I almost got mad today at an email I received regarding posts I’ve made on this site. The reader kept stating that my strategies do not work on his server and he listed probably a dozen he’s tried and failed at. Like I said I almost got mad at him because it was just one of those days where I didn’t get enough sleep, was hungry and had been patiently answering emails for a good thirty minutes prior. I channeled my frustration into an idea. You know, one of those really good ideas that once it’s in your head begs you to write about it?
It’s something very simple, but very difficult to explain in a one liner or comment on a blog. Therefore, it’s time for a post that will hopefully SHUT UP the people who constantly spam me with one or two or three strategies that ‘don’t work on their server.’ At least for a day anyway.
What’s wrong with the way you view your server?
If an item has a smaller profit margin than what I suggest, it’s probably due to the fact that you can sell far more on your server than on mine. You make up for the lost profit in bulk sales. Everything on the auction house is relative. Supply and demand rule the auction house, not your beliefs about economics and market control. Since so many markets are related to one another often if one strategy is way under profit than another is way above; it's just a matter of figuring out the relationships involved.
Markets are NOT Stagnant
Markets MOVE, they are never stagnant. Frostweave cloth may be 7 gold today and 11 gold tomorrow, infinite dust may swing from 50 silver to 3 gold and Frostweave bags will… SHOCK… reflect these prices. If you buy the mats cheap and resell both the mats and the bags you will get your money back quickly and efficiently.
The Auction House Ain't Easy
The auction house takes work. Running up to the nearest auctioneer and purchasing saronite bars will not necessarily net you profits transmuting to titanium bars. Now if you buy the ore instead, add the step of smelting and then use alchemy transmutation suddenly you go from crafting 1.2 bars per stack of ore to 1.44 bars. Not to mention your profit margin is higher since saronite ore*2 is far cheaper than a single saronite bar. Why stop there? Why not keep going with my titanium bar strategy.
If an idea doesn’t work on your server, use the same tactic on another market. I can be wrong sometimes, in fact, I have completely screwed up multiple times posting on my blog and elsewhere in comments. I try to catch these mistakes and admit to them asap to avoid giving incorrect information to the readers here and I appreciate when people point them out to me. However, the reasoning behind my ideas usually can be more beneficial than the actual strategies themselves.
You are not the brightest auctioneer in the world. Neither am I. Humility goes a long way in learning to play the game better, and that goes for every aspect of life itself. I hope you enjoyed my rant today, it's all in good fun :)
28 comments: on "Markco's Wow Gold Strategies Don't Work"
Elliott said... September 27, 2010 at 8:54 AM
I'm really glad you posted this...honestly, EVERY server is different and some people don't fully understand that. In some markets the prices fluctuate all the time, and the real skill comes into play when you can post effectively at the right time for maximum profit.
jimmyolsenblues said... September 27, 2010 at 9:14 AM
1) it could be we are at the end of an expansion and the auction house is dead.
2) you cannot go wrong with cross faction trading
3) google 22 steps to auctioneer , install it...run it for 2 weeks.
4) you need more characters also...I have every profession maxed except for enigneering and skinning...Until you powerlevel a profession you truly do not know what stuff is used for.
5) mining, skinning, herbalism is free money you can't go wrong
6) buy a stack and sell individual items , it works every weekend.
Dan said... September 27, 2010 at 9:16 AM
I had to comment.
Cheers! I don't know you, it's the second or third time I am commenting on your site, it's not the only site I am checking out about gold making in WoW, I don't care about diversions between bloggers (Gevlon hint) or anything else. I love you all for the courage of failing in all possible markets before coming up with hints.
The supply/ demand conversion is given by several factors, among which the realm population. We don't know exactly what the population is on most realms as we're not working for Blizzard (or at least not most of us). We can definitely help the Census developers with uploading data gathered by the mentioned addon, and maybe it will change something. But it seems not all of us are interested to do this.
