Where did all the auctioneers go?

I'm back to writing my blog again. I took a break from WoW to play Rift and check out some console games I had been putting off. My blood started craving a good profit streak and I could not wait to get back into the swing of things.

I moved to a newer lower population server recently and my Glyphs don't sell as much as they used to but I was still able to pull ~150k within a few weeks by lowering my volume and micro managing the market (re-posting a lot)

It's nice to see that not a lot has changed since my break began, I wonder what happened to the podcast "Call to Auction", I really enjoyed that and elaborated a lot on some of their points in my writing. Those guys really inspired me to take more dedication in understanding Auctioning and I wish they were still making shows. :(

I'm still using TSM with inscription, but I hand post some items that fall into a special category for me. Ember cuts are very rare on this server and so is truegold so I post those by hand overcutting because I know the "Sweet Spot" of the market.

The Sweet Spot
This falls into understanding your server and the specific items that have a higher value and are less common. lets say you have noticed that truegold moves ~40 bars a night on your servers "busy" nights. You can shoot to be the 12-16th less expensive auction and still sell your stock. This can increase your profit a lot, for me sometimes 50% or more.

point: You don't always need to undercut if you believe your price is fair and the demand will consume your goods.

Have a good time and make some gold.

Volume Over Margin

I recently have been playing in the glyph market in addition to my usual gem areas of crafting. A principle that all craftsmen should take in to consideration when manufacturing goods from materials in the auction house is the volume of sales you expect to get on a set of items compared to the ROI you anticipate. (ROI == return on investment)

Within a 24 hour period I may sell 4 austere shadowspirit diamond and 1 Effulgent Shadowspirit Diamond

My ROI on the Austere is about 50g, my margin on the effulgent is 150g

Selling the 4 Austere's provides me with more profit then selling 1 Effulgent, likewise if I could sell two Effulgent SDs a day it would be like selling 6 Austere (I wish I could sell 2 eff's a day, they just don't appeal to my server)

Knowing the average of volume of a certain good per day is a great way to maximize your profits when deciding what to make and how much to make how often. Let me be clear that I do not choose to make one of these cuts over the other, I make them both. I use my knowledge of volume trends to know how much I am making, what I expect to get back and how many to list at a time to avoid over spending in deposits from returned auctions.

Everything's Better Down Where It's Wetter

Take if from me.

Okay so I started farming again. Even though I was making a pretty penny in the AH crafting gems (which I am still making great money at). I recently had a large amount of extra time to play, rather than level one of my many alt projects I decided to do a little farming since Azshara's Veil is running for about 7-9g a piece (140-180g per stack). I noticed that I had barely any competition when farming this at peak hours. Then a /who let me discover something I always knew. People hate water levels.

I think it may have started in Super Mario 2-2. Maybe even TMNT, the damn dam level. You know what I am talking about. Diffusing bombs, running out of air, reaching out and finding those first pre-middle school cuss words that dad says when he hurts himself in the garage.

So killing time waiting for my stock of meta gems to move I was able to farm about 3 stacks of Azshara in about 20-30 minutes. I also managed to farm obsidium ore at the same time (dual gathering rogue) and I netted about 1200g total with the stormvine.

1200g in 30 minutes isn't too bad for a boring evening. If herb prices are rocketing pre-raid days on your server get a beverage, some tunes and do a circuit. I also run windowed mode and stream netflix sometimes.

Watch Die Hard, make about 4800g for kicks at the same time. I also bind my water mount to "Z" since I think drawing weapons is a pretty stupid key binding.

Processing Elementium

There has not been a post here in quite some time. This has a lot to do with waiting for the cata tweaks and inflation to adjust. While waiting for the markets to normalize I have been busy making tons of gold in the meta market.

Why meta gems?

1.) I have 2 transmutation specialist alchemists so I can proc on making my meta gems (not that two matters since there is no cooldown on making meta gems).
2.) there is no cooldown on making meta gems.
3.) I have two jewelcrafters at my disposal  so we can double the rate at which we acquire recipes
4.) There are not a lot of people saturating the meta market so competition across many patterns is very low

So I purchase large amounts of elementium which on my server range from 2g to 5+g per peice (I am thresholding this at about 3.5-3.8g) prospect all this while playing internet poker and then load the ah every night.

I'm making a decent profit off of this and an additional amount when I add in the blue gems I am cutting and auctioning or auctioning raw depending on the current market position. I notice that Ocean sapphires are going well over their cut versions often.

I'll be posting more soon!

Take Advantage

One week into the expansion and demand is soaring. Are you seeing peak demand due to all the players leveling and gearing to raid? It is time to take advantage of that while leveling your professions at the same time. Don't hold on to anything that is from cataclysm. Cut, Craft and SELL because this is the biggest demand peak you will see in the next two years.

If you can farm your own mats you will make the highest profit margin you may see until the next expansion. I suggest leveling a farming toon first if you have one and then crafting and posting as you progress through the areas. My personal example is mining and jewel crafting. Just clearing the Hyjal area on my miner I was able to make close to 7,000g with jewelcrafting the ore he mined as he quested. Now at level 82 and in Deepholm he has made close to another 7,000g and this is within 5 hours of play time.

