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! =)

The Only Place I Farm

Farming is the bane of my existence 99% of the time.  Flying my shammy in constant circles looking for a node (only to find one and see a druid flying away) has never seemed like a good use of my time.  However, I have learned of a spot that doesn't make me feel like I'm going brain dead.

If your herbalist hasn't done the quests in Uldum, try going to the Cradle of the Ancients to pick up Whiptail.  Unfortunately it won't work if you've quested through the area, as after the riverbed isn't dried anymore the herbs don't spawn.  There's 3-4 nodes that respawn every 6/7 minutes or so that almost no one farms.  I've found that I can just hang out near my first spawn point and wait for them to pop back up while I tab out to read a blog, check my forums or email, or even write a blog post! (Which I'm totally not doing now... >_>)

7.5 Minutes was the longest I had to wait for a respawn, it was usually closer to 6.5

I just make sure I can see my minimap (I play windowed) and go about my business, going back to herbing when a node pops up on my minimap.  This nets me anywhere from 6-16 Whiptail (Plus Volatile Life) for about a minute of playing -- I usually get about 13 per pass of the area.  Works very well for if you need to write a paper or wanna read something else while still picking up some gold.

60/7.5 = 8 (About how many spawns per hour)

8x13 = 104 Whiptail

104x 8 (price per flower) = 832g/hour

So for me it's around 832g/hour.  Not fantastic, but pretty decent if you wanna add a bit of g while working on your other stuff.  Alternatively, you could do this while listing auctions, or while questing on a different character.  Post a bag full of stuff, log onto the herbalist to pick a round of herbs.  Finish a quest, log over.

It also works out quite well for me since my herbalist is also my alchemist. I don't have to move at all to do my Volatile Life transmute to Air each day, nor do I have to worry about not having enough Life if I do a few runs of this a day.

For me this method allows me to do some farming while letting me feel more productive than I otherwise would, so I love it.  Plus it's not anywhere near as boring since I'm barely spending any time doing the farming. Anyone know of any similar spots for mining or other herbs?

Flipping Adventure!

I've done something risky.  I managed to snag a Vial of the Sands for only 36k from someone desperate to move his fast yesterday.  He'd been trying to sell it for 42k and I talked him down to 36 after about an hour of him failing to sell it in trade.  I'm pretty excited about this, since it goes for at least 50k on the AH on my realm.  There's only one other seller right now, so I'm resetting the price up to 70k right now and am hoping I'll be able to sell it for at LEAST 55k.  This is by far the biggest thing I've ever tried to flip, but the profit should be really nice when I get it to sell.

I've also got a Hyacinth Macaw I snagged a few weeks ago for 4k, I've been trying to sell it for 10k but haven't had any luck.  If it's still not gone in a few more weeks I may lower my price, but I'm not sure if it's not selling because the price is too high or because no pet collectors have been buying right now.

Fortunately I'm back up to 40k liquid even with these tying up so much of my gold.  I'd dropped below 30k for the first time in a long while after buying the Vial and had been rather worried about not being able to continue buying up herbs for glyphs, but that's definitely not going to be an issue.  And my the camper I've been dealing with seems to have taken a day off, so that helped a huge amount in recovering from the purchase as well. =)  Though I'm still stocking up inks in case they come back so I can shake the market up a bit.  I found someone who'd just finished leveling herbing who sent me 300+ old world herbs for about 60 silver each, which was a helluva deal.  Most herbs go for a gold each, some a little less, so having so many CoD'd like that in bulk was nice.

Anyway, these two things are by far more expensive than anything else I've ever worked with, as until now I'd been going on a more slow and steady approach.  The chance to jump my gold by a lot is here, but I'm not sure how long it usually takes to move this kinda stuff.  What's your experience with expensive items like this?

Find: Adamantite Ore

Today I found upwards of 70 stacks of Adamantite Ore for only 12-13g each.  So, being curious, I went and checked out Wow Prospector and inputted the data for Adamantite.... and it came out with an average of 50g profit per stack. (This has me vendoring the blues uncut as I don't have any patterns nor do I even remember how to get them from BC.)  It's pretty highly dependent on the Adamantite Powder selling for what it says it does, but I'm willing to bet that it'll move, if slowly.  So I bought them all out and am gonna prospect them and see how this goes. =D  Hope for Golden Draenite!

