Saving Gold in Azeroth #5

Posted by The Lost Meeple at 8:00 AM

Be Brilliant At The Basics
Guest Post By Adam " Sinku " from The Addicted To Azeroth Podcast.

Before I begin I would just like to thank Markco for giving me the opportunity to write for Just My Two Copper. Also, if I may, there is a lot of great information that goes beyond this website. If you like listening to podcasts on the go check out Addicted to Azeroth!

When I was younger and playing football in high school I always had a coach who would preach to me:
“Adam, be brilliant at the basics. “

This is a sentiment that I believe is always been useful even beyond high school and sports. So, to carry this belief into my post I decided to write an article for mages saving money series highlighting that very sentiment as a gold maker.

One of the things that I was taught, and I would imagine you were to, early on in my life is that you have to crawl before you're going to walk. In almost anything that we do in our lives we are taught the basics before the most advanced techniques of what we are doing. This is because if I don't know the basics of something it really doesn't matter what the endgame is. Making gold in wow really isn't any different. It's not the monster sales of fortune cards or gems that you hear about that make someone a great gold maker. It is that person's ability to spend as little as possible on what they are buying and turn around and sell it for as much as it can possibly get for it. Is their ability to save extra amounts of gold in small little increments that make someone a great gold maker. Let's say on the auction house for instance. One of the gold sinks that we encounter each and every day our when we sell our items on the auction house. That magical number that every time we sell an item is automatically subtracted from our profits. So why not eliminate that number altogether? Why not keep that extra 5% – after all it's your gold.

As a magical number for the sake of example I will say 10,000 gold. My competitor has our magical item listed at this price. Knowing I want to get rid of it I really have two options. I can undercut them which means I'm going to make less golden they will. Or on the other hand I can undercut them and make more gold than they will. It really doesn't seem like a hard choice does it?

I know that 5% of 10,000 is 500 gold – Duh. With that knowledge I can undercut my competition to not only make my price more attractive to a buyer but also – you guessed it – save money! I will sell my item anywhere in the range of 9,500 gold to 10,000 gold and I will walk away with anything between one and 500 extra gold. Had I opted to sell my “magical item” on the auction house my profits were automatically cut down to 9,500 gold before It was even sold. Use the same method each and every day for a month and you have the potential to walk away with an extra 15.5K worth of gold!

The very essence of making gold comes from the little things that we pick up over time. We take those small lessons every day and burn them into our brain until an automatic reaction just occurs without us having to stop and analyze each and every situation like it was our first time seeing it. In other words – we become “brilliant at the basics”!

18 comments: on "Saving Gold in Azeroth #5"

Add Your Comment Subscribe to Comments

Anonymous said... June 29, 2011 at 11:31 AM

Is it just me or did you actually miss writing how you would sell your item without getting the AH cut?
Do you suggest trade chat? Forums? Calling a friend and ask him to buy it?

I might have missed that one sentence where you got to the point, but if I did, it would be understandable. Thing is, you have think about what you're going to write about before you start writing, then actually read what you wrote and see if you got your message through.

From what I understand, this post could be summarized into "sell in tradechat to avoid ah cut", should you strip away all the ramblings that try to make the post intresting. However, since you forgot to add that part, it's just "avoid ah cut". Not very fun read, ye?

PS. Mages saving money? wtf?
Anonymous said... June 29, 2011 at 11:33 AM

Actually, scratch my last comment. I read the article again and what I really want to say is: "What's this, I don't even..."

Seriously, Mageshadow or whoever approved this post, shouldn't you try to keep a slightly higher standard? Some of applications from the new writers were really good, post more of their work instead.
The Lost Meeple said... June 29, 2011 at 11:46 AM

You save gold by avoiding the AH cut, It's a valid strategy.

Many new people instantly post their items at the AH thinking that's the only place to sell their items - they often forget ( or in fact sometimes don't even know ) that the AH takes 5% of everything they sell. This post is aimed at them, it's a nice way to save yourself some gold and avoid that silly AH fee.
Dicci said... June 29, 2011 at 11:54 AM

@ anon. Adam makes a valid point, the auction house cut can be nasty if you have big sales to make. Some of the amateur posters recently have said the same old sh*t, at least sinku brings us something different that many overlook.
As for your "what is this i don't even" comment, if you can't understand something as simple as this post, perhaps you should look for something else to do in game than make gold.
tweell said... June 29, 2011 at 12:27 PM

I don't know if this has been stated here, but the nice cloaks Thrall has been giving out as of yesterday = opportunity for enchanters. There's lots of people doing that quest chain, and i365 cloaks look so bare without enchants on them, don't they? The enchants of greater int and crit have been selling like hotcakes.
Skorpsy said... June 29, 2011 at 12:40 PM

lol if you delete the writer's post and replace it with Mageshadow's comment, it will not only be better written, but it'll actually make sense. Honestly I was left thinking the exact same thing the first person who commented said. wtf?
I thought I had missed a sentence somewhere too.

