liquid Items - Popular and in demand items that can be traded for a fixed amount in keys that does not necessarily adhere to the '85% qs rule', eg. Awp Asiimov FT @ 14k or Ak Redline FT @ 2k or M9 Vanilla @ 55k.


Some examples of items that follow this rule:

Vanilla knives
Awp and M4A4 Asiimovs
M4A1-S Cyrexes
Ak Redlines
Ak Vulcans
Max Bets

Sometimes you're having a really bad day, you forgot your coffee that morning, forgot your lunch money, all that jazz, you don't pay attention when you're trading...BAM! Your day just got worse, you just got scammed because you weren't paying attention. To avoid getting scammed, the best thing you can do is PAY ATTENTION and BE CAREFUL. Nothing more to it then that, here are steps that you should follow in order not to get scammed:

*Pay attention, if something is suspicious, extricate yourself from the situation immediately. Delete, -rep, block.
*Be careful, always check the wears on the skins you're trading, make sure its the right person, use your inspect button, its there for a reason.
*Don't press stupid links, learn to read dude.
*Don't download anything that's not from the official site.
*Ignore private profiles, what do they have to hide except a thousand -reps right?
*Ignore low level profiles. If you have a low level profile, level it, people are likely to block you if you are under level 5, take your profile off private.
*Use that thing between your ears, not between your legs, a level 0 profile with a picture of an attractive person is not adding you for what you want them to, they just wanna take your stuff and run.



Scams

Escrow Scam
If you're buying items for IRL money from a random person and they send you a trade offer with their items, but the items get held in escrow for 72h, do not send them the money as they may hit cancel at any time within those 72h and receive their items back!

Switcheroo Scam
When sending trade offers, always check that the wear on the item is correct, if you are trading for a FN item, make sure it is FN and not MW!

Backside/Playside
Some knives such as the M9 Bayonet display their backside on inspect first, make sure that when looking at blue gems, you're looking at the playside!

Trade Link Switch
The item in the inventory may be the right one, but the trade link provided may show the exact same inventory but with a different knife. Eg. Trader's profile has Bayonet Sapphire, in tradelink provided, the knife is a Phase 4 Bayonet.

False Screens/Bad Lighting
Ask the user to take the photo on Dust 2, and make sure to inspect the item in game.

Don't Press Any Links
Clean your computer if you do. Only press links you double check and know are safe, eg. imgur instead of Lmgur, yeah?

Bot Scams
Bots will add you as friends or you'll try to trade a low level account, its all a scam don't fall for it.

Friend Impersonation Scam
Always look to see if the person you're trading with is the right one! Check the spot that says how long you've been friends for.

Teamspeak/Community Server Scam
If you get invited to a teamspeak, do not download anything, even if it says teamspeak update. Don't join random community servers, you may download a RAT or something similar that will cause you to get keylogged - not a good thing, be careful!



Real Money Transactions

Trading for real money is rarely ever a safe thing, buying or selling with real life money is risky, there is always the chance that you may get scammed - I would advise using BTC if you're selling (they pay first) or Opskins[opskins.com] (buy and sell) for your skin needs. If you use Paypal (PP), chargebacks may occur. Even if the money is sent through 'Friends & Family' or 'Gifts', there is no guarantee that you will not get chargebacked.


The moral of the story is, do your due dilligence.

Upgrade - When items are traded for better items, increase in financial value/aesthetics.

Downgrade - When items are traded for items with lower financial value/aesthetics.

Overpay - When a lower tier item is traded for a higher tier/more expensive item, the owner of the more expensive item may ask for slightly more than their item's value in exchange for downgrading their item.

Buyout (B/O) - The price at which a trader will instantly accept a deal.

Current Offer (C/O) - The current offer a trader has on their item.

Keys - The currency used between traders when not using the steam market, they have a fixed value. They can be used to buy items for cheaper than their value on the steam market.




80%/85%/87% - Percentage values used when selling items for keys. 87% is just the average price sold on the Steam Market - (minus) the Steam Market cut. Any percentage 87% or less is referred to as a 'Quicksell'.

Quicksell (QS) - The price at which an item would be sold 'quick', faster than normal.

