Apollo's Merchanting Guide
So, since all of the major merchants are making their guides, I decided to include my tidbits of advice as well, even the ones I keep mainly to myself. The way you got to approach the CS is like the way you approach the stock market, with research on the prices and their trends.
Step 1: Create a portfolio of items you want to monitor; Remember to make sure that your portfolio is diverse. In other words, try not to keep all your eggs in one basket. Try different categories of the PL market.
Step 2: Monitor those prices. Look for drops in prices. What I do is create graphs on Excel and Numbers for the prices that I am monitoring so I can help decide which items I want to buy.
Step 3: Set a profit rule for yourself. Mine is buy only if you are sure you can make a 15-20 percent profit per item.
Step 4: While keeping an eye on those prices, when they start to dip, don't buy just yet. Rely on the people's panic to carry down the prices more. THEN you buy. It takes lots of practice to predict the bottom of the drop, so you will get better at it as time goes on and thus profit margins will increase.
Step 5: Buy out items that are cheap and low in supply. This will create a large demand naturally (or artificially, lol!). Then sit on those items for a few days and keep buying any new CHEAP ones that you see make their way into the CS. After a while when you see fit, sell these items. No more than one or two at a time, else you will cut your own supply and demand. In the end, when choosing the right items, you should expect profits of 500k+.
Normally when I do this, I make about 1-2M per financial move.
Step 6: Keep an eye on any good deals in the CS.
Step 7: STAY AWAY FROM ANY NEWLY RELEASED ITEMS! You can make big money off of them, but it is highly likely that you will lose money and lose money hard because the items are so unstable and unpredictable.
I'll continue to add to this relatively short guide. I just didn't want to make it appear as a huge wall of text. These are the just the essentials to know