Sorry for being a bit off track. Or maybe I wasn't? :P
Conclusion:
I personally like you. I'll reformulate, I respect you.
That's all that matters for me, and it should be all that matters for you.
Unknown said... September 27, 2010 at 9:20 AM
Your success in pretty much any market depends a lot on what your next door neighbor (on the server) is doing in that same market. Ultimately, the one or ones willing to spend the most time for the least gold will "win". Half the strategies involve ways to make life harder for your competitors, and most work well, and there's probably 5 other people on your server finding the strategy very successful at keeping you out.
So if you view the "strategy" as "do these exact steps and you will earn 10,000 gold per week", most of them won't work on any given server. The challenge is finding the one that *will* work on your own server, and recognizing that "working" in this context means you can make enough money on it to be worth your time.
Justin said... September 27, 2010 at 9:46 AM
LOL, well said. I was curious when I first saw the title.
Either way, I have recently been turned on to your site and must say I've seen some solid suggestions. I've recently started grabbing all the "under vendor" auctions with bids and have already made a little bit.
Keep the good advice coming and "boo" to the naysayers. Not understanding economic principles is not an excuse to say someone's ideas don't - or can't - work.
Anonymous said... September 27, 2010 at 10:14 AM
Markco's strategies do not work... if you follow them to the letter.
If you go to stormspire and buy a moth pet to sell on the AH you will probably lose gold. If you look for a vendor item that sells on the AH for much more than the vendor price you will make gold.
Its not the tip, but the method, that you pay attention to.
Markco said... September 27, 2010 at 10:53 AM
@anonymous Bingo! Although I do recommned trying the strategies themselves, especially a week or two after I suggest them.
Markco said... September 27, 2010 at 10:55 AM
Dan thank you very much. I have no animosity towards the readers here, even the negative ones, I just thought that a post like this would lead people to realizing what Elliott and the anonymous have already stated in the comments here.
Miguel said... September 27, 2010 at 11:15 AM
I've been reading your blog for a month or so now and I had to comment.
When I first started playing wow someone tipped me off to the amazing addon Auctioneer Advanced Suite (that's what it was 2 years ago at least). Now it's just Auctioneer Advanced, but it's the same beauty improved over time. In my first 6 months of using this addon I made well over 300k gold. I didn't read online how to make gold, or what sells. I was armed with a lack of knowledge.
After a while people become too "smart" to work the AH. They "know" that X item won't sell. The problem is it's not likely to sell in 12 hours so they get impatient.
Unfortunately I have nothing "amazing" to show for the gold I made because I didn't know how to control my spending.
However I will add that ALL of that gold was made in patch 2.4. For those of you that remember, you know that was the last patch before WLK. Meaning it was the end of an expansion and I was making gold amazingly well.
The same goes for this expansion. You can make gold if you're not too smart for the AH and you have a bit of patience. If Marcko's strategies don't work for you there is 1 reason why: You did not do what he suggested. I mean you don't have the addons to watch your prices (or calculate them yourself), you don't follow through with them to the full extent that he talks about, or you simply gave up too early. That is all there is. He's not some amazing genius of the WoW market, just a guy that learns and has an open mind about the market.
Markco said... September 27, 2010 at 11:35 AM
Miguel that was an outstanding comment.
Sean said... September 27, 2010 at 11:59 AM
It's funny anonymous should mention losing gold on red moth egg pets from stormspire. I turned five of these pets for 300% profit yesterday. The reason you would be loaing gold from those items is because someone is following the exact strategies that we all use to force people out of the markets we find profitable. I will sink an item so low that nobody will make more than a -100% loss on it until they leave.
Anonymous said... September 27, 2010 at 12:27 PM
One of the things that has become apparent to me is that most of the gold making strategies rely on having multiple toons with different professions. If you don't have at least 2 level 80 toons w/ some type of synergy, it can be very hard to make gold other than by farming. The more, the better.
