The Morning Report -- 2/9/11

Report's a day late this week due to some RL stuff I had going on yesterday, so I didn't have time to post it, but better late then never, right?

Inscription/Netherweave Bags/Flips: 25,586

JC/Obsidium Shuffle: 11,956

Enchanting/Alchemy: 3,631

LW/Vendor Items: 0

LW level:

Start Total: 108,000

End Total: 152,942

Sweet!  I wasn't sure I was going to hit 150k with all the restocking I did last night as well as all thing things I've bought this week to flip, so this number makes me quite a happy bear!  This next week should bring in a TON of gold from flips of V.Life and some other stuff I grabbed.  I decided last week that I'd keep a document open and just write down what I did as I did it through the week, so, if you're interested, you can find all that below. =)

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Bought a Windwalker enchant for 6k this afternoon (almost half material cost) so I'm gonna try and flip that for 12k and see if I can get it to sell.  I'm in no rush, so hopefully it'll sell eventually.  If it comes down to it I can always use it on Tyr when I get back to raiding.

My tank lead was leveling his Eng today so I sent him a bit of my Saronite stock and some Obsidium below the cost that I bought them at.  I normally try to avoid doing things like that, but he's a good friend of mine, and friends are always worth spoiling. =)  So his Eng should be all powerleveled by tonight and he's quite happy about it!

I also sold the Vial of the Sands to a good friend of mine with a payment plan.  I've been giving him gold advice and he's doing pretty well, so I should have the 40k he owes me fairly soon.

Just saw about 55 stacks of Cinderbloom on the AH for 60/stack and less.  I grabbed about 20 stacks for only 40 and sent a mail to the poster.  He often posts cheap herbs in bulk, so I have been trying to catch him online to try and get him to CoD them to me, but this worked out even better -- I set my asking price to 40 instead of 50 since I see he's willing to go that low.  I'll see if he responds within a few days, and if not I'll just have to try again and up my price back to 50.

--

That farmer didn't reply, but posted up a ton more herbs, so I guess I'll just continue buying from the AH for him and keep searching for a new supplier.  I haven't been able to find any reliable ones. =/

Inferno Inks are selling insanely fast on ally...as well as for 20-30g more than they have been on Horde.  So I'll be moving most of my stock of those over there.  A bit of a pain, but I'm rather enjoying being one of the only shufflers Horde Side who still has a ton of ore left. =D

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Just checked out Alto's Stockpiling for 4.0.6 - And Beyond... post and have decided to start picking up cheap Pyrite ore for epic gems later.  I'd been considering this for a while, but hadn't actually done so yet mostly because I'm forgetful.  =P  Not sure what my buy price will be yet, I wanna wait for the other ores to come back down before I decide (since I haven't been watching this market).

--

Looks like someone juste leveled BS...found 6 Bloodied Pyrium Belts for 70g/each, so I snapped them up and will try selling them back into the market in a few days.  I still don't have a BS, so I haven't been able to mess around in this market for real yet, but hopefully I will soon.  As soon as I get LW maxed I'll be switching it, but I'm still having issues finding decently priced stuff. =(  It's all hovering around 200/stack for Savage Leather right now, though I found a stack of heavy for 35/each which I grabbed.

When the prices aren't insanely low I've been selling the rogue/feral druid PvP pieces I've made leveling.  I keep one for myself (Since I would like to PvP a bit) and stick the others I make up for 550+.  I've only sold one so far, but it sold within a day or two of my posting it.  Unfortunately for me, I'm holding on to the other one for now as they've been undercut to 200 atm.  Might wanna look into this on your realm, I'm even using one in my PvE set due to terrible drop luck...and I doubt I'm the only one.

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I love when people list their uncut gems for way below what they should be.  Sure, you just killed the gem market for a little bit.  On the other hand, I just bought 20 Carnelian for 14g/each and Jaspers for 10g/each.  Dust goes for 8g at least and lesser celestials for 14.  Nomnomnomnom.

Finding those makes me feel a bit better about all the transmuting I did last night -- there's a ton of new people shuffling lately and they're flooding the market horribly.  So I had been sitting on 200+ Nightstone/Zeph/Hessonite and decided to do some transmuting both for the patch and because for some reason no one but me is selling Austere cuts right now, so I'm selling 6+ a day for 350g.  (Thought about raising the price, but I'm trying to avoid drawing attention to the fact that I have no competition for as long as possible. >_>)

Anyway, so I went through 3 stacks of each gem last night with xmutes, and had barely any Carn/Jasper/Alicite left to restock on my chanting mats when they sell.  So finding my competition selling them so low makes me quite happy. ^^

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Found a ton of Volatile Life for 6.8g so I bought em all up for the patch.  They're already usually 9-10 so I was quite excited when my friend whispered me tellin' me to check them out. ^^  I'll be trying to flip them for a nice profit after the patch in stacks of 50 and probably 10 as well (Not sure why, but my Airs always sell best in stacks of 10)

--

More crazily low raw gems, so I bought them up if they were under 10g.  There's this one guy who keeps posting at these ridiculous prices from shuffling, so I'm just buying up his stuff.  I have no idea why he's not cut/vendoring, as he's putting these up for 9.5g and with just one unsold auction he'd already be making less than he would by vendoring them.  However, I shall not complain!  Instead I'll just buy 'em all up and transmute them. >=)

Also just picked up 3 stacks of Elementium Bars at considerably below mat cost, so gonna have to figure out what I wanna do with those.  Any suggestions?  I could flip 'em for a decent profit (probably like 60g+/stack) but I feel like there's something better to do with em.  While I don't have a Blacksmith of my own, I do have a friend with one, so perhaps I'll make some buckles.