~~

Just finished Prospecting 20 stacks, here's what I got:

20 stacks x 13g = 260g

16 blues x 3g = 48g

15 Golden Draenite x 20g = 300g

80 Adamantite Powder x9g = 720g

19 Azure Moonstone x3g = 57g

15 Blood Garnet x3g = 45g

12 Flame Spessarite x .5g = 6g

11 Shadow Draenite x 6g = 66g

10 Deep Peridot x 4g = 40g

Total Projected Income: 1282g

Total Projected Profit: 1022g

Not sure if the prices are completely accurate, or if they actually sell at that price, but I know the Golden Draenite should sell for at least 20g each, and that's already a small profit.  And then others should also sell to people leveling JC, and the Powder may sell to...stupid people.  If it works this could be a nice way to add a few thousand gold when I find cheap ore.

--

So far one of my stacks of Adamantite Powder has sold -- for almost 300g!

I really didn't think these would sell.  Sometimes I love being wrong!

This is quite a bit more than I was thinking it'd actually sell for, but I'm definitely happy! A few Golden Draenites have sold, mostly in singles, but one of the four stack I put up also sold.  Only a few of the other gems have sold, but I think if I give them enough time they'll move as well.  I'm definitely gonna be adding this to the stuff I normally do if the Ore stays this low.

--

I've sold almost 60 green gems over the past few hours to people powerleveling JC.  I have no idea why they're not buying the Adamantite Ore themselves as I've continued to pick it up for <13g/stack.  I guess there's either someone farming it for now or the numbers I'd been thinking of were from before cata hit.  Either way I plan to ride this as long as I can.

I love seeing this.

If it's viable on your realm I'd jump on this.  Tailors need the Draenite and leveling JCs need the gems and powder, and seem to be willing to pay through the nose to not prospect the stuff for themselves.  I love lazy players. =)

Oh Obsidium Shuffle

WHEW!  I just got done buying over 400 stacks of Obsidium Ore.  It was going for like 63/stack so I'm gonna use it to shuffle to chanting mats and green gems to sell for the JC daily.  This has been pretty lucrative for me so far, so I took a chance on this and spent more than 20k picking up all this ore.  I've never bought in such volume before, so this mass scale will be something new.  Hopefully it'll turn out well and I'll double what I spent as my handy little spreadsheet predicts!

I had a fantastic selling day yesterday, I had almost 30k in income (which I spent through the day on herbs and such) and I ended up at 76k before I went on my Obsidium spree.  Now I'm down to about 54k, so not too bad.

I'm really kinda excited at buying so much stuff at one time, I feel like I just passed a milestone. ^^

Also, I LOVE Saturday mornings.  This is the only time I can find deals this good with any reliability. =)

--

Sold 20 of the Greater Essences I got from DEing already, and was pleased to find that the dust market went back up while I was sleepin'. =D  So posted some dust and essences (various types and differing stack sizes for them all) and hopefully those will sell fairly fast too since I've got a ton of them to sell.

--

Sold a 10 stack of Nightstone and a few singles so far, along with some Hessonite I put up instead of crafting to DE.  I'll have to keep putting a few of those up for levelers, but the ones I prospected today are gone already.

I hadn't been doing my JC quest until a few days ago (as I had completely forgotten about it) but tomorrow I'll have enough to get my first metagem cut!  I'll probably go with Austure, as it seems to have the fewest sellers and is selling for a good price.  Plus even if it doesn't sell well I'll still need it to cut my tank meta.

--

Hessonite all also sold, along with a bunch of dust. =)  It's moving faster than I'd hoped, so I'll be prospecting some more tonight.  I'd been afraid that it'd take me weeks to put all I got out in the market, but I've sold a good quarter of what I got from the 1k ore I prospected this morning, so I'm quite hopeful. On the downside, I don't think I've ever seen one of my blue pieces move and am unsure if I should just DE them or what.  I suppose I'll keep listing them for now and see if they're just really slow moving.

What do you do with your blue jewelry?  If you sell it, how long does it usually take to see it move?  I've had 6 or so up for the past few weeks with nothing so far.

Cross Faction Markets

I noticed a while back that I could get a much better deal on the ally Argent Tourny pets by actually buying them on the ally AH, so I've had this human bank toon doing nothing for a few months.  Upon logging onto him a few days ago and looking at their AH I realized something -- there's a WHOLE other market over here for me to dip into!  Plus I think they may also have more players.  So I decided to try something.

Using my APM que and knowledge of my horde glyph market I decided on about 5 glyphs from each class that sell for a good profit and fairly fast, and then went and made myself two of each for this experiment.  I transferred them and a stack of Inferno Ink over to ally via my partner's account, and set to selling them.  I did all of this yesterday.

