About Item Flipping and Path of Economy

So, every single time someone asks how to get "rich" in this game, the answer is basically "flip items". Other common statements are that this is the fastest, easiest way to accumulate wealth.

Now, I'm by no means "poor", at least in terms of items. However, my wealth was basically obtained by speedfarming Atziri, not flipping. And, I honestly have no idea how one would go about doing that. Sure, buy low, sell high; or variations thereof, like buy high, sell higher.

To me this seems much easier said than done. Sure, learn the economy. Learn prices. Scour trade chat for good deals. I get that part. It just never quite seems to work out like that.

This also got me thinking. There are a ton of tutorials for this game, on basically every subject. There are huge numbers of character build guides. There's masses of blogs about progress towards specific goals (e.g. PlayerX's HC SSF challenge, day 3).


I have never encountered something like this for flipping.


Is it that people feel it's too straightforward to be worthwhile? Do they not want to share their inside knowledge of their chosen market niche? Or is it that there's actually more to it than "just flipping items"? That it's not as easy as people say or think?

With this in mind, I would really like to invite (challenge?) anyone who would respond "just flip items" to take on such a project. To show the technique, the efficiency, the ease with which you rake in those exalts.

So, set aside some seed money (5 ex? 10 ex? 50 ex?), and record your progress over a week or a month or so. Note which items you bought, where, and for how much. Note when you sold them, and the profit you made.

Teach us this "Path of Economy".

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acme_myst wrote:

Do they not want to share their inside knowledge of their chosen market niche?

I personally think it's mainly that. From my experience flippers have an Ayn Rand kind of objectivist outlook, i.e. they are selfish in nature. Not all of them, of course, but enough that very few people exist who would flip, and do so successfully, and at the same time are willing AND able provide a community oriented service like writing a comprehensive guide.

Then there is the fact that the meta of PoE is quite dynamic, so any guide that goes into specifics is in danger of being outdated a few months after.

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Jojas wrote:

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acme_myst wrote:

Do they not want to share their inside knowledge of their chosen market niche?

I personally think it's mainly that. From my experience flippers have an Ayn Rand kind of objectivist outlook, i.e. they are selfish in nature. Not all of them, of course, but enough that very few people exist who would flip, and do so successfully, and at the same time are willing AND able provide a community oriented service like writing a comprehensive guide.

This may be an irrelevant point but any wealth gained via flipping is, in an abstract sense, gained at the expense of everyone else. By this I mean the flipper is providing no services or items beyond the dubious "service" of artificially increasing the price of the items they deal in.

Waelth is a highly subjective term I would say. I started playing PoE in february and since then I made most of my ealth by flipping items and some good drops.
It is pretty rare for me to buy something for 10ex and sell it for 15, but i regularly buy do the said thing in the range of 25c to 2ex and make profit out of that. Sure, I'm not making mirrors worth of items, but it got me from zero to around 100ex in about 350 hours of playtime.

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Jojas wrote:

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acme_myst wrote:

Do they not want to share their inside knowledge of their chosen market niche?

I personally think it's mainly that. From my experience flippers have an Ayn Rand kind of objectivist outlook, i.e. they are selfish in nature. Not all of them, of course, but enough that very few people exist who would flip, and do so successfully, and at the same time are willing AND able provide a community oriented service like writing a comprehensive guide.

Then there is the fact that the meta of PoE is quite dynamic, so any guide that goes into specifics is in danger of being outdated a few months after.

Thanks, and I know you may be right. I'm honestly hoping that you're not, though ;)

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f4sak3n wrote:

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Jojas wrote:

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acme_myst wrote:

Do they not want to share their inside knowledge of their chosen market niche?

I personally think it's mainly that. From my experience flippers have an Ayn Rand kind of objectivist outlook, i.e. they are selfish in nature. Not all of them, of course, but enough that very few people exist who would flip, and do so successfully, and at the same time are willing AND able provide a community oriented service like writing a comprehensive guide.

