Become the Donald of Gielinor: Active vs. Passive Flipping

May 2016

Your orange goodness knows what flipping is now. Great! What’s next? Well, there are two kinds of flipping you can do – active or inactive. What’s the difference? Why, that’s what this post is about, actually. Imagine that.

To understand the difference between active and inactive flipping, you have to have a very good brain, very orange skin and weird hair. You certainly have the first as you’re reading this, your skin SHOULD be turning orange. One thing, though. We would not wish that hairdo on our worst enemy. With that in mind, turn on your brain and we will talk about the difference between active and inactive flipping. We strongly believe that you will be able to follow along because your brain is better than The Donald’s. You don’t need the hair.

Okay, enough kidding around. When you actively flip on the GE, you spend hours upon hours on the GE, buying and selling, checking prices, and undercutting those weasel opponents. You want items that have good margins and sell fast. You may sell items that don’t cost that much; however, when you sell thousands of them, profits add up and you make a lot of money. The problem is that this kind of stuff usually has a lot of people trying to sell it. Undercutting wars are quite common.

When you’re undercutting your competition and get undercut yourself, your profit margin shrinks every time. That’s bad for business. We actually recommend thinking about posting your stuff for the same price as your opponents’. Yeah, it won’t sell as fast; however, your profit margin won’t tank like Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign either. Keeping in mind that you’re in the business of high demand items in this case, your stock should still sell out reasonably fast when multiple people buy your items in bulk.

Inactive flipping is a little bit different. When you decide to do it, you probably don’t have time to sit around the GE, pricechecking and undercutting. This means that you want items, which don’t sell that quickly. Ideal items to flip inactively have good profit margins, they are cheaper than normal (for reasons you understand and consider before going in), and they sell reasonably well; however, the bulk of your competition aren’t really interested in them.

Once you find some items you might want to flip inactively, you should consider several pricing strategies. The first, and most safe, is buying for lower price than normal, selling for normal selling price. You won’t stand to lose much gold that way. Second, you could buy for normal price and sell for higher (start with 1% higher and move up carefully, to find the sweet spot). This provides more potential for profit; however, it’s also riskier. The final strategy is buying for lower than normal and selling for higher. This is the advanced strategy for flippers who have balls of steel and very small hands. You stand to lose gold; however, potential profits are nothing to sneeze at most of the time.

Whatever kind of flipping you like more, we believe that your very good brain and orange-y skin can handle it. One thing – if you notice your hair turning weird, abort mission. We repeat, abort mission. No amount of gold is worth the trauma Gielinor will experience after seeing that hairdo.