Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Flipping recipes/formulas/schematics



7G well invested.

Learnt from: The MadHouse

One of the highly suggested recipes mentioned in the above linked forum post just sold (8/28/14).



I highly suggest you view this article at The MadHouse

-AuctionWench

Off day on the AH

Tuesday August 26th, 2014 for my sales was off.
Not sure what caused this.
I also didn't see many of the Tuesday night raiders on last night.

I know one of my guilds wouldn't raid on a patch/maintenance night.  They didn't want to waste their time on potential issues.

Whatever the case. From 1078g the day before to 178g.
Bad day for me.

-AuctionWench

Monday, August 25, 2014

Auction flood vs scarcity

Perhaps the veteran gold makers can chime in here to help me with this.
Supply and Demand drive the prices of world economy.  Supply and demand can also drive the our prices in WoW.

The concept for this post came from my wife.  I was bargain hunting this morning when I came across an item.  Before I executed the buyout I noticed that the person placing the item on the auction was....my wife.

I called her on the phone and asked her about the auction.  I explained that the item could fetch her nearly 1000g when it sold and she had it listed for 25g.  She told me that she had listed the item three times and she was tired of seeing it return to her mailbox.

Disclaimer #1: She doesn't use TSM.  She doesn't use any tools aside from auctioneer.  She is still waiting for me to become a gold capped before she invests her effort in the gold making side of the game.

This got me thinking about the market.

One of the things I have noticed is that there is a point where the market is flooded and a point when a market is scarce.
By flooded.  Looking at the market for Green Tea Leaf there are nearly 200 auctions on my server.  The vast majority of those someone tossed it on the AH, not to make money just to unload it.  They will get a few copper more than when they vendor it and so they want that few copper.

In the process, they are damaging the market.  The are flooding it with undercuts and without a care about damage to the economy.  In some cases, we will swoop in on these individuals, we will start buying up the severe undercuts until we reach a point.  Sit on the items and wait for the next few to just cast the item on the market and once again move in to buy up the bottom.  I know I will never get rid of the bottom.  In the end, they are not my customer.  I will create stacks of 20 of items like Green Tea Leaf and then resell it at market.  Some inscriptionist out there isn't looking to purchase the bottom of the auctions anyway.  They just want a stack of 20 Green Tea Leaf to make their ink from.

Potions for the most part feel the same.  Depending on the potion, depends on how much of the market I will buy up to create stacks of five or resell the singles.

The mats market on my server is different than the armor/weapons market.

There is a bargain for an axe, it is currently trading at 44g.  It is one of four that are trading at the same price.  Do you buy all four and tie up 176g to maybe make 2000g (500g/ea) in the near/far future.  Is the market for this axe flooded?
I back away from deals like this often.  I don't feel comfortable as a newbie tying up gold in a maybe against this market.  However, if it was one of two, I would buy one and wait for the other to go before I listed my one.

How and when do you determine if a market is flooded?

Flip the coin over and we deal with scarcity.  Like the item my wife was selling on the AH.  There were no buyers for this item.  It sat and sat and sat and sat.  She was burning more money posting it and she was getting tired of posting it.

When is a market for an item considered "scarce"?  When is something not worth the global market value on your server and you just want to unload it for bag space or just recoup some of the investment?

That really depends on your server.  RP servers may have Xmog gear fetch better prices and sell faster.  While PvP servers will burn through certain potions and gems faster.

For the 200 items I have listed on the AH, I may sell one or two xmog a day, since I play on a PvE server.
Scarce market for xmog.  Most are interested in gems, potions, mats and raiding gear.

How do you determine if a market is scarce and you should stay away from it?

I am noticing across the three server types that I am playing on.  PvP, PvE and RP.  That each one brings a different need and with that need a different set of auction rules.

With the disjointed realms/world.  Having tools such as WoWunction give us GLOBAL averages may not be a good thing.  Perhaps it should average against like servers.  What is the average of this item ONLY on PvE servers?  What is the average of this potion ONLY on RP servers?

We may see an adjustment to our global pricing structure allowing us gold makers to make more informed purchasing AND listing decisions.

If these tools already have the ability to display PvE/PvP/RP type servers only - can someone please school this newbie in how to do that.

Food for thought.

-AuctionWench

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Glyph Lists and checking popularity of an item.

Good morning all.
Today, I am the proud father of a brand new 16 year old boy.  Yes, that is right, 16 years ago I brought home this awesome little bundle of joy that today is probably going to look at me and say in a very deep voice "Dad, can I have the truck keys".
Upon which I will shed a tear and say "Oh hell no!  What do you think, I was born yesterday!  Get a job pay for your insurance and buy your own damn car!"

I won't really say that, he doesn't have his learners permit.

"Happy 16th Birthday Alexander!"

I digress.

On my server, one of the AH competitors I have posts a ton of glyphs.  I have been monitoring his markets and he seems to be firmly entrenched in the entire inscriptionist spectrum.  From inks to shoulders, he has it on the AH.  And not just in ones and twos, I see 10+ auctions for the same items.  He is setting the tone for the inscriptionist market on my server.

Well, not to jump into his market, however to basically be informed.  I began looking for a glyph list to import.  I came across an article on the following web site [Late Nite With Stede] which provides a good list.  I noticed it was missing a couple, however it wasn't designed to be a complete list.  If you read the article he is trying to capture specific ones based on popularity.

How can you tell if an item is popular?

I use Wowunction to help me there.  It can provide me with a higher altitude shot than what I can get here on the ground.