This may be an irrelevant point but any wealth gained via flipping is, in an abstract sense, gained at the expense of everyone else. By this I mean the flipper is providing no services or items beyond the dubious "service" of artificially increasing the price of the items they deal in.

I know what you're saying, but I'd really like to prevent this thread from dissolving into a discussion about the ethics or added utility of flipping.

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BundesHeinz wrote:

Waelth is a highly subjective term I would say. I started playing PoE in february and since then I made most of my ealth by flipping items and some good drops.
It is pretty rare for me to buy something for 10ex and sell it for 15, but i regularly buy do the said thing in the range of 25c to 2ex and make profit out of that. Sure, I'm not making mirrors worth of items, but it got me from zero to around 100ex in about 350 hours of playtime.

These are basically the claims that I'm talking about. Specifics, are what I'm missing.

There's also a point to be made about efficiency here. Once you start grinding high, well-rolled maps, or running Atziri, you're looking at around 1 ex/hour invested. More, once you reach a certain level of clearspeed and/or MF. Your statement indicates around 1/3 of that. The argument that I hear is that flipping is supposedly much more efficient at generating wealth than "just playing the game", not less so.

I never tried flipping, but generally don't have anything against it since it drives economy and when you need to exchange currency there is always someone willing to do it.
It's the same thing with the real world currency exchange shops.

So I don't really understand hate going to flippers. They really make economy better.
And people who don't understand economy hate them.

Just my view...

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acme_myst wrote:

Teach us this "Path of Economy".

Do you know, why not everybody can have everything?

Because there are very many "everybody" and very little "everything".

Think about it.

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bersi23 wrote:

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acme_myst wrote:

Teach us this "Path of Economy".

Do you know, why not everybody can have everything?

Because there are very many "everybody" and very little "everything".

Think about it.

there is always enough of everything.
but some people couldn't be rich if there wouldn't be other poor people.
for someone to be rich, bunch of other people must be poor. it's a fact.

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otpadnik69 wrote:

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bersi23 wrote:

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acme_myst wrote:

Teach us this "Path of Economy".

Do you know, why not everybody can have everything?

Because there are very many "everybody" and very little "everything".

Think about it.

there is always enough of everything. but some people couldn't be rich if there was no other poor people.
for someone to be rich, bunch of other people must be poor. it's a fact.

But it's also a fact that many people who consider themselves poor are not. They're just blinded by all the things they can't have.

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acme_myst wrote:

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BundesHeinz wrote:

Waelth is a highly subjective term I would say. I started playing PoE in february and since then I made most of my ealth by flipping items and some good drops.
It is pretty rare for me to buy something for 10ex and sell it for 15, but i regularly buy do the said thing in the range of 25c to 2ex and make profit out of that. Sure, I'm not making mirrors worth of items, but it got me from zero to around 100ex in about 350 hours of playtime.

These are basically the claims that I'm talking about. Specifics, are what I'm missing.

There's also a point to be made about efficiency here. Once you start grinding high, well-rolled maps, or running Atziri, you're looking at around 1 ex/hour invested. More, once you reach a certain level of clearspeed and/or MF. Your statement indicates around 1/3 of that. The argument that I hear is that flipping is supposedly much more efficient at generating wealth than "just playing the game", not less so.

Specifics? That highly depends on the state of the game. It really just depends on what items you can find for cheap. I don't follow any particular pattern, but when i see 36% Maligaro's for 20c I just buy them.
As i said, I've played PoE for about 350 hours and I don't think I'm at the point where i effeciently farm the high end content and i sure as hell don't invest 1ex/hour neither do i earn that much. That's what I meant by saing that wealth is a very subjective term. And thus far i've found looking for bargains more effective than running maps.
I'm sorry, I can't really provide specifincs, but I'm also not one of those who really make the game about item flipping.