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At least the herb farmers still exist.  Dropped about 17k on Cinderbloom and Stormvine just now at 65-68/stack.  I'm quite pleased, as there's been no flowers for the past few days.  I'm still bringing in 3-4k a day from glyphs and cards, and when someone goes ink shopping it goes up to 8-10k.  People have started buying Inferno Ink again, probably for the upcoming Faire, so for now they're covering the cost of my herbs and making my glyphs pure profit. Omnomnomnom. ^^

--

O_O  Woah.  Can certainly tell it's almost Faire time!  I sold over 70 ink at 120 a pop to a single person, so I sent them a mail, gonna see if I can't sell all my ink directly to them.  I still have well over 100 ink and I get more constantly, so having a sure buyer and avoiding the AH cut sounds like a pretty good deal to me on this.

--

Keep finding these dirt cheap gems.  Alicite at 8g (yes, below vendor >_>) Carn at 15-20, Jasper for 10-15...So I've decided to move on from selling raw greens for now to metas.  I hadn't been planning to join in on the meta crazy for this upcoming patch, but it's looking like I will be!  I hadn;t even touched the meta market until earlier this week, but...*shrug*  We'll see how it goes, my stockpile isn;t gonna be all that big, only 100 maybe, but it should do well enough I hope.

...Hmmm...but I just found 40 uncute metas up for 190, while both my cuts sell for 300-350, and the new ones will probably sell for more than that...to buy or not to buy...

They're above what I would pay just using my own gems to transmute them (plus no added procs) but that would add nicely to my stockpile.  Screw it, I'mma do it.

7.5k later...guess we'll have to see how this turns out, ne? ^^  Been a bit since I invested so much into one venture, should be fun!

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Finding that converting leather still isn't profitable on my realm, sadly.  I had checked it out early in the week, as well as a while back and it just...isn't. =(  So I'm keeping an eye on it, but damn, I wish the price for leather would go down.  At 200/stack for regular I'm just hoping that someone'll decide to go farm it soon.  150 I can swing (and still do decently in making money as I level) but at 200 not even the high end stuff is profitable right now. -_-

--

Also, I keep meaning to stockpile some Pyrium, but there hasn't been ANY on the AH.  Not a single ore any time I've checked this week.  So I still don't have a buy price decided for myself, nor does it look like I'll be able to actually do that stocking up anytime soon. -_-

Holding Out For A Farmer

Here's something you may (or may not) find amusing to read for today.  I occasionally write silly WoW parodies for fun when the inspiration strikes me, and the other day I decided to do one to "Holding Out For A Hero" by Bonnie Tyler.  Tell me what ya think! ^_^

Where have all the botters gone,

And where is all the ore?

Where's the mining enthusiast,

To go get me some more?

Isn't there a gatherer upon an epic mount?

Late at night I post up my mats,

And I wait for a discount...

I need a farmer!

I'm holding out for a farmer 'til one sends me a tell!

He's gotta be cheap,

And he's gotta be fast,

And he's gotta have bags full to sell!

I need a farmer!

I'm holding out for a farmer who my price will compel!

He's gotta be stable,

And it's gotta be soon,

And he's gotta be able to spell.

Sometime after reset,

In my wildest fantasy,

Someone sees my post in trade --

C.o.D.s me as addressee!

Opening my mailbox, and using all the ore,

It's gonna take a whole army, to keep my stock in store!

I need a farmer!

I'm holding out for a farmer 'til one sends me a tell!

He's gotta be cheap,

And he's gotta be fast,

And he's gotta have bags full to sell!

I need a farmer!

I'm holding out for a farmer who my price will compel!

He's gotta be stable,

And it's gotta be soon,

And he's gotta be able to spell.

Out where Mt Hyjal meets the seas of Vash'Jir,

Out where there's nodes for all to see,

I would know there was someone out there,

Supplying me!

Through the peaks, and the droughts, and the bans,

And the campers and spam...

I will hope for a tell:

"I'll send all that I can."

(I'll send all that I can! I'll send all that I can! Ahhh~!)

I need a farmer!

I'm holding out for a farmer 'til one sends me a tell!

He's gotta be cheap,

And he's gotta be fast,

And he's gotta have bags full to sell!

I need a farmer!

I'm holding out for a farmer who my price will compel!