It also still requires time, perhaps not as much time as straight up farming, but most blogs/guides that say you can make thousands of gold per day w/ 20 minutes effort are incorrect. If you really do all the work necessary to learn the markets and process all the necessary mats + items, you are going to spend at minimum 1-2 hours a day in order to see a significant profit.
I think most of the gold capped people spend the majority of their game time towards making gold and have leveled in the neighborhood of 4-6 toons with all of the main gold making profs. If you are not willing to do this, you can still make a decent amount of gold, but don't expect to compete with the guys that are willing to put that kind of effort in.
Chanah said... September 27, 2010 at 4:04 PM
I'm one of those rare new players, and I don't have a lot of time to play - I wish I had more - some days it's just check the auctions and post new ones.
I have only one 'real' toon and a bank alt, and at level 76, I've made 60k gold. Not a lot to show for it, because there are a lot of expenses in the game, and because of being too nice sometimes - several people in my old guild needed epic flying mounts, etc. I'm getting better at saying 'no' to giving away amounts like that, at least until I've got cold weather flying, full good gear for 80 (about 3/4th of the way there), and a decent nest egg for whatever unexpected gold sinks come up.
I was able to purchase epic flying at 70, have very good gear for my level (gemmed and enchanted is a bit of splurge, but not with the highest-end enchants), am comfortable and can pretty much buy what I want, but I would like to have a bit more gold going into Cata.
Professions: alch (transmute, though if I'm making a huge batch of flasks I'll switch to elixir then switch back), herbalism, cooking, fishing maxed.
I've been reading this blog for about a month. Lots of Marcko's specific tips won't work on my server. Vendor pets, blues, and epics can barely be given away, (mature server, medium pop, with a significantly lower pop Horde side). During any given week you'll see two to four netherweave bags languishing on the AH. It's a - truly screwed economy - in other words.
But Marcko's strategies in general do work. There are some vendor recipes that sell quite well, as well as a few old-world niche markets I've been able to fill with the alchemy (an advantage of being new, perhaps, because for a long time all I could make were lower-level potions, but people still buy them), plus transmuting saronite when I can (though it's going for upwards of 75g per stack of bars just now, so...other avenues for a while), gem transmutes, I dabble in the flasks market, sell a few high-end potions and elixirs, and I fish.
You can make lots of money fishing if you're one of those people who enjoys it, and I do - if you can cook, you can sell high-end buff foods, and you'll also come away with bolts of cloth, a stack of ore, potions, and recipes - all sorts of interesting things in the sea :)
Play nice, find out what people want, and provide them with it - all professions produce some things that players want and need. Is there a big gap in the AH of things you yourself use or would use? Can you fill that gap?
Provided I hit the level cap before Cata (I should), I'm going to start a DK to add a couple of more profs to my list and level those up - mining, as that's pretty much cost-free and very useful with alchemy, and one crafting prof. Then see where it goes from there.
This really can be done, in other words, even with just one toon, even if you're new, even at the end of an expansion. You probably won't gold-cap, but you can make a good bit of gold on your way to 80 and beyond, and those people who've been playing for years know a lot more of the good spots than I do.
For people who don't want to spend a lot of time, and already have an 80 or 4 (most of the population), even on a server with a whack economy, you could probably spend an hour a day on dailies, crafting, and picking up a few recipes to resell to net yourself 500 gold or more - even if you aren't an AH fanatic, don't want to get into arbitraging and all that other stuff. It's really not that difficult.
End wall of text. And thanks Marcko for such a great blog.
Anonymous said... September 27, 2010 at 5:09 PM
First time I've commented here but I've found not all the tips work so good on my server whereas others work very well.
However I've used tip and ideas from here over the last 6 weeks or so and I've gone from just under 1k gold to about 18k at the moment and thats after powerlevelling a couple of tradeskills and making a hog mount.
I've found some markets on my server are very competitive so I've had to try a few things to see what works on my server.
Overall the blog has been a huge benefit to me as I always used to struggle to make gold so keep up the good work.
