This guide presents an approach to trading that accounts for real-life factors, such as psychology, economics, and market dynamics. Torn represents many real-world systems in a contained environment, offering a unique opportunity to apply these principles in a realistic simulation. To become one of the best traders, it’s essential to understand these concepts and how they operate within a market. This guide aims to explain the process in a simple, but comprehensive method.
Prerequsites
100m+ - It's important to have a decent chunk of money available for liquidity reasons, as someone may come to you with a very expensive but highly profitable trade. You can still do this with less cash but profit will be much smaller.
Stock ticker - For storing money with easy access
Bazaar - Best margins for selling stuff as you dont pay fees, or sell for lesser value to trader
Torn Exchange Price List - This will be used by your clientele to judge the best rate for themselves. You can also use Weav3r's service to create your pricelist.
Trading Forum Post - Used for client reviews, price listing, posting schedule, and more.
Trusted Friend - For ghost trades
Step 1: Building your Foundation
This step is the hardest and longest, as you will be starting with very little to none. Your first goal should be building your clientele and reputation, as that is what will get you that guaranteed flow of product. It takes time to build a reliable network, you will not become a top trader in one week.
The easiest ( but longest ) way to do this is to advertise on Trade Chat and hopefully pick up clients. For this method to work, you must create an advertisement that is able to both direct attention towards it, and make the process as easy as possible for clients. It should follow these rules:
- Utilize emojis to transmit information faster to consumers.
- Abbreviate text to compact more information under the character limit
- Contain shortened links to save space and make your links more understandable
- Display your best rates to attract more customers
For example, this is the template I use when buying products. It displays information concisely, easy to understand, and easy to trade. You can also add hyperlinks, bolden or italicize with some HTML.
BUYING:💊809k xan 🧸96%Plsh 🌸96%Flwr
& more! MUG FREE
Prices: https://bit.ly/mintprice
Trade: https://bit.ly/minttrade
Doing this will significantly increase your traffic, which increases the odds of completing a trade.
For your price list, you should be using Torn exchange. This platform allows you to setup a price list, calculate trades, and generate a reciept message with ease. Features like this only give your clients more reasons to trade with you.
At the start, your margins should be lower to build your reputation. Personally I go for 4-10% profit margin, depending on the item. More volatile items such as xans and plushies will require a smaller margin due to competition. The more friends you have, the more trust potential patrons will have, leading to greater volume and, ultimately, higher profits.
You'll also want to setup your profile in a way that makes it easy for clients to see whether you're open or closed. Many traders do this with their profile picture and personal information section. You can also display your links there too for easy access.
Another way to build your reputation is to trade with fellow fac members and coworkers. It'll be easy to make trades with them, and you'll have an easier time getting your friend count up.
Reputation Building Techniques
Loyalty Program
Utilizing a loyalty program can be an effective way to retain customers. Once you secure a trade with a new customer, several things go into effect with a program.
"People provided with artificial advancement toward a goal exhibit greater persistence toward reaching the goal. By converting a task requiring eight steps into a task requiring 10 steps but with two steps already complete, the task is reframed as one that has been undertaken and incomplete rather than not yet begun."
By utilizing psychology, you can retain customers far more longer and often. Loyalty vouchers create progress, which builds commitment and consistency. Humans are hardwired to follow patterns, exploit this to keep customers hooked to your shop. Lets say you're doing a program where every ten sales you give them a xanax. If they're a first time buyer, give them the progress of two sales. They will feel more inclined to trade with you, as they're already part of the way there to a reward.
Buying at less than 2% profit
This is an effective method for people to look at your trade chat advertisement and price list. It pulls attention to your post, as it is highly like it'll be the best rate they've seen. Beware, market fluctuations could cause you to lose money.
$1 Items
Listing your items worth less than 5-10k for a dollar is really good for retaining low level clients, as they will have much better use of your cheap items. It also gives a reason for people to visit your bazaar, and possibly convince them to purchase other stuff.
Exclusivity
People love feeling preferred. If you treat your best clients with VIP service, they will become more inclined to make bigger trades or refer you to other clients.
Trade Safety:
ALWAYS STAY HOSP'D DURING TRADING.
ALWAYS KEEP REVIVES SET TO NOBODY.
ALWAYS KEEP YOUR MONEY IN A GHOST TRADE UNTIL READY TO MOVE IT. ( A ghost trade is when you start a trade with a highly trusted individual such as fac leadership, depositing your money into the trade, and leaving it there. DON'T accept/confirm the trade, it will chill there until either the trade expires or is cancelled. )
If you follow these three rules, I can guarantee that the odds of someone taking your money is significantaly decreased.