He's gotta be stable,

And it's gotta be soon,

And he's gotta be able to spell.

The Morning Report -- 2/1/11

JC/Obsidium Shuffle: 19,885

Inscription/Netherweave Bags/Rare Pets: 9,671

Enchanting/Alchemy: 1,901

LW/Vendor Items: -3,038

LW Level: 514

Start Total: 119,000

End Total: 108,000

I haven't been as consistant this week as I was last week...I didn't play at all two days, and missed posting for half the day on a few others.  So while my numbers are lower than I'd like, they're no lower than I expected.

The Obsidium Ore prices Horde side have been holding steady at 80g+ so I hopped over to my ally banker and took a look...and found a ton of cheap ore! =D  I bought 140 stacks at 51-53g and will be moving them to Horde this afternoon.  This bodes quite well for me, as I'm betting my competitors are running low on their stockpiles (maybe?) and it seems like I may be the only one who's had this idea so far.  I'm not sure how well that'll hold true, as I've noticed a lot of people jumping into shuffling but I'm taking advantage of it for now!  Unfortunately I've run out of money on this character now, so I'll have to send more glyphs over to make more.  And some Inferno Ink, I have almost 200 sitting in my gbank with only a few selling each week.  Hopefully if I send some to Ally I'll be able to sell more. =D

*Note:  Joy, APM works for restocking even if I set it up with the ally AH.  I had been afraid it wouldn't.*

I also bought a Dark Whelpling for 2k on ally side for myself.  I love collecting minipets and mounts, and the whelps are always at least 5k Horde side.  So while I could flip it...I'm probably not going to. =)

Speaking of minipets, I picked up four or five Horde Argent Tourny pets for only 900 each this week and tossed them in my gbank (part of why my Inscription sales are so low, I do my Horde side pet buying with that banker).

...I don't want to talk about LW.  I'd decided this week to get it maxed, so I bought all the leather in my buy range (150/stack) and went at it.  I was at the evil, evil level of 507-510 when I remembered why I had stopped leveling it in the first place:  I'm extremely unlucky.  Whether it's quest drops, mini pets, or apparently skill ups in a profession I have the worst luck ever.  I made over 5 Cloak of Beasts before supposing that the Green Helm might work better perhaps.  No such luck.  I made 10 helms.  No skill ups yet.  I made another 5 Cloaks and finally managed to get to 510, but was out of leather.  I came back to it later and bought the Feral PvP pattern to skill up with (and use one of for myself) but it was horrible.  I spent well over 4k trying to get those three points and then even more getting past that.  Worst of it is that it's still not maxed because the AH has had no more cheap leather.

So...yeah.  LW and I are not on speaking terms right now. =P  Perhaps if the PvP gear would sell, I could feel a bit better, but so far I got nothin'.  To make myself feel better I gathered up the mats for a nice tank/dps ring I've had my eye on.  I still need to grab the Chimera's eyes, but it's BiS pre-raiding, so it'll get put to good use in heroics and for guild stuff once I get back to raiding. =)

I picked up almost 200 Volatile Life as well for 7.25/each and will be sitting on those until the patch.  Hopefully I'll find more, but they've been up around 11/each for the past few weeks, so...

I dropped a bit over 25k early in the week for a pair of bikes for my partner and I (which we're both enjoying!) so I'm not terribly displeased with my total gold.  While I had hoped to get back to 120k before the end of the week, I spent quite a lot of gold doing LW and stocking up for the near and far future.

Alchemy is still not profitable for pretty much anything outside of my CD each day, so I'm just going to let it be for now, and check back in a few weeks.  I need the herbs for inscription anyway.  I might sell the Whiptail I farm though, since it goes for 150~ a stack and my buy price is 70g.

Inscription has been a roller coaster lately, but it's still a solid money maker, so I'll be staying in the market for a while I suspect.

Now go listen to this song: The Morning Report I think of it every week when I do these posts. 

Vary Your Stack Sizes

I've been taking a bit of a break this week to do some more real life stuff as well as enjoy two new games I got a few days ago, but don't worry, I'm still here!  I'd like to take a look at stack sizes today.  It's such a simple trick, but it really helps with making more sales if you're selling things like raws mats, and sometimes even crafted goods.

I've been seeing a ton of people lately who don't seem to understand this concept.  You know those people who post up 20 dust as singles?  Or Essences? Or gems?  Or leather?  Or...do you see what I mean?  They're missing out on sales by only selling one stack size.  Not to mention the fact that when they do post singles in large volume it's a pain to get to the higher stacks.

Like this.  This guy had well over 40 singles posted.

A lot of people who play this game are very, very lazy.  If someone needs a bunch of gems to level JC, they'd rather buy a 20 stack and save time if they have the option.  What does this mean?  If you're the only person selling 20 stacks of those gems they need, they're going to buy a ton of stuff from you, just to avoid hassle.  Best part?  They're often willing to pay 3g or more extra on each gem to do so.