I mostly got the gist of what the writer was intending to describe. However, I think he sucked at it.

He basically took 6 rambling paragraphs to say "bark in trade" but then in the end he never even actually said it! He just left the reader to kind of assume it.
Clint R. Murphy said... June 29, 2011 at 1:02 PM

I don't believe the original comments disagreed with the premise that avoiding a 5% fee was good.

What they questioned was you lack of suggestion to the new reader on how to successfully sell without the AH, which in my mind is an advanced strategy. To me, you're asking new gold makers to use trade chat, with all it's complexities, as opposed to the no hassle AH, which I don't approve of.

I would estimate that 80% of items sold in trade chat by non-sophisticated gold makers, results in the item being sold at a fraction of the proceeds that would have been received, net of fees, from the AH.

To sell outside the AH, your reader needs two advanced skill sets to accomplish the task. First, they need to know how to bark properly to make their product attractive, whether it's using a single (MFC strategy) or dual box (many people's most devious gold strategy). Second, they need to have an ability to barter, which is extremely important and something most are horrible at.

Without arming your reader with these skill-sets, which I've read some great blog posts about in the past three months, and telling them to not sell on the AH will result in them selling to me at 40% value and me selling on the AH.

Overall, I agree that where you're going can be a great strategy but it needs to be laid out differently, and I would suggest two options. Option 1 is that you cut the verbose nature of most of this post down (get back to basics, crawl before we walk, etc.) and state the goal of an auctioneer may be to sell in trade chat to avoid a 5% fee and here is how you do it...Option 2 is you make it s series on how to sell outside the AH.

Good luck and keep in mind that I generally read my blog after I've published it and realize I didn't address what I was trying to address. I may take some readers suggestions and save a draft, re-read it, edit the hell out of it, rinse and repeat.
Anonymous said... June 29, 2011 at 1:29 PM

Sadly, it took me three reads of this post to understand exactly what the author was trying to say. I finally connected the dots and felt like a total noob because it took me that long. I'm glad to see that it wasn't just me. But is someone that's completely new to the gold making scene going to be able to automatically assume what the point of the post was? Maybe not.

It was a good post, I just had that one gripe.
Adam Paul said... June 29, 2011 at 2:02 PM

I see this post wasn't for everyone....

The one, and only, thing I want to address is the "anon" people who said they've had to read it more than once to understand. If you read it again and had to think about it then I really have done exactly what I set out to do. There are MANY different writing styles in the world and not all of them lead their readers by the hand and spoonfeed the information right to you.

The reason why it is "vague" is because had I just said "save money, sell in trade chat" it would have been #1 a boring and short post. #2 it wouldn't have sparked comments or thought on behalf of the reader.

I didn't tell you HOW because you were meant to think about that aspect on your own . Selling styles don't equate to saving money--which is where the foundation of this post was set on.

So in closing sure I could have written a different way andflat out told you how to bark in trade chat but like my post title says it was bout the BASICS and bark styles aren't a basic aspect. What I have done is teach you addition and subtraction. What the anons are commenting is essentially asking why I neglected to talk about algebra. I am not trying to cut anyone down or say you don't get it because you don't understand my writing style. What I am saying is that I deliberatly kept out the barking and such because it wasn't subject of my post nor the "saving money" series.

Its not bad writing when people make a reader think--in fact, its the opposite.

Thanks to everyone for the comments though whether it was Praise or Critisicm! I didn't comment to insult anyone so please don't take it that way.
XboxFusionMan said... June 29, 2011 at 2:02 PM

Thanks for the post Adam,

This is a great tip and is really relevent right now because of patch 4.2.

This works well for the new tanking leg enchants. The AH price on my server is a little over the odds at the moment and not every tank is aware it's been added to the game. It's a good way to advertise new products and avoid the AH cut.

Good Tip.
Anonymous said... June 29, 2011 at 3:28 PM

Adam, as the first "anon" poster, I'd like to respond and reflect on what you wrote in your most recent comment.

First of all, the reason I had to read it more than once was not that it was a deep article that took time to understand. No. The first time I read it, it was as I usually read most blog posts, I read the first paragraph to see if it sticks to my mind. If it seems like a good read or if I immediately get the gist of the article, I'll keep reading. If it's boring and random verbose ramblings, like yours were, I'll start skimming the article to find the point of it all. Thus my first read ended with skimming the whole article without finding a point. My second read was a more careful one, given purely because JMTC is usually good, thus you're already using up their good rep to get at least one read. My third read was to confirm what I couldn't really believe after my second, that a post this horrible, both writing and content wise, could make it on to JMTC.

Secondly, if you have to keep it vague beacause the real content is too short and boring, then don't write at all. Also, you really should try to mention your real point at least once, in passing, or something.

