Three rules for Barking in Trade

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 4:00 PM

Selling your professions on the open trade channels can be tricky.   There are a lot of traps that new players (and even experienced players) will fall into.   Here are a couple of the ones I've seen that can tank a new trade chat career in a heartbeat.


1.   Know what your selling.

This may seem like an obvious idea.  But listing "have everything to craft" usually do not get people to drop what they are doing and run to your feet.  If you have Jewelcrafting,  offering a blanket statement of 'I have everything' ends up falling flat.   Specifics will drive the market towards you.   Rewriting a statement to 'Epic Cuts,  250g a piece' gives much more definition to what you're selling.

2.  Watch grammar and spelling mistakes

We all fall into the grammar and spelling trap.   Getting excited while typing and hitting the enter key.  then discovering that the misspelling monster has escaped and ransacked your brilliant advertisement.  Having your normal advertisement in a macro will help keep from basic mistakes.   Having multiple barking messages will keep things from being busy.

3.   Timing and humor is everything.

Some of the best trade channel barking adds I have seen included a small amount of humor.  Naming your 'business' or taking on a character will allow you to stand out in the crowd.   Also don't get into the habit of spamming your advertisement every 10 seconds.  Advertising dozens of times a minute only ends up making you look desperate.  It also tends to bring on the ire of the trade chat community. Their appreciation of massive amounts of blurred typing on their screen is sorely lacking.

Bonus Rule

4.   Scan out your competition and the demand.
Barking your trade at 3 in the morning will not have as much success as plying your professions in the middle of the busiest time on your server.  The more access to customers you have,  the better your profits will be.

Bonus on the bonus rule

5.   Sell for a set price and not just 'for tips'.

There are generous players out there.  Ones that over pay professions for crafting items.  Unfortunately they are few and far between.   You have more players that tend to have the belief that they do not owe anything but a small amount of gold because 'it didn't cost you anything to make it but a few seconds'. What a player is paying for is the opportunity to have something crafted without them having to wait for hours and hours for someone to make it for them.  Or it to appear on the AH.   Opportunity and convenience always cost money in the real world.

There are more things that can be learned from Selling your profession items in trade chat.  Just keep in mind the things that work,  and eliminate the things that do not work.  And you will be dominating the gold making scene in trade chat as well.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

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