Same goes to the person who doesn't need something in a full stack, but needs more than just one of an item.  They'll pay more than they would per item as a single for a stack of five.

Now, I'm unsure if these people are THAT lazy/unattached to their gold or if they're just bad at math, but if you aren't catering to them, you should be!

If I have enough stock of an item I'll post 20,10,5,1 and then more random numbers in between if I have enough.  Today I put a bunch of dust up.  A BUNCH.  A few 20s, 2 10s, 4 5s, and then random numbers.  16, 8, 13, 18, 3.  I was only doing it as an experiment but a few of these weird stack sizes sold out within a few hours today.  My guess would be that they have a specific amount they need to get the chant they want at the time, and so buy however much they happen to need.  I've never seen anyone on my server post these random stack sizes before, but it's doing fairly well, so if you're like me and swimming in extra dust, take advantage and try this out. (Though I'd avoid doing it on high deposit items, I don't think they'll sell steadily enough to make that a very good idea.)

Varying stack sizes work well on other things too -- I used to sell Heavy Borean Armor Kits in singles, doubles, and 4s (for tank alts mostly) and the 4s and 2s sold almost as well as the singles.

So take a look at what you're selling and then think on what people are likely using it for.  Or you can do like me and just post random sizes and see what does well.  If there's anything you're not posting multiple sizes of, I suggest you jump on that, cause it's a good way to diversify without spending a copper. =)

In Depth Look at My Shuffling Practices

This post is for the benefit of a friend, myself, and anyone else who happens to be interested I'm going to go into the details of what I do in my Obsidium Shuffle.  Remember to check prices out for yourself if you don't play on my realm. =P

The spreadsheet I use is found in this forum post: 

Just My Two Copper Forums: Prospecting/Shuffling/Transmuting Spreadsheet

The Consortium also has The Shuffling Spreadsheet That Killed Them All which I haven't tried out yet but have heard good things about.

To start with I buy any ore under 70g/stack.  This is the best limit I've found, as if I lower it to 65 I can't seem to get enough ore.  So when I check out Obsidium I will buy EVERYTHING 70g and under.  For my market if I buy at 70/stack I make about 105% profit.  (I just updated my spreadsheet now that I know my market better.)

I send some of it away to my banker for a stockpile and the rest gets stuffed into my JC's bank or sent off to the banker for the purpose of returning it so I can store it in my mailbox.  Since I have anywhere from 2k-6k ore at a time this helps me save a TON of space.

Next step, obviously, is to prospect.  Here's the breakdown of what I do with my gems.

• Carnelian:  All of these are turned into Carnelian Spikes and sent to DE.
• Hessonite:  These sell quite well and steadily to leveling JC.  I put several 20 stacks up each day along with a few singles.  None of these are DE'd and none need to be, they move fairly quickly.
• Alicite:  Most of these get crafted.  Occasionally they sell for 20g/each and I'll stick some up.  However if you are working with a smaller stock I would avoid doing this, as you'll probably make more by crafting/DE.
• Jasper:  Most of these get crafted.  They can also sell decently though so if you prospect in large amounts you can sell them raw as well.  I put them up in 20s and singles, and am sure to put up singles on the daily day.
• Zephyrite:  I put these up in 20 stacks for 20g/each and they sell to people leveling (I guess?) since people are lazy and don't want to have to buy multiple auctions.  So I can usually get a good number of sales even though it's a higher price since people are lazy.  Most of these though I save up for the daily day.  On said day I will put up singles as well as the full stacks and they almost all sell.
• Nightstone:  Again, no crafting for these.  They are posted in 20 stacks regularly as well as singles as they have a pretty high price even on non-daily days.
• Rares:  I post a couple of these of each color if the price is above 20g, but other than that I've been stuffing them in my gbank.  The only one that seems to be worth much of anything is the Inferno Ruby, those always move quickly and for a good price.  I've only got a few cuts right now so there's not a ton I can do with the others...if anyone can think of anything else to do with them drop a comment.
• Blue Jewelry:  I post these on the AH for 150-200g a piece.  When I start getting multiples of the same thing (or notice that one never sells) I send it off to be DE'd.

The daily gems are Nightstone, Zephyrite, and Jasper so having a stock of them for when the daily rolls around is a good thing to have.  (Sorry Mori, it was Jasper not Hessonite.)  Remember not to sell them all though...Once on the Zeph daily I put up and sold everything and then realized that I didn't have any left over for me. >_>;

If you are only doing small scale shuffling I suggest only crafting Alicite, and only keeping a stack or so of Jasper ready for daily days.  the enchanting mats sell faster and almost always for a higher profit.  However, once you get to the point of prospecting 1000+ ore a day it's important to diversify.  If you make 200 Alicite and 180 Jasper into Lesser Essence and Dust you won't be taking full advantage of doing things on such a large scale, because you'll have too many Enchanting mats to move in one night when you could have made some sales of the raw gems.

For me, selling Enchanting Scrolls is a loss, I make more by simply selling the mats.  However, I don't have access to Twilight Highlands on my enchanter yet, so it may be worth looking into for others.

