How to Read a CS2 Seller's Track Record Before You Buy

Every listing on a peer-to-peer market belongs to a person, and two figures describe how that person trades: how often they complete a trade, and how long they take.

Price gets the attention. These two decide whether you receive the skin.

Completion rate shows the share of a seller's trades that finished. Of everything on a listing, it tells you the most.

Below 80 percent, you face a real chance of waiting several days and then getting a refund instead of a skin. You get the money back, you lose the time, and the skin may have gone up in price while you waited.

Completion rate varies a lot from seller to seller, which is exactly why it's worth checking instead of assuming. A seller with a long, strong history is a different bet than one with a handful of trades and a mixed record, even if their listed price is identical.

Hand-over time shows a seller's average wait before sending. On CS2 it runs to days in most cases, which reflects Steam's 7-day trade hold more than a slow seller.

Read it together with completion rate. A seller averaging six days with a 98 percent completion rate trades well within Valve's limits. A seller averaging two hours with a 30 percent rate will often never send.

A low asking price and a reliable seller have nothing to do with each other.

Picture a knife with several listings at different prices. The very cheapest one might sit well below the rest of the pack, and that gap is usually the tell - it often belongs to a seller with a thin or shaky trading history, not to someone offering you a genuine bargain. A listing priced closer to the middle of the pack, from a seller with a strong completion rate, is frequently the one that actually gets the item to your inventory.

PoshSkins shows the cheapest listing you can buy with good odds, so the price on the grid matches the price at checkout.

1. 1
   Completion rate at 80 percent or higher
2. 2
   A hand-over time you can accept, keeping in mind that days tends to mean a trade hold
3. 3
   Extra scrutiny for any listing far below every other price
4. 4
   A refund request if the skin has not arrived and you no longer want to wait

A peer-to-peer market will show you a cheap listing from someone who has not completed a trade in months. Spend ten seconds on the seller's record before you spend money on the skin.