Thirdly, all publicity ain't good publicity. Getting people to comment on your work purely because it's a smudge on an otherwise good blog is not something to strive for. For example the post this month with the most comments was the "Using the Time you have", in which almost none of the comments were negative.

As for all the other stuff you wrote in your comment, I can only see you going defensive about really good and constructive critizism. You've had several people giving your very real and good advice, even though the actual post very well could spark tons of shitthrowing. I say this because it's one of those posts that will lower my "I-want-to-browse-JMTC-tomorrow" meter with like 10 points, something that's not good when writing a guest post for someone else. And to this good advice you make up bad excuses and take nothing of it to heart. Really something you should change about yourself.

Take a moment to think things through. Your articles after you write them, your comments before you post them and your way of handling critizism before you get out of bed tomorrow.
Anonymous said... June 29, 2011 at 4:02 PM

1:29 Anon here.

Honestly, I didn't reread your post because I wanted to think about what you said. I reread it because the quality of some of the guest posts haven't been what I've come to expect from JMTC and I was kinda confused about how a post missing a major point managed to slide in there. I wanted to make sure that I was seeing what I was seeing before I stopped using this as my go to blog for gold tips. I don't think THAT'S what you set out to do.

I'm not trying to insult you either, so I hope you don't feel that way especially since I do intend to use your tip. I was just trying to provide feedback.
Caitlyn said... June 29, 2011 at 4:54 PM

OK. I'm not an anonymous poster. Just to be clear, Adam...your post definitely has the core of an interesting and useful subject, and if you were willing to polish your writing skills, you'd have an excellent topic. But I had to re-read the whole thing because it was so murky. It's not thought-provoking. It's simply not very good writing.

I almost wish these guest submissions could stop for awhile. To me, at least, it's all becoming less than enjoyable and is starting to bring the quality of this site down.

On the positive side of things, I've discovered a couple of really excellent blogs thanks to the fact that their writers have commented in these threads.
Greg said... June 29, 2011 at 6:51 PM

The First Anon and Subsequent one as well clearly is a poor reader is what it comes down to. Seriously this post was incredibly simple to read ROFL.

All he said was save money by selling outside the AH and keeping the 5% you would otherwise lose. As far as I can tell that fits right in with the series for saving money.

How is that a difficult concept to grasp?

The beauty of posting as "Anon" is that a person can pretend to be multiple people--which is funny because look at the anonymous comments from the past few weeks and they have their "tells" in their writing style.

From the looks of it I would say in the last week the 20+ anonymous comments at least a dozen of them were the same person pretending to be different "anonymous" posters. As a teacher its entirely too easy to spot.

To all the authors on JMTC right now I wouldn't feel too badly about being overtly berated this person clearly has a bigger issue with JMTC and not just your posts.
Anonymous said... June 29, 2011 at 10:14 PM

Unfortunately it is never specifically said in the post to sell 'outside' the AH, it is only suggested to sell 'at' 5% less than your competitor's AH price. Because the example in this post only refers to a competitor and item which is on the AH, it is the reader's assumption through logic to hear and interpret that the writer is suggesting to list the item 'on' the AH at 5% less, which will not avoid the AH cut.

This technique of writing leaves out the 'where' of the main idea. If i ask you to please bake me a cake you will assume i want you to do this in the kitchen. After you are done i then tell you, "No, i wanted you to bake it outside!". Okay... why?? I either forgot to include that information, didn't think it was important, or assumed you could read my mind.

It is simply that the reader of most gold blogs is used to a post being very specific and this one does leave that 'where' to the reader's imagination or assumptions.
Anonymous said... June 30, 2011 at 9:46 AM

Okay, I am the Anon at both 1:29 and 4:02. Yesterday was the first time that I'd had feedback to give on a post, and because I don't have a google account and have previously had issues logging in with openid, I decided to leave my feedback anonymously. It's a little sad that my comments were automatically dismissed as insulting and my reading comprehension skills called into question because there was no name attached.

We were asked to give feedback. I gave it. I didn't think my feedback should be any less valid just because I didn't make up a name to use, but now I know better.
Anonymous said... July 1, 2011 at 1:56 PM

Blogs are like raids... and this post is the one guy who keeps standing in fire right after the pull.
scottiegazelle said... July 5, 2011 at 4:23 PM

As an intelligent reader, plus a math nerd, I actually thought on first read that the point was being made that items listed for a lower price result in a lower cut from the AH, so pricing it 500g less doesn't mean a "loss" of 500g - but I thought that was a little vague lol.

I agree with the comment that said "if you have to keep it vague because the real content is too short and boring, then don't write at all." Sorry but true.

Making people think does not require being vague, sorry. Then, too, most people listing 40k items know about trade.

A better take, I think, would've been to tell me why it's better to endure the time and abuse of trade chat rather than list it and forget it on the AH. Is there a break-even point? (ie, if there are 10 people listing it on the AH and it's a 40k item, etc)

Top Site Nav

Just My Two Copper - WoW Gold Guide