I've been avoiding Shadowspirit Diamond transmutes for now, as my spreadsheet shows them at a lower profit for everything other than Alicite.  If I step up my shuffling some more I will be moving into this though (yay diversifying!) but I haven't hit that point quite yet.

In preparation for the upcoming patch it is likely a good idea to get some uncut metas piled away due to the new recipes being put in.

Broke 100k!

Inscription/Netherweave Bags/pet flips: 33,615

JC/Obsidium Shuffle:  31,526

Enchanting/Alchemy:  2,942

LW/Vendor items: 1,566

Total Profits: 69,649

So, I had a pretty good week this week, and a I knocked my goal of 100k by today out of the water...

Yay!

Almost 120k!  ^^  Not bad at all I don't think!  I'm pretty excited about hitting 100k, so I'll probably buy myself and my partner Mechano Hogs to celebrate.  I've already got the Titansteel for them, just need to get the Bolts and have a guildie make them. =)

After the patch I might be able to add a few more items to my Alchemy line up, that way I can start seeing more profits there.  Not sure if there's much to be done for LW at this point.

Need to level my priest up more, but whenever I que for dungeons lately I've been getting a stream of terrible DK tanks.  Making healing considerably less fun.  So I've been working on getting my rep up on Tyr and doing dungeons as DPS to learn them before I start tanking them.

Been taking a look at epics to possibly flip, but I haven't seen anything so far that's struck me as a good deal.  Tried looking at Lifes as well, but they've all been over 10g constantly the past few days. =(  So my plan to stockpile those has kinda been failing.

Glyphs are flying off the shelves the past two days, which is a relief.  Wasn't enjoying  the measly 2k I had been getting before that.

Anyone have any good flipping ideas?  Nothings sticking out to me, but I have a feeling I'm overlooking something...

Zephyrite Daily = Victory!

Just a quick update tonight since I spend the evening watching Wall-E with my partner.  Sold a TON of Zephyrite today as it was the daily for it, so I emptied about half my stock for 25-20g throughout the day.  I'm rather relieved that so many sold as I've been running out of bank room with them and have cut and vendored a stack or two just to free up some space (I had over 500 of just this gem, as opposed to my stock of 100-200 on the others).  I'm now down to a comfortable level with them, having sold 80+ singles and 2 full stacks today.

Not all 278 of these sales were from today, but a TON of them were.  Always nice to move so much in one day.

By the way, does anyone know if Mysales just uses an average of sale price to get this data?  Cause I don't think I've ever sold a single Nightstone for 75, usually they're around 30-35...but I also sell them in  full stacks which might be screwing with what it reports.  If it DOES just average it all together, is there a way to make it split that data?  might be useful in seeing how much of each stack size sell...

I also had someone go on a buy spree with my Inferno Inks, which makes me a very happy scribe!  I sold about 15 singles and a stack which was a relief.  These haven't really been moving at all and I was starting to get rather worried, but it seems I had just hit a lull in their sales for the past week.  Glyph sales are also up though I can't figure out why.  My market is confusing the heck out of me lately.  First the constant camper (who then vanished and hasn't returned) and then the random undercutters...  I have no idea where they went but I'm back to pulling in at least 3k from glyphs, even with the price of them dropped to an average of 50g each or so.  I lowered my fallback as well, from 270 to 120.  While I was occasionally making 270g sales, the 120 are still a big profit and people seem much less reluctant to buy them.

I just had a thought to the random people jumping into and out of the glyph market lately...maybe they're people who read that glyphs make a lot of money fast, tried it out and then realized that it doesn't?  Or did it wrong and didn't wanna keep at it?  Or perhaps they started playing around in the market and stopped when they realized that it requires a fair amount of upkeep?  I have no idea.  What I do know is that if someone's going to rock the boat in my market, I wanna be the one doing it.  That said, I have a feeling that the market is settling a bit and I may have found a sweet spot of sales.  By keeping the average price 30-60 and no higher than 120 buyers are still willing to buy and new scribes won't be as tempted by uber profits.  That's the hope anyway.  I was probably asking for it by keeping the price of glyphs so high for so long even after herbs dropped.

I'm glad I had stocked up ink and herbs, as prices have been way up the past few days (I'm talking going from 55g/stack to 100g/stack) so I'm eating into my stock a bit but I still have 600 or so ink left, which I'm hoping will sustain me until they drop back down.  Oddly, ore prices have also gone up again, I'm wondering if the farmers either all went on vacation or...what.  I dunno.  I went to buy leather to work on my LW and found the same issue, Savage Leather is 10g each when they've been hovering around 5.

Expect a weekly update tomorrow on my profits for the week and whatnot. =)  But for now...go watch a Pixar movie! 

Low Level Money Making

About a week ago I rolled a hunter on a brand new server with an old friend of mine.  Given how much fun I've been having making gold I decided to make a pet project out of making money over there too.  My hunter is only level 31, but he already has 2000 gold!  How?  Let me tell you...