MoxNix said... September 27, 2010 at 11:26 PM
Relationships between markets go much further than just mats. What other markets your competitors are in can be key too. He may be using big profits in one market to subsidize losses in another market he's trying to force others out of and take over. For example, there's a camper who's been trying to shut down my gem sales and take near complete control of the gem market for over a year now. He's never offline, constantly undercuts everything I post within minutes, is willing to pull and repost gems repeatedly and price cut right down to the bone doing it.
He camps a lot of stuff, all epic gem cuts especially the best selling mixed color gems (reckless, potent, inscribed and purified), the top 7 or 8 best selling meta gems, all the best selling enchants, BoE Epics, eternals, ore, etc. Anything thatcan be produced in bulk and has a high profit margin.
I tried just about everything to stop him from undercutting, including deep undercutting, posting at and even under cost, buying his gems out cheap, etc. but nothing worked. He was always there with seemingly endless mountain of gems to post.
I'd known 2 of the items he really focuses on to camp we're Relentless and Chaotic meta gems for a long time but even holding all epic and meta prices to cost or barely over cost for weeks on end didn't faze him.
I hadn't tried selling Belt Buckles because I don't have a blacksmith. Then one day had a friend make 100 buckles figuring they'd last at least a week, tanked the price of buckles and his 2 key metas. ALL the buckles sold in 2 days at an average of about 33% (5g+) profit each. The camper attempted to scare me off by running prices down to 16g but after a couple days he realized I was willing to keep posting at 14-15g he stopped going under 20g. I had another 100 buckles made and sold them in 2 days too. I'm selling ~50 buckles a day now and the camper leaves the action as soon as I post a few buckles. A nice side benefit is regular epic gem prices (as well as many other things) are going up again too since he isn't there screwing the market up anymore.
The thing I learned from this is as long as he had even just one fast moving high profit item to post he'd keep on camping forever. Once I shut down all 3 of his key items he gave up. For the last few weeks I've kept the price of those 3 items down to no more than 5g profit per. He doesn't camp much at all anymore and server other markets are much improved as a result.
MoxNix said... September 27, 2010 at 11:27 PM
Relationships between markets go much further than just mats. What other markets your competitors are in can be key too. He may be using big profits in one market to subsidize losses in another market he's trying to force others out of and take over. For example, there's a camper who's been trying to shut down my gem sales and take near complete control of the gem market for over a year now. He's never offline, constantly undercuts everything I post within minutes, is willing to pull and repost gems repeatedly and price cut right down to the bone doing it.
He camps a lot of stuff, all epic gem cuts especially the best selling mixed color gems (reckless, potent, inscribed and purified), the top 7 or 8 best selling meta gems, all the best selling enchants, BoE Epics, eternals, ore, etc. Anything thatcan be produced in bulk and has a high profit margin.
I tried just about everything to stop him from undercutting, including deep undercutting, posting at and even under cost, buying his gems out cheap, etc. but nothing worked. He was always there with seemingly endless mountain of gems to post.
I'd known 2 of the items he really focuses on to camp we're Relentless and Chaotic meta gems for a long time but even holding all epic and meta prices to cost or barely over cost for weeks on end didn't faze him.
I hadn't tried selling Belt Buckles because I don't have a blacksmith. Then one day had a friend make 100 buckles figuring they'd last at least a week, tanked the price of buckles and his 2 key metas. ALL the buckles sold in 2 days at an average of about 33% (5g+) profit each. The camper attempted to scare me off by running prices down to 16g but after a couple days he realized I was willing to keep posting at 14-15g he stopped going under 20g. I had another 100 buckles made and sold them in 2 days too. I'm selling ~50 buckles a day now and the camper leaves the action as soon as I post a few buckles. A nice side benefit is regular epic gem prices (as well as many other things) are going up again too since he isn't there screwing the market up anymore.