Steam Analyst (SA) - Traders may refer to this website when discussing the value of their items, displays the average prices of skins and knives sold on the market in the past 7 days. Not accurate for items that are not on the market regularly - eg. The price on a Karambit Tiger Tooth Factory New is not accurate on the website since the item is not regularly available and sold on the steam market. This also applies to rare Stattrak knives that are not sold frequently on the Steam Market.




Trade Link/Trade Offer - Used to send people offline trade offers, meaning you do not have to live trade. I would highly recommend that you use offline offers as you may get scammed in a live trade if you are not paying attention.



+Rep - People will leave comments on each other's profiles or rep threads as 'reputation' after a successful trade. Rep may be helpful when dealing in real money trades and are similar to a resume, people look at it when they decide to trade with you. When looking at another person's rep, make sure that it isn't fake, are the dates of the comments all on the same day? Are they dummy accounts or level 0?

-Rep - Opposite of +Rep, indicates that a trade went poorly with the person.

Steam Level - Lower steam levels mean that people are unlikely to trade with you, you should probably not trade with anyone with a low steam level (under level 5) because they are typically dummy accounts for scammers.

Lowball - Purposely giving a low offer to a trader.

Highball - Purposely overvalue your item to a potential buyer.

Lounger - An insult used by people from Reddit to indicate that you are a lowballer or highballer, depending on the situation.

Vanilla Knife - An unpainted knife, it is considered a liquid item and has a fixed key value at which it can be sold, the 'Quicksell at 85% rule' does not apply to vanilla knives, they are often more expensive than this.



Vanilla Skin - A very battle scarred skin, looks as if there is no skin attached.

Factory New - FN.

Minimal Wear - MW.

Field-Tested - FT.

Well-Worn - WW.

Battle-Scarred - BS.

Mirrored - When inspecting, both sides look identical.

Blue Gem - Case hardened item with plenty of blue.

Karambit - Sometimes referred to as a 'Kara'.

Butterfly - Sometimes referred to as a 'BFK'. Mirrored.

M9 Bayonet - Sometimes referred to as a 'M9'. When inspecting, backside is playside.

Bayonet - Sometimes referred to as a 'Bayo'. When inspecting, backside is playside.

Huntsman - Sometimes referred to as a 'Hunts'. Mirrored.

Shadow Daggers - Sometimes referred to as 'SD', 'Shadow Dags', 'Dags' or 'Buttplugs'.

Flip - Yeah, its called a flip.

Gut - Yeah, its called a gut.

Falchion - Sometimes referred to as a 'Falc'. Pattern is mirrored.

Use these, I love em all!

Websites

{LINK REMOVED}♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to post trades, and offer on/browse other peoples' trades.

GO:Trade Really excellent trading Reddit, many great deals and very helpful people, site that I most recommend using. Do pricechecks and ask questions here! They are super friendly to newbies.

CS:GO Stash[csgostash.com] to look at skins.

Steam Analyst[csgo.steamanalyst.com] To check the average sale price of an item.

CSGO Exchange[csgo.exchange] To check float values from an inventory, phases, steam market or to search for specific items.

Csgozone[www.csgozone.net] To check the float of an item, phases, float rankings, search items, fade % on certain knives, and to check float value of an item on the market.

Opskins[opskins.com] Great resource to use when dealing with real life money. Great way to cash out or in.

SteamRep[steamrep.com] Check someone's SteamRep, only trade with them if they're clean. Don't want to get scammed do you?

Imgur[imgur.com] Great place to upload screens.

Reddit Screenshot List To take nice screenshots with.



Extensions

Steam Inventory Helper[chrome.google.com] You need this to trade. Absolutely no question about it. Great tool.

Lounge Destroyer[chrome.google.com] You absolutely need this when using the lounge! Works like a charm.

Reddit Flair Clicker [chrome.google.com] Really great for Reddit trading, definitely a must have.

Price 2 Key by Faynt[chrome.google.com] A useful Chrome extension that allows users to convert an item's price into keys, includes multiple currencies.


Groups
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

GO:Traders

A safe and fun trade server for everyone! GO:Traders

CS:GO REPorts! Create your own Rep thread for cashrep/trading!

The Dream.

Hope this helped some of you guys out there, feel free to leave a comment or share the guide if it helped you in any way. Happy holidays!

- Alexis