I spent a bit on herbs to restock and level up a bit more, but you get the picture. =)

The most effective way I know of making money from scratch is by running around the city of your character and buying every single pattern you come across.  They'll pretty much fill up your bags at the start if you're like me and only have 6 slot bags from questing.  However, stick these up on the auction house for 30-50 gold and wait a few days, relisting them when they fall off.  With any luck a few will sell giving you a small place to start.  Since I started in Undercity I found it very easy to do this, as I just ran around the inner circle once and then the outer circle.  I even got lucky and snagged a green recipe along my trip which sold within the first day...as did the second one I picked up.

Selling vendor recipes has always been a favorite method of mine for making easy gold, even as a level 1.  As you get higher and have access to more recipes you can make more and more off of this strategy by flying out to places like Tanaris and Everlook and picking up a few of all the recipes there.  If you have access to cross faction trading, grabbing all the cooking recipes from the master chef guy in SW is also VERY profitable.  I usually pick up 2-3 of all the non BoP recipes and trade them to Hordeside and sell them for 50g each...and they're all gone within a week.  Every couple of days I often get sales of every recipe or formula I have for a specific prof to sell all to one buyer.  I love completionists. <3

After a day or two of doing this I had about 150 gold, so I picked up my professions and started working on those -- I picked Inscription and Herbalism to feed it.  I'd highly suggest Inscription as a money maker for low levels especially if you have some knowledge of it already.  It might not work as well on a high population realm, but on both my main (medium pop) realm and this new one (low pop) I'm making much more money than I feed into it as I level.  I checked the auction house and found very little competition to be had (3-4 posters) and pretty good profits, so I felt pretty safe in this choice.  After going out and picking flowers for a bit I had leveled it up to the point of being able to do the minor glyph cd and managed to get the Blessing of Might one which I've been selling at least one a day of since for 80ish gold.

I used what I've learned from my main banker to help me chose which glyphs to make, along with my knowledge of classes in general -- Lightning Shield is an early glyph that every Enh Shammy wants so I made sure to always have two of those up.  I've been doing my discovery every day and keeping 2 of each of the better glyphs up and have done pretty well for myself as a very low level...800 each time I pick up my mail is pretty good I think! =)  I should be able to afford epic flying as soon as I can get it at this rate, which will be nice.

I plan to do some small flipping soon and see how that goes on here.  I may try Volatile Life as I've heard that's been successful for a number of people by buying early in the morning and marking it up to post late at night.

Once I get to Outland i'll be adding the Netherstorm vendor parts and pets to what I sell, along with (obviously) more glyphs the longer I have the character.

I can't think of any profession other than being a scribe that can make so much profit right out of the gates, very helpful for making money as you level up.  How would you guys make money on a low level character?

Building a Good Reputation

Something that I've learned over the past few weeks is that the phrase "nice guys finish last" is a filthy, filthy LIE.  I make more sales because I'm friendly and help people out when they ask for it.  Yes, seriously.

The place I noticed this most prominently was my glyph market.  I tend to sit in Org and listen to trade while doing other things (both RL and in game) and if I see someone ask a question, or for help, I'll send them a tell either giving them the info they were looking for or seeing if I can't hop onto an alt and give them a hand with what they need.

I did this partially because sitting in Org is kinda boring, but partially because helping people is fun for me.  But I noticed a while ago that not only guildies are seeking me out above my competition when buying glyphs -- random people I've talked to in trade are as well!  When I see a name I had been conversing with a few days prior buying 9 glyphs all in a row, it feels like a nice reward.  Especially when I get a tell saying they bought my stuff because they want the money going to someone nice, or someone they know. =)

Mind you, I'd make glyphs for my guildies for free if they'd ask, but I won't complain if they decide to buy em from me instead. =P (Dear Exile readers:  Next time you need a glyph, just send me a tell first!  I <3 all of you and thus you can have free glyphs. =D )

If I see someone asking in trade for a glyph made I'll send them a tell and ask them about it.  Usually it's because I've got the glyphs posted for 250+ and they can't afford to pay so much.  So I cut them a deal on that glyph and they then buy from me instead of my competition while they finish decking out that alt.  It's pretty sweet.

It also happens if I'm barking Mysterious Fortune Cards.  Someone'll send me a message asking me about them or whatnot and I'll have a friendly conversation with them and they then go forth and spend 1k in fortune cards.

Of course there's always a downside.  I found someone in trade earlier this week, a new player, who was asking for addon advice.  I sent them a tell and we had a nice conversation about what addons I like to use for what, and she went on her merry way, adding me in case she had further questions.

Since then, she has constantly asked me for money, glyphs, ink, herbs, runs through dungeons...you name it and she's tried to get me to give it to her.  I felt bad at first, as I remember being a new player.  So when she asked if I had a Levitate glyph she could have, I gave it to her.  But then she asked for several more and I said no.  She asked for gold making tips which I happily gave her, telling her that she should pick up herbing and mining and go farm a bit for money.  Instead she decided to pick inscription and herbing, since I had mentioned that I made a lot of money from it.  Upon finding out that she has done this I believe the conversation went something like this:

Her:  I picked up inscription, do you have any Alabastor Ink?