The thing I learned from this is as long as he had even just one fast moving high profit item to post he'd keep on camping forever. Once I shut down all 3 of his key items he gave up. For the last few weeks I've kept the price of those 3 items down to no more than 5g profit per. He doesn't camp much at all anymore and server other markets are much improved as a result.
Anonymous said... September 27, 2010 at 11:27 PM
Relationships between markets go much further than just mats. What other markets your competitors are in can be key too. He may be using big profits in one market to subsidize losses in another market he's trying to force others out of and take over. For example, there's a camper who's been trying to shut down my gem sales and take near complete control of the gem market for over a year now. He's never offline, constantly undercuts everything I post within minutes, is willing to pull and repost gems repeatedly and price cut right down to the bone doing it.
He camps a lot of stuff, all epic gem cuts especially the best selling mixed color gems (reckless, potent, inscribed and purified), the top 7 or 8 best selling meta gems, all the best selling enchants, BoE Epics, eternals, ore, etc. Anything thatcan be produced in bulk and has a high profit margin.
I tried just about everything to stop him from undercutting, including deep undercutting, posting at and even under cost, buying his gems out cheap, etc. but nothing worked. He was always there with seemingly endless mountain of gems to post.
I'd known 2 of the items he really focuses on to camp we're Relentless and Chaotic meta gems for a long time but even holding all epic and meta prices to cost or barely over cost for weeks on end didn't faze him.
I hadn't tried selling Belt Buckles because I don't have a blacksmith. Then one day had a friend make 100 buckles figuring they'd last at least a week, tanked the price of buckles and his 2 key metas. ALL the buckles sold in 2 days at an average of about 33% (5g+) profit each. The camper attempted to scare me off by running prices down to 16g but after a couple days he realized I was willing to keep posting at 14-15g he stopped going under 20g. I had another 100 buckles made and sold them in 2 days too. I'm selling ~50 buckles a day now and the camper leaves the action as soon as I post a few buckles. A nice side benefit is regular epic gem prices (as well as many other things) are going up again too since he isn't there screwing the market up anymore.
The thing I learned from this is as long as he had even just one fast moving high profit item to post he'd keep on camping forever. Once I shut down all 3 of his key items he gave up. For the last few weeks I've kept the price of those 3 items down to no more than 5g profit per. He doesn't camp much at all anymore and server other markets are much improved as a result.
MoxNix said... September 27, 2010 at 11:28 PM
Relationships between markets go much further than just mats. What other markets your competitors are in can be key too. He may be using big profits in one market to subsidize losses in another market he's trying to force others out of and take over. For example, there's a camper who's been trying to shut down my gem sales and take near complete control of the gem market for over a year now. He's never offline, constantly undercuts everything I post within minutes, is willing to pull and repost gems repeatedly and price cut right down to the bone doing it.
He camps a lot of stuff, all epic gem cuts especially the best selling mixed color gems (reckless, potent, inscribed and purified), the top 7 or 8 best selling meta gems, all the best selling enchants, BoE Epics, eternals, ore, etc. Anything thatcan be produced in bulk and has a high profit margin.
Continued in next post...
MoxNix said... September 27, 2010 at 11:28 PM
I tried just about everything to stop him from undercutting, including deep undercutting, posting at and even under cost, buying his gems out cheap, etc. but nothing worked. He was always there with seemingly endless mountain of gems to post.
I'd known 2 of the items he really focuses on to camp we're Relentless and Chaotic meta gems for a long time but even holding all epic and meta prices to cost or barely over cost for weeks on end didn't faze him.
I hadn't tried selling Belt Buckles because I don't have a blacksmith. Then one day had a friend make 100 buckles figuring they'd last at least a week, tanked the price of buckles and his 2 key metas. ALL the buckles sold in 2 days at an average of about 33% (5g+) profit each. The camper attempted to scare me off by running prices down to 16g but after a couple days he realized I was willing to keep posting at 14-15g he stopped going under 20g. I had another 100 buckles made and sold them in 2 days too. I'm selling ~50 buckles a day now and the camper leaves the action as soon as I post a few buckles. A nice side benefit is regular epic gem prices (as well as many other things) are going up again too since he isn't there screwing the market up anymore.
