Appealing to Different Types of Buyers - Part 4

Posted by Wonko at 11:03 AM

For the last few weeks, I've talked about different kinds of buyers to whom we can sell.  Last week, I covered the Power-Leveler and tried to give some ideas on how to catch this guy's attention.  This week, I want to expand on that idea for appealing to this type of buyer.  It's worked for me (and others) on our realm, so hopefully it will work for you as well.

The Power-Leveler, Part 2 - The Package Deal

As I discussed last week, your typical power-leveler is someone who already has at least one 85 toon and is now developing a new alt.  There are lots of reasons to have alts, but not many reasons to have alts with duplicate professions (multiple alchemists for multiple transmutation cooldowns?).  Either way, we're stuck with having to build the profession from the ground up.  This isn't that big of a deal for most of us - we can level the profession as we go.  But what about the guy who has no farming professions yet?  Or that DK who doesn't want to spend hours in Elwynn Forest trying to compete with a dozen low-level warriors and paladins for copper ore?


These are the power-levelers who are combing the auction house looking for mats so that they don't have to spend the time farming them.  I suggested last week that you browse the web sites that provide leveling strategies for professions, and make sure that you're selling what's on those sites.  But, let's take that a step further.  You should offer The Package Deal.


The Package Deal is a simple concept that works very well.  As with last week, we'll use Inscription as our example, but you can do this with any of the crafting professions like Alchemy, Jewelcrafting, Leatherworking, etc.


On one site, it tells me that I need about a dozen different types of herbs in order to go from 1-525.  When it's all said and done, I need about 2200 herbs total to make the kinds of ink I need.  To create my package deal, I need to :

• Accumulate the herbs needed to level the profession from 1 to 525.
• Research pricing for each type of herb
• Hawk my package on Trade Channel

Now, I'm assuming that you've already created some relationships where you have people farming for you.  If not, this may not be worth your time.  But if you have farmers working for you already, simply let them know what herbs you need and collect them and put them in your banker's guild bank.  (Um.. you do have a banker toon with his own guild, right?)


When it comes to pricing, you're going to have to invest a bit of time.  The idea is not to figure out what the lowest price per herb is on the AH.  The idea is to figure out what someone's actual cost will be on the AH.  For example, let's say that the lowest price for Cinderbloom is 1g20s each.  But, there's only 14 of them at that price and the next 120 are priced at an average of 2g45s each.  The power-leveler is going to have to buy far more Cinderbloom at the higher prices than they will be able to at the lower prices.  So, price your package deal accordingly.


Once you're figured out the total price for your leveling package, now you need to tack on a nice percentage which is sheer profit.  Keep in mind that your goal here is not to save the buyer money - instead, you're saving them something far more valuable:  hours of gathering materials or days of waiting for those materials to appear on the AH.  So, if the total price for the package (if purchased on the AH) is 4200g, you need to be selling it for around 6000g-7000g.  Now, you start spamming Trade and negotiating with buyers.


And, don't be afraid to experiment.  Instead of selling the herbs, why not mill them and sell the inks instead?


This particular strategy works well, but don't expect to sell four or five a day.  Remember that building wealth (in the game, and in real life) involves consistent performance over time.  Real wealth involves utilizing multiple strategies.  Hopefully, you'll find this one to be a valuable tool to add to your tool box.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at wonko@immortalisrex.com. Also, you can find me in-game on US-Dentarg as Wonko, the guild master of Immortalis Rex.