Next week will be the beginning of the decline on the demand for goods. I expect by December 21st to begin seeing enchanting and gem prices normalize based on their drop rates. The next market to show a demand peak will probably be raid mats once people gear to 85. After raids pick up look at stocking some items for the new pvp season.

There is a fortune to be made so now is the time to get to work and stop reading! (oh wait it's a patch day :P )

Cataclysm Stock Pile

With new content within months of release it's time to start talking about liquidating the bubble goods in your bank and stocking up on the long term items which will gain in value post release.

First up is the bubble goods, typically everything that is top line end game consumable or a item with little to know collecting potential.

DO NOT WANT

• epic gems (cut and uncut)
• boe epics
• item enhancements
• spell threads 
• armor kits
• enchantments (end game level)
• belt buckles 
• titanium ore and titanium bars
• arctic furs, icy dragonscales, nerubian chitin, jormunger scales
• frostweave cloth
• Frost Lotus

Most of these goods listed above are not used past 425 when skilling up a profession or a less expensive item can be found in substitution (in other words you can get to your cataclysm level training without anything listed above). epic gems and item enhancements will be replaced in cataclysm with new end tier enhancements.

Next up we have the keep list. If you already have these goods in your inventory I would try to hold off using them before cataclysm as their value will rise 3-5 months after the release of the expansion. If you do not have these goods, try skimming them out of the auction house on a low bid increasing your margins even more as we wait for cataclysm to be released.

KEEP

• Eternals (water and earth)
• Heavy Borean Leather 
• Saronite Ore
• Cobalt Bars
• Abyss Crystals to smash!
• Greater Cosmic Essences
• Green uncut Gems
• all northerend herbs except frost lotus

This list might go further but the idea behind it is keep anything that is required to level a profession and keep them in the most beneficial format (hold stacks of greater cosmic essences instead of stacks of lesser)

Here is my additional tip to the big time stock pile: use the 30 day mail between alts to hold this inventory until the demand is peaking which I predict to be after the first progression raid is on farm for your server.

Why wait so long?

Well after a guild gets something on farm, the alts and power leveling of professions is what many turn to in downtime while waiting for blizzard to release something new to conquer. The first raid that gets farmed generally is when most returning players are active. Therefore more buyers.

One last little thing to watch for is people dumping items that may be more valuable to process. And example would be someone putting 100 raw monarch topaz on the Auction House for less than 4.5g If you have a jewelcrafter than you can easily cut and vendor them at a profit. I anticipate this happening for several items so keep your snatch list up to date!

Guild Research is Gold(en)

You can prevent the loss of sales and gain additional revenue and supplies by researching guilds on your realm and talking with their officers. This article will use mostly pve guilds as an example but many of the principles can be applied across the board.

Know who is buying what, when they are buying it, and what they are buying it for. If a major guild has a set raiding schedule know their schedule, know the guilds policies and how they acquire the consumables needed for their raids. If they craft their own feasts then find out where they get their base mats from, if they buy their feasts work out a deal to meet them 1 day before their raid or on a similar basis and be their provider. Do they make flasks or buy them, are the members left on their own to come with supplies? Make sure you stock your auctions based on the guilds needs or deal with them directly.

If you know that they don't need a specific item when they raid then hold out on putting it up for sale until a guild that does use the item. Let's look at some flasks for an example. Lets say Guild A raids Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday and Guild B raids Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Now you could have a routine of placing 20 flasks in per night at Xg. But with some research you find out that guild A crafts their own flasks with mats from the AH and build B buys flasks directly. Lets also say you are slightly overstocked on icethorn. With your guild research you know that guild A will probably buy your icethorn on Tuesday or buy out any competition and you can get a higher amount for your overstock. Then you can also put maybe 10 flasks in on Tuesday instead of your usual 20 and then move the extra 10 to place auctions in quantities of 30 on Wednesday and Thursday for 48 hours.

these adjustments on a larger scale will create a large increase in your profits over time. especially if the price is fluctuating based on demand. This research gives you a better roi for your flasks and a smarter outlet for excess herbs taking up space in your bank.

The idea of learning more about guild schedules is pretty easy. Another important item to watch guilds for is their progression level. If they get 50-75% of a raid on farm chances are they are disenchanting a lot of items on a weekly bases. most guilds let these shards pile up or they auction them and have to manage the auction house in addition to their guilds. You can be a great service and setup a relationship with their bank officer, make them an offer to purchase their excess shards or items at 30% less then the current AH rate. Every time the guild is done on a Monday you meet the bank officer and purchase their stock, extras whatever they have for you. Flip it for 25% (30% - AH fee of 5%) or use it for your crafting.

Keep an eye out for drama, breakups, and server transfers. Characters max at the 10,000g for a transfer so they will probably try to cap as many trustworthy members as possible. Dumping large amounts of raiding mats and items onto the AH at a low buyout to get the gold. Players leaving with large stocks of raiding mats also will usually liquidate their stocks.

Reading on the forums, paying attention to what guilds are popular and which are not in chat will be a very useful tool to tweak your sales and make relationships that lead to new streams of cash.