The thing I learned from this is as long as he had even just one fast moving high profit item to post he'd keep on camping forever. Once I shut down all 3 of his key items he gave up. For the last few weeks I've kept the price of those 3 items down to no more than 5g profit per. He doesn't camp much at all anymore and server other markets are much improved as a result.
MoxNix said... September 27, 2010 at 11:42 PM
I apologize for the repeated posts but it kept give me a "too long" error so I didn't think the first few were accepted.
steve said... September 28, 2010 at 1:59 AM
ok i might know what is wrong with the reader comment not sure if they are doing this or not.
This is true in any business/stocks etc. They look at individually items and not at there over all system.
a for instance cat's are not selling at the auction house. instead they should be asking if they even need cats.
another thing i hear is that the auction house takes to long. same problem they most like have no system in place to play the market.
SACRISTAR said... September 28, 2010 at 7:59 AM
I'm not condoning what the guy did. I'm sure you mean well as I'm sure most of your tips and tricks do work on most other servers. Maybe the guy is just small minded and clueless. Nothing you can do about that but let it slide past you. But perhaps he was just venting his frustration much like you were close to doing because you hadn't had much sleep. And that I can understand. I came to your site after your guest post at Pala Schmala and don't regret it at all but I must admit that much of what I read on your site quite simply didn't work on my server. Another thing is that your site quickly gained a lot of attention after I came to frequent it, resulting in sudden surge of people trying to get into the markets using the tips you were suggesting. The netherweave bag tip stands out clearest in my head right now but I'll spare you the details, it would make for a long story :P And lastly since the 4.0 buzz the few other markets and tips that did work also tanked for the most part. These 3 factors certainly do make it hard for a new player on his quest for gold, especially one who isn't a natural at this niche game within the game. Add a limited liquid gold pool and you'll see why these turbulent times can drive a frustrated newbie to writing an angry e-mail =)
Anonymous said... September 28, 2010 at 5:24 PM
Things that have been working great can suddenly stop working. There's usually a reason (bots farming Mithril and dumping it all on the market, crashing prices). Things that don't work sometimes suddenly start to work again (like when I camp out looking for the damn bot in order to get him banned). Sometimes these changing market dynamics can yield clues as to where things are shifting and why. It's a dynamic marketplace. Specific strategies don't work forever, but the thinking process used to locate those strategies will ALWAYS work.
Earthquakes said... September 29, 2010 at 7:04 AM
AH is not easy and move constantly. When i test new market / items i always give it a 2 week try before making any conclusion.
Sometime something can be real hard / cheap to sell for days and you finally end up 3-4 for twice the "craft cost".
I sell scroll of enchant gloves - exceptional spell power for 20g up to 129g. Price / demand / competitor change contently.
toli said... September 29, 2010 at 7:49 AM
everything really depends on how your AH is being used, as competition, sucks. if your AH is hyper-competitive, you need to play the long game. and it will be costly, all those failed auctions will bleed you.
to be honest, post expansion blues really makes AH "farming" for discounts/opportunities, hard. a problem in the 60k a day' strategies is that there's a few opposing market forces, which can be advantageous for a few people, and chaotic for everyone else.
under a depressed market, more people are switching to casual play, which includes the AH, but also farming mats.
the "invisible hand" on my server is especially brutal when there's at least 5000 glyphs for sale, every day, and at least 12-18 of each glyph, at least 20 different sellers, rarer glyphs alternate between 7g and 75s depending on the day, or when there's a total of 120 herbs for sale, none under 200g a stack.
flooded/abused markets, are hard to sell or buy from. and while inscription is prone to flooding, other professions are a lot better off,(a lot better off)
sometimes i do feel that gold strategies don't work, AucAdv users flipping an entire market to try and reset the prices, vs. QA3 users undercutting by 2s3c every few minutes, doesn't help when you sell 4 items out of 400 posts each day. when that happens, it's time to change strategies, etc.