Me:  Nope.

Her:  How about Peacebloom?

Me:  Nope.  Why did you get inscription?

Her:  You said you make a lot of money with it.

Me:  ...Yes, I do.  But I've spent a lot of money and time leveling it up, learning all the recipes, learning the market and making myself a spot in it.  I've been mostly controlling the glyph market on here for months.  It's not something you'll be able to jump into and make a ton of money with.

Her:  Okay.  Do you have any Midnight Ink?

I've never had this issue before, but this kid is driving me crazy!  >_<  Every time I log on she's asking me for everything she needs.  I'm contemplating ignoring her, but I hate hurting people's feelings.

...I'll probably do it anyway.  Hopefully she doesn't remember my main's name, as I think I mentioned it once in passing. 

But anyway.  If you work on your server to become known as someone who is fair and kind to your customers, it'll probably get you more sales. So try whispering someone if they have a question you know the answer to -- helping people on your server can really pay off (literally! :D), just be sure to avoid crazy, lazy kids.

Reorganization

After reading Stokpile's post on The Method he uses for his AH machine I've decided to reorganize how I post and buy things.  Right now I buy and sell everything on my bank alt.  I'm making profits, but I don't really know what's making the most money for me, nor do I have a way to tell if I'm losing money in a particular market from doing something wrong.  Thus I'm going to split it up a bit -- my banker will continue buying/selling my Inscription stuff and bags, but my JC will be buying/selling the things I get from the Obsidian Shuffle, my LW will handle LW goods, vendor pets (since he's the one who buys those anyway) and cooking.  I suppose I'll keep my flip stuff on my banker as well, and just be sure to note that the money that came in wasn't from Inscription.

Unfortunately I already had done my posting for this morning, but I'll be sending things off to different sellers tomorrow so I can get more organized. =)

--

Alright, I reorganized Tuesday afternoon after everything came back up, and so far am really liking the split.  I sent things to different characters to be posted, and each posting character got 5k gold.  They are only allowed to buy things for the markets they are posting for.  This way, when I check back after a week all I have to do is subtract 5k from each of their totals and I'll see how much profit I made!  I can't believe I never thought of that on my own. >_>  It's only been a few days but I've already noticed quite a lot from making this change...

Glyphs are my most profitable market, followed by the mats and jewelry I get from shuffling.  Every Tuesday after things come back up I'll make a weekly post on how each of my markets are doing at them time, to help myself keep track of things.  I definitely need to be more active on my LW though...but when I finally got access to Twilight Highlands and the vendors there I bought the recipe for a leg armor...only to find that it's creating an error in my bags and saying it's not there.  Nothing I've tried so far has fixed it, so after I try disabling my addons later today if it still isn't fixed I guess I'll submit a ticket.

I'm planning on testing out the old leg armors and seeing if they sell at all.  I've read a couple people are selling them still for a good profit, though I'm not sure who would buy them.  Maybe I'll try old enchants too and see if they sell well.

I have a feeling I'm missing out on a lot of stuff for enchanting.  However, my enchanter isn't even 80 and is another druid (which I don't feel like leveling again atm) so I'm not sure yet if I'm gonna wait for a while and then just bite the bullet or if I should do it now.  I haven't looked much into how profitable the higher enchants are so I'm not sure how much I'm missing out on.  As is I've been focusing on my 57 priest who is my tailor.  I have a feeling getting him to Northrend level at least is a good idea so I can make Frostweave bags in addition to Netherweave.

Lesse...The other market I'm not making much with right now is Alchemy, but I'm thinking that's because most of the stuff to make is sub-mat prices right now. =/  I still make 300g+ a day from my volatile life > air transmute at least.

Oh!  And I sold my Hyacinth Macaw!  It was only for 7k, but was still a nice 3k profit, and now I don't have to worry about the dropping price on it anymore.  Vial still hasn't sold, but I'm not too worried about it anymore.  If I don't find a buyer for at least 45k within a few weeks I may just learn it myself on Tyr.  Cause it's a pretty neat mount and I can use it to ferry my partner around while we're questing. ^^

Well, if it's done nothing else, playing around with how I organize has made me notice which markets I need to expand in and find more things to sell.  If you've been thinking about reorganizing, go try it before you post your stuff tomorrow.  Whether you're just looking to narrow down (or widen!) the glyphs you sell, or if you want to do a complete overhaul of your daily routine -- do it now.  It'll only take a few minutes and could really help you out in the long run.