Using the professions menu, I than selected Inscriptionist.
Once the list for my realm appears, I sorted in descending order by DEMAND.  This should then place the most popular items to the top of the list.  As seen below.


I then utilize the list provided by Stede and scan the existing market.  Once I have the market, I put the list in alphabetical order by item.


This provides me the ability to quickly search to see what "demand" items are possibly currently below market value so I may capitalize on the gap.

I then re-list the items at market and move on.

If you use this tip, don't blindly pickup items, on TSM, look at the number of auctions that are currently posted.  Sometimes  you may have bargains in a market that is heavily saturated by undercut items.  If that is the case, it may not be worth your gold to invest since it is a frenzy of undercuts and your market value item may never be reached.

Thanks all, have a good day!

-AuctionWench

Friday, August 22, 2014

WoW remote auction abilities

I may be redundant in some of my posts as far as it maybe something you may already know.  Yet, someone out there, just starting off may not be aware of the tools we have at our disposal.  So, today I am going to cover remote auctioning.

The World of Warcraft site has a COMMUNITY option on the menu.  This page allows you to look up characters, check leaderboards, check realm status and access the auction house.


When you enter the remote auction house, you have four options: Buy, Sell, Bids and Auctions.

This allows you to obviously BUY things from the auction house, view your current BIDS/Won auctions, view the status of your AUCTIONS and sell.

I use the BUY option when I am not on my main computer (@work) and have just found some awesome bargains thanks to Wowunction.com.

But, what to do to get these on the auction house immediate?

Well the sell option works to post items on the auction house.
When you enter in to this area, it allows you to search.  The part I like about this feature is that it searches your: Bags, Bank AND Mail.

I just bought something, I want to flip it immediately.  I am not home and the item is in my mail.  I can still auction it.

Once you select the item, you can then plug in Stack Size, # stacks, Duration of Auction, Price (Per Stack/Per Item), Starting Price and finally Buyout Price.



Once you press create, it will start your auction for you.

Now, the downside to this is that the tracking of items/auction history in the TSM is bypassed.

The upside to this, if you are stuck away from your main computer, you can relist your auctions or post new auctions remotely.

Another advantage is that Blizzard has provided us with a mobile app for our portable computers with phone feature (smart phones).  This app is free to both Android and iPhone/iPod touch.

In truth, there is no reason we should be out of touch with our online business.  Except, perhaps, if you are in the middle of South Dakota with no cell/wifi signal.  Just saying.

Happy Auctioning all!

-AuctionWench


Thursday, August 21, 2014

Standings (Week 1)

I started a week ago.  Spend Fri/Sat/Sun learning TSM and got my offical start on Sunday evening.
However, I was posting and dabbling during those first few days.  My expenses are off a little.  The bride asked me to buy her some Golden Lotus so she could discover in her Alchemy.

This is my standings as of Thursday, August 21st 11:14 pm EST.

It is a slow start, as it is with any business.  But it is moving forward.

-AuctionWench

WoWuction Bargain Hunter.

Greetings.

Allow me to take a moment to discuss one of the ways I use WoWunction.  You may be already doing this, I have found that a once to twice daily scan will reveal some amazing deals.

When you hover over REPORTS on the WoWunction web site, one of the possible reports is "Bargain Hunter".

Bargain Hunter is broken into several categories:  Weapons, Armor, Recipes, Mounts and Companions.


The first thing I usually do is click the AH Cheapest an have it sort in ascending order of prices.  This allows me to see items in which someone on the AH doesn't know their potential values.



I also look to see what is the Daily # region average.  If this isn't something that is commonly posted, I might pass on the auction because it in turn might be something that no player is looking for.  The more popular the item, the more you should see it on the AH.

As you can see in the above example.  One my server (Kargath) a Scouting Tunic is listed on the AH for 3g and can potential be flipped for 199g34s.  It also has a region avg of 3.54.  That doesn't necessarily mean that there are three or more on the AH at any one time.

Three items jump out at me immediately as potential purchases to flip.  The Scouting Tunic, Boulderfirst Epaulets, and Haal'eshi Boots.  The three combined could result in a return of ~737g.  The Twilight Gloves I may move on after I check my auctions to make sure I don't already have one.  If I do, for this price, I may purchase it just to remove the undercut and reset the auction value.
(EDIT:  Be aware that WoWunction is not a RT view of the AH.  The site scans the AH once/twice a day. In the case of the Scouting Tunic, it was no longer available)

I will generally spend between 20 - 50g picking up undervalued items then later relisting them for their market value.

Browsing the weapons section of the report, there currently isn't anything that really jumps out at me for enough potential return versus time invested.  Unless that sword will sell with 48 hrs.  In this case I only made purchases from the Armor report.

For my bride who is an avid pet collector, I have located a few pets for a few copper of their original values.

My successes in doing this varies in regards to immediate resales.  A few items I still have in my collection while many of them have sold within 48 - 96 hours of acquiring.

My first attempt at this was the fishsticker crossbow, a purple which was on the AH for 44g and resold for 185g this got me highly excited regarding the potential return and I monitor this report daily.

Many of these items may/may not be listed in the Xmog lists which are found on Phat Lewts/WowProfitz/others blogs.  So you may have to manually list them on the AH.  If you do, either take note of the potential sale value and profit, or just return to WoWunction to look the price up.  That is, if you don't have all the addons for WoW from TSM that allow you to just hover over the item and see its AH values.

Hope this tip brings y'all success stories.  Share them here if you have any!

Thanks

-AuctionWench

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Xmogs starting