the 22 rules, per se, work. they just tend to work for everyone else as well. i agree with the downside of "playing smart", if you can make money from your own AH, someone else will be able to as well. if you're in the market along with 20+ people also applying themselves to make money, it will be tough until you find a niche, that hidden 23rd step, sic.
a quick solution for quick cash is to do the hard work nobody wants to do, i.e gathering mats, selling mid demand, low volume items works just fine, i.e. BC rep items, more especially old world rep gear that will possibly be obliterated in about a month for 4.0.1, perhaps during hallows end / blizzcon.
since there's no excessive demand for goods, and most of it is "horse trading", i.e. basic levelling gear, profession levelling, mats for dailies/procs/food/transmutes, the market is still there for the little things, farm for items that lie in the dead-spots in powerlevelling professions, vendor recipes, rep items, etc.
i would also say, diversify if you use QA3, create a stacks list for occasional items, like cloth/herbs/food/ores/potions , and copy the bulk items into separate 2x 5x and 20x lists to avoid undercut flooding ruining things. it will mean you have odd numbers of items posted, but being aware that some items only sell in stacks, is helpful.
toli said... September 29, 2010 at 7:49 AM
everything really depends on how your AH is being used, as competition, sucks. if your AH is hyper-competitive, you need to play the long game. and it will be costly, all those failed auctions will bleed you.
to be honest, post expansion blues really makes AH "farming" for discounts/opportunities, hard. a problem in the 60k a day' strategies is that there's a few opposing market forces, which can be advantageous for a few people, and chaotic for everyone else.
under a depressed market, more people are switching to casual play, which includes the AH, but also farming mats.
the "invisible hand" on my server is especially brutal when there's at least 5000 glyphs for sale, every day, and at least 12-18 of each glyph, at least 20 different sellers, rarer glyphs alternate between 7g and 75s depending on the day, or when there's a total of 120 herbs for sale, none under 200g a stack.
flooded/abused markets, are hard to sell or buy from. and while inscription is prone to flooding, other professions are a lot better off,(a lot better off)
sometimes i do feel that gold strategies don't work, AucAdv users flipping an entire market to try and reset the prices, vs. QA3 users undercutting by 2s3c every few minutes, doesn't help when you sell 4 items out of 400 posts each day. when that happens, it's time to change strategies, etc.
the 22 rules, per se, work. they just tend to work for everyone else as well. i agree with the downside of "playing smart", if you can make money from your own AH, someone else will be able to as well. if you're in the market along with 20+ people also applying themselves to make money, it will be tough until you find a niche, that hidden 23rd step, sic.
a quick solution for quick cash is to do the hard work nobody wants to do, i.e gathering mats, selling mid demand, low volume items works just fine, i.e. BC rep items, more especially old world rep gear that will possibly be obliterated in about a month for 4.0.1, perhaps during hallows end / blizzcon.
since there's no excessive demand for goods, and most of it is "horse trading", i.e. basic levelling gear, profession levelling, mats for dailies/procs/food/transmutes, the market is still there for the little things, farm for items that lie in the dead-spots in powerlevelling professions, vendor recipes, rep items, etc.
i would also say, diversify if you use QA3, create a stacks list for occasional items, like cloth/herbs/food/ores/potions , and copy the bulk items into separate 2x 5x and 20x lists to avoid undercut flooding ruining things. it will mean you have odd numbers of items posted, but being aware that some items only sell in stacks, is helpful.
Unknown said... September 29, 2010 at 10:54 AM
Maybe Markco's Gold Strategies are working better for your competition than you?!
Yes, each realm is different, but what are the chances that there's someone else on *your realm* that's into gold farming? Pretty good, I'd say. And JMTC is a very well known site. What are the chances somebody read the same thing you did, only 30 minutes before you?