*Please note* Be sure you're paying attention to what you're sending to which toon.  I ended up sending a ton of ore, raw gems, and enchanting mats to my scribe instead of my JC to post because I had forgotten to switch the name. >_>;

My Current Glyph Market

Heh.  Someone on my server beat me to my glyph wall idea.  Only they're doing it badly.  They stuck one glyph up of everyone they have for about 30g.  Thus, I shall now buy them out and save time on crafting! =D

Alrighty, if they were 30g or below (mat cost) and had less than 5 listed at or below that price, I bought them all out.  Now I'll repost them and avoid having to make these particular glyphs for a while now.

--

After looking at this person's posting more closely, I'm pretty sure they're not doing a wall.  The most of any one glyph they ever posted was two, and their price was anywhere from 25-40g in increments of 5.  I think it might just be someone who has no idea what their doing. >_>  So I reset the glyphs that it was viable to do so with and left the others for now.  He seems like he might farm his own herbs, or he just doesn't play much, since he still hasn't come back and posted more yet.

If he wasn't posting at different, random numbers I'd think that this seller was trying to force others to take a loss by selling so cheap.  But that's just not the impression I get with this person.  But I can;t understand WHY they're posting at 20-100g undercuts on everything.

Maybe they felt glyphs shouldn't cost so much and that scribes are ripping people off?  I don't know. >_<

--

Hmm.  Looks like at least one other person has started posting randomly at very low prices.  This leaves me the option of either buying them out on the good glyphs, or giving up on selling there for now until they get bored.  For now I'll watch and see what they'll do...if they continue as they are now, they'll probably run themselves out of money.  If they're still here in a little while I'll go back to preparing a glyph wall.

If it comes down to it, I'm pretty sure I can beat out most people on my server if it comes to a  game of "who can afford to take losses the longest" in order to push the other person out of the market.  I have (fairly) deep pockets and multiple other markets to live off of while I wait for glyphs to come back if I do this. >=)

If I do it though, I want to make sure I do it well.  Thus I'm going to wait until I've learned all the major glyphs.  I've got all the minor ones already, but I still need to do a few researches to get the major ones.

--

Even with the majority of my good glyphs now going for 30g and under, I still managed to pull in about 5k with them, so not too bad.  =)

If you have any guesses as to what these people are attempting to do, and/or suggestions on how I should deal with them feel free to leave a comment.

Cheap Extra Storage!

I've found that I can never have enough storage space.  On my main banker I've filled up his normal bank space and am running out of room in my five gbank tabs. So I've been keeping an eye on trade for the last few days for anyone selling a guild. That way I could grab it on one of my unguilded toons for and get more room for the stuff I'm not gonna be moving any time soon.

A few minutes ago I found someone who just wanted to drop their guild completely.  So I got a whole other gbank tab for free, PLUS the cheaper expansion of the lower slots.  =)

I'll probably be moving a bunch of Saronite and some pets and stuff into this one for now and then forgetting about it for a while.  This way I won't be tempted to sell it now when I see it AND I free up a ton of space in my main gbank. Victory!

I've actually seen a couple of people looking to get rid of their gbanks over the past few weeks...if you're running out of storage space and have a toon to spare I'd keep an eye out for these cheap/free storage spots.  Hopefully you get a better guild name than mine though...my normal gbank is "Captain of the Failboat" but this one I just bought was "LUCKY THIRTEEN" which annoys me due to the full caps. >_<

Barking Definitely Does Make a Difference

Just finished listening to the first episode of Auction House Junkies a few minutes ago while doing my daily prospecting.  First thing I wanna say is that if you haven't listened to it yet, go check it out -- it's enjoyable to listen to and quite informative.

Cold talked a lot about Mysterious Fortune Cards and the fact that they should be "barked" (which I had never even heard of before listening to the podcast today and doing some reading) instead of just posted on the AH.  I plan to try this out on my server, as right now there are very few people posting the cards and I have never seen anyone barking them.

Due to my lack of knowledge on how to advertise well a this time, I'll be leaning heavily on Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mega-Compilation post.  I'll have to see if barking ups my sales for these, I'll post about if it works well for me later.  As is, I've been posting them in vary stack sizes and they sell slowly, but for a decent profit.

They also point out something I've started to notice as well -- there appear to be a lot more buyers in Cata.  I've been posting my dusts, essences, and gems above the first few posters of such things, and finding they pretty much all of my stock is sold by the morning.  It's helped me pull in a fair amount more gold than I would have if I'd just blindly undercut. 

--

Oh wow.  I sent out one bark and sold 12 of the cards INSTANTLY.  Interesting...I'll have to be sure not to spam, but I'll bark every now and again to see if it continues to instantly bring in people.  

--

...Maybe I should add a "Please gamble responsibly." to the end of my barks.  One person just spent over 1000k on them only to get 22g back...I feel kinda bad. >_<

--

They are definitely selling MUCH faster with barking, I had to go and recraft to keep up with demand...and I'd posted a hundred to begin with!  Much better than the occasional sale I'd been getting before.  I'm only selling for double the mat cost right now (20g) but I'll probably up it tomorrow or the next day by a bit.  I've never had an issue with getting a ton of small sales rather than 1 big one, so I'm pretty happy with this addition to my income! =)