The 80/20 Rule

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

Have you heard of the 80/20 rule? It states that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts, and it holds true across a number of areas, even World of Warcraft.

When I first discovered how profitable the auction houses in World of Warcraft could be, I started selling almost any item (white quality or better) I could find. Some would sell well, while others just ended up in my mailbox. I found myself spending a lot of time relisting items that never sold. That’s when I decided to optimize my trading, i.e. focus on the 20% of my effort that brought in 80% of the gold:

• Greatly reduced the number of items I looked at each day, focusing on goods I knew would sell fast.


• Items which had little value at the auction house above the vendor sell price, I started selling to vendors. Things like common recipes and formulas worth 1 g 50 s at the AH and 60 s at a vendor.


• Lowered my starting bids and buyouts so I would be at the cheap end of the scale to sell things quicker.


• If something was just occasionally in demand, saved it in the bank until someone wanted to buy it in the trade channel.


• Started using an alt for the purpose of only selling and trading the AH. Doing so saves a lot of time.

These changes gave me more time to grind, quest and raid, which can also be profitable and above all, fun. So keep in mind that 80% of your gold will probably come from 20% of your auctions, and you should focus on that 20% and not spend too much time fine-tuning and trying to sell less profitable items.