This is what happens in the RL Stock Market. News travels very quickly and the professionals can react quickly enough that there's very little gain for someone coming in a few hours or a few days after a bit of useful news.
There are strategies that people know very well, but there are still some most folks are unaware of. Take Booty Bay for example. The Parrot seller has a limited supply pattern Swashbuckler's Shirt. It's almost always gone whenever I've bothered to check. People know about it, so it's usefulness to you or I is reduced.
However, maybe 40 feet away, there's an Engineering supplies seller and he has the limited supply schematic for Accurate Scope, a popular pattern than often sells for 10-20g on my server. It's always there.
Maybe once this trick is published the pattern will no longer be there every time I check it, because everyone's looking for it when they go by, as well. But for right now, it's still easy gold.
There's another strategy that gets overlooked: consistency. Get into the habit of always doing what works... even when the strategy has gotten overpopular.
Competition's selling Cat Carriers from Elwynn Forest for silvers? Hang onto your stock and wait a day or so. People get tired of working the strategy and then it opens back up for the folks that don't give up, simply because the market is flooded one week. Go ahead and undercut below 1g. You're still making a profit... if you watch your bottom line.
That's another strategy, gold-retaining vs. actually gold farming, but gold, nevertheless. When you auction something, always, always watch the deposit costs. If you post a slow moving item for 5g and don't realize it takes a 2.5g deposit, you stand to lose big money if it doesn't sell. Especially since the habit is to take everything that did not sell from the night before and throw it back onto the AH. That will maximize your losing deposits if you are not careful. Vendor stuff that won't sell or list it on the trade channel.
There are a few exceptions that have minimal AH deposits. Enchanting scrolls and Glyphs. Also Nightmare's Tears. Watch out for green and better gear. Also potions. If you know the item sells well, list just a few at a time and set the duration to 24 or even 12 hours, to cut your deposit costs when you list. Same thing with items where you are likely to be undercut. List them for short periods of time, to avoid having them sit for a couple days, with no chance to be sold because they've been undercut 10 times.
Unknown said... September 29, 2010 at 10:55 AM
Maybe Markco's Gold Strategies are working better for your competition than you?!
Yes, each realm is different, but what are the chances that there's someone else on *your realm* that's into gold farming? Pretty good, I'd say. And JMTC is a very well known site. What are the chances somebody read the same thing you did, only 30 minutes before you?
This is what happens in the RL Stock Market. News travels very quickly and the professionals can react quickly enough that there's very little gain for someone coming in a few hours or a few days after a bit of useful news.
There are strategies that people know very well, but there are still some most folks are unaware of. Take Booty Bay for example. The Parrot seller has a limited supply pattern Swashbuckler's Shirt. It's almost always gone whenever I've bothered to check. People know about it, so it's usefulness to you or I is reduced.
However, maybe 40 feet away, there's an Engineering supplies seller and he has the limited supply schematic for Accurate Scope, a popular pattern than often sells for 10-20g on my server. It's always there.
Maybe once this trick is published the pattern will no longer be there every time I check it, because everyone's looking for it when they go by, as well. But for right now, it's still easy gold.
There's another strategy that gets overlooked: consistency. Get into the habit of always doing what works... even when the strategy has gotten overpopular.
Competition's selling Cat Carriers from Elwynn Forest for silvers? Hang onto your stock and wait a day or so. People get tired of working the strategy and then it opens back up for the folks that don't give up, simply because the market is flooded one week. Go ahead and undercut below 1g. You're still making a profit... if you watch your bottom line.
That's another strategy, gold-retaining vs. actually gold farming, but gold, nevertheless. When you auction something, always, always watch the deposit costs. If you post a slow moving item for 5g and don't realize it takes a 2.5g deposit, you stand to lose big money if it doesn't sell. Especially since the habit is to take everything that did not sell from the night before and throw it back onto the AH. That will maximize your losing deposits if you are not careful. Vendor stuff that won't sell or list it on the trade channel.
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