What to Trade:
Fast moving products:
Plushies
Med gear
Boosters
Drugs
Flowers
Xanax
Alcohol
Supply Packs
Energy Drinks
Equipment for crimes and OCs
Slow Moving Products:
Non RW weapons and armors ( avoid in general if possible )
Clothing
Suitcases
Collectibles
Stat Enhancers
Moving Product:
The best way to sell your stuff is through the bazaar. There are no fees, and other services are available to increase your visibility. My favorite tool is TornW3B, created by Weav3r [1853324]. You can use this tool to gauge how to generally price product, and conduct market analysis. You'll want to keep track of market trends one way or another so you can adjust your prices and stock levels accordingly.
Step 2: Expanding your Horizons
Once you have a clientele built up and some reputation to your name, you can now advance to starting contracts with factions, companies,
and individuals. At this stage, you should have at least 250 friends to establish reputation. You'll want to build a good rapport with higher level clients, as they are more likely to have connections that lead to business. Since you'll be handling large volumes of product, you'll have a much easier time generating a profit, and depending on how contract negotiations go, you could make even more than expected.
All rules in Step 1 still apply, but you'll have more leeway to do 97-98% mv trades. Doing this will attract much more customers and build your rep as a good trader to deal with. Again, the more product that goes through your hands, the higher your profit.
At this stage, it’s highly recommended to setup a spreadsheet to keep track of your finances. You can make your own, find one under tools/scripts, or pay a programmer to create one.
Trading Methods
As you continue to grow, your liquidity will allow you to utilize multiple trading methods. Diversity in your portfolio will help protect you from losses and make you more money.
”You gotta spend money to make money”
There are many ways to go about this, here you can get a little creative and come up with alternative streams of income. Here are a couple techniques that you should be able to begin trialing with your newly built reputation. These are listed from easy to hard.
Hoarding
Hoarding is the process of buying up a product when its market value is lower than average, and selling when it’s value is higher than average. This is an easy one, as many players will list their products for cheap to sell faster. It’ll be tough to snag them in time, as there’s 1000 other traders doing the exact same time at all times.
One method to go about this is to look at the calendar and lookout for upcoming events. For example, let’s say International Beer Day is one month from now. It would be smart to buy up large quantities of beer beforehand when it’s cheaper, and dump them into market for a higher rate during the event.
Another is to look at the ranked war schedule, and sell the appropriate equipment during the war and the days leading before.
Bundling
Bundling is the act of selling a variety of goods as one package. This can be very useful when dealing with faction leaders or other traders. In exchange for giving them a slight discount, you will be able to move large amounts of goods in one go, improving your liquidity. For example, it would be good to bundle xanax, meds, and boosters to a new and upcoming faction to fill up their armory.
Arbitrage
Arbitrage is a strategy where you buy an item that has an abnormally lower market value, and sell it for MV. Your profits come from the price difference between their price and the markets. This is an easy one to do and requires little additional effort.
Consignment
Consignment is a business arrangement where a customer gives their goods for you to sell on their behalf. Lets say some random player somehow managed to get ahold of a Ranked War weapon, and wants to sell it. If they sell it on their own without having enough knowledge of the market and item, it would be very easy for them to get ripped off. In this scenario, it would be best to have someone else (you) sell it in exchange for a cut. For this to work, you must be well trusted ( high friend / enemy ratio ), and be able to sell it at a price that satisfies both the buyer and your customer.
Price Fixing
Price fixing is a much more advanced and difficult strategy to execute, primarily due to the large circulation volume of most items. It involves purchasing all available supply of a specific item within a certain price range, then relisting it at a significantly higher rate to create an artificial price increase.
For example, suppose you want to price-fix televisions, which normally trade around $1,400. Your first move would be to buy out all listings at or below that price, potentially extending slightly above if needed to remove immediate competition. Once supply is cleared, you relist all your stock at $1,600. If successful, buyers will be forced to purchase at your inflated price, generating profit.
However, for this tactic to work, two key conditions must be met:
-
The item must have limited market availability (i.e., low daily volume).
-
There must be significant gaps in listing prices above market value to prevent quick undercutting.
If the item is too common or new sellers quickly flood the market again, prices will rapidly correct, and your margins may vanish before you can sell. Timing, observation, and market control are essential.
More will be added to this guide regularly. Leave questions/comments/criticism under the thread!
![[image: 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/d2df5ceb9130770b3a1655fb6c761e7f/739f2f4e7e0bfbf0-6c/s400x600/b9e3abb855d6f95e55f3ad544db320b6439b1541.jpg){kind=link}
![[image: 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/d2df5ceb9130770b3a1655fb6c761e7f/739f2f4e7e0bfbf0-6c/s1280x1920/6d69d967fd326ace37fa67dbddf921df9b7a4048.jpg){kind=link}
![[image: www.counter12.com]](https://www.counter12.com/img-Ww3967w62339dcz1-40.gif){kind=link}