I have 5k on ally today, from the 60 something gold I started with yesterday.  Now, transferring the glyphs over here is a bit of a hassle, but I'm thinking I may continue transferring my extra ink, as well as perhaps enchanting mats.  This way I can post twice as much as I could otherwise, and not worry about flooding my market at all!  Plus the prices on chanting mats are higher over here. =)

...I might even keep doing glyphs, just not my full line up like I post on Horde.  3k of just glyph sales (about 2k was the Inferno Ink) in one day when posting such a small selection really isn't that bad.  It seems to be a good way to diversify without having to do all that much. =)

I'm gonna keep an eye out for other things I can move to this side to make a profit, and I'll use the gold I make over here to buy cheap mats to send Hordeside.  It's perfect, and it bypasses that nasty charge the neutral AH takes from you.

Plus I can keep sending the ally cooking recipes over.  I bought two of each and brought them over and they all sold for 65-50 gold within a day.  So I'll have to try doing three this time so I don't run out of stock as fast.  I'd do more, but they don't stack and this banker as scrub bags. >_>

Have any ideas for other cross faction markets?

Market Crashing?

Have I mentioned how much I love the glyph market?  No?  Well, let me tell you then!  It's been my biggest money maker (My natural one excluded =P) and a lot of fun to play around with for the past months.  And I learned a TON because of it.  Such as why Auctioneer is not suitable for posting them. >_>  Mind you, it took me a while, but I eventually discovered APM which I love.

Lately though, I've discovered something new in my market -- tons of competition and even a camper or two!  So after noticing my sales dropping for a few days in a row I checked it out and discovered them.  And I've been trying to decide what to do.  After a bit of thinking I have decided to go with something I have only heard people speak of and always wanted to try for myself: a glyph wall!  So I'll be preparing for that for a little bit, since my stockpile is almost completely used up right now and I'd only been milling enough to keep up the stock I was posting.

But that has changed.  Any Cinderbloom below 75g I'm buying out and milling, along with any other herbs that are 20g/stack or below.  I'm hoping to have 10 of each glyph I can make and at least 3k Blackfallow Ink and a few hundred of each of the actual inks used set aside in a stockpile.  The very first gold blog I was was Stokpile and I learned a TON from reading his blog, most notably is to stockpile like CRAZY!  I hadn't been thinking too much about that, but I'm paying attention and doing just that right now, so I'll be prepared to get control of my market back.

After buying and milling today my stockpile looks like this:

823 Blackfallow Ink

238 Ink of the Sea

254 Jadefire

218 Midnight

142 Shimmering

78 Celestial

10 Lion's

0 Ethereal

I need to craft tomorrow, and that'll take about 350 out of the stock, but it's coming along nicely.  If I keep picking up herbs like this I should be ready pretty fast. =)

I must confess, I'm not entirely sure of how to implement a glyph wall.  I've read about them in a few different places but haven't figured out if I should be trying to drive my competitor to leave by making him have constantly low sales (by posting just above his threshold) or by making him have no sales at all.

With the first one I won't have to worry so much about running through my stock before I can replenish it, and it keeps his profits low and may drive him out by annoyance of his lack of huge numbers.  It'll also force him to go through his stocks faster.  And I wouldn't need as many glyphs to wall with for this one I don't think.

On the other hand if I go beneath him he'll get pretty much no sales, which would be crippling since he doesn't seem to have many back up markets or even a good grasp of glyphs. (His fallback is 800.  Glyphs on my server don't sell if they go over 300.)  He'd hopefully either give up and drop out of the market, try and change his APM to drive ME out of the market, or try and buy me out.  I'd kind of hope for the last option even though my profits wouldn't be very good, cause I'd get to mess with him and he'd end up with 10+ of each glyph and no way to sell them any higher.

I'm fairly confident that I can outlast him, as I'm in more markets, think I have deeper pockets, and probably will have a larger stockpile.  But I'll be losing a ton of money for the duration of my time doing this either way, but especially with the second option.

...But it also seems like I'd have more fun doing that one and completely killing the glyph market for a little while is something I'd never had to power to do before, so I'd be rather excited to do it for the first time.

I'm leaning towards posting below him to screw with everyone, what do you think?  Also, I hope it's okay that I post this much for right now.  I have a lot of free time for right now, a ton of ideas since it's a new blog, and I've missed writing. XD;

The Start of an Army

Today I'd like to talk about farmers.  We know them, we love them, they power our businesses and ensure that WE don't have to go farming unless we feel like doing so.  Having my own suppliers was a big milestone for me when I first started making gold.  During Wrath I had a few farmers over the last months sending me leather to supplement what I got on the AH to power my LW crafting.  None of them lasted very long or gave me a very large supply, but every little bit helped.

Earlier today I began recruiting minions to farm for me.  I plan to get as many farmers as I can to keep my inscription going strong for as cheap as possible. ^^

There's a few things I've noticed when dealing with my farmers/potential farmers.  

-Being polite and literate goes a huge way.  I once had someone agree to a lower price because I was able to type and capitalize and use punctuation.  This one also goes when talking to a buyer/seller for high profile items.

-Don't be too friendly though.  I try to be nice to everyone, especially people who are helping me.  But if you get too close they think they can raise the price because they think you're friends.  It's good to draw a line somewhere -- I've learned that if they ask if I wanna run a dungeon I should probably decline so as to avoid giving the wrong signal.

-I still mess this up because I feel bad ripping people off, but start LOW.  It's much easier to offer to raise the price if they don't like it than it is to lower it after they've agreed to your maximum. >_<

-Be sure to watch the market price even if you use only farmers.  While not a huge deal if the price rises and neither one of you notice, you definitely don;t want to pay more than you would if you bought at the AH!  I had this happen for a short time with Jormungar Scales during Wrath, I felt reeeeeally smart about that... 

Having farmers is really wonderful thing though -- higher profits for you, and a steady supply of whatever they farm. =D  Plus you're helping them buy buying their goods constantly and without the auction house deposit.  So I highly suggest that you make a macro to occasionally use while you're doing your stuff in major cities.  "WTB herbs in bulk PST" Is what I've been using. =)

*Edit: Just snagged myself an Obsidium farmer as well*

Anyone know any other/better ways of recruiting farmers?

Starting Point

I'm starting this blog while I'm at about 60k liquid.  I started with about 5k a few months ago which I had slowly accumulated by chaining random heroics and skinning.  Since then I've leveled Alchemy, Enchanting, Inscription, Leatherworking, Jewelcrafting, Tailoring (To BC level so far), Skinning, Herbalism and Mining.  All of these combined have helped me get to where I am right now.  I make Flasks, Glyphs (Oh glyphs <3), Mysterious Cards, Netherweave Bags, Mining Bags, do the Obsidium Shuffle, and sell vendor pets and recipes.  There are a ton of things I still need to get into right now, but I haven't even maxed Tyr to 85 yet since I was taking a break for a while.  Since I haven't been to Twilight Highlands on any characters I haven't got access to high level crafting stuff right now, so I've not been making any leg armor or gear.

I also do occasional flips of Saronite Bars when I find the ore cheap.  I've got over 1k ore in my guild bank that I accumulated during Wrath which I've been trickling back into the market for 3x what I paid for it.

My guild bank is also home to a number of ally Argent Tourny pets which I'll be holding onto for a few more months at least.  While I could sell them now for more than double what I bought for, I have a feeling the price will continue to climb...so I'll hold on to them for now.  There's a ton of other stuff in there as well, such as an Alchemy power level kit, a Blacksmith powerlevel kit, my ink stockpile, a few hundred adamantite ore (11g/stack!  They're usually at least 60g/stack), some abyss crystals, Titansteel Bars for two bikes which I got for very cheap...and over 100 old Runescrolls of Fortitude which I only just noticed were in here. >_>  So I'mma go see if I can get rid of those... 

*EDIT: Some of them are selling...and I have NO idea why.  But yay!*

The mailbox of my scribe is also housing over 2k Cinderbloom right now, which I'll be milling a little later, along with some greens for DE from my JC.

So that's what I've got to work with right now.  I'm gonna set my short term goal to 100k by the 25th of January.  That should  push me to progress a bit faster than I have been lately. =)

--Tyr

Hai!

So, I've been thinking about getting back into blogging for a while now, and have finally decided to do so!  I've been dabbling in the AH for a few months now and am going to put what I've learned (and am still learning) out for others to read.  Hopefully this blog will help me (and anyone who reads it) not repeat mistakes.

A bit about me...I've been playing since the beginning of BC, though I only got really into playing towards the end of that and the start of Wrath.  Feral druidry is my specialty, and I've been raiding as a bear for quite a while now.  I love to discuss tanking and druids along with auction house topics, so you may see me ramble on about one of those occasionally on here.  Collecting animal pets and mounts amuses me, so that I have a full forest of animals at my beck and call while I run around playing.  (My Emerald Whelpling is my favorite pet, he gives us Ysera's strength when taking down a new boss! =D)

Most of my in-game life has been spent in poverty, trying to scrape together enough gold to afford my flying training and raid consumables.  Doing dailies has always bored me to tears, as does farming, but I discovered I love playing on the Auction House.   I'd never even thought about using the AH for fun until one day I noticed that borean leather could very easily be turned into heavy for a nice profit...and everything snowballed from there.  Though I mostly do auctions for fun, I also enjoy having enough gold to buy silly vanity items for myself and my friends.

This is my journey to the gold cap from where I am now -- hope you enjoy the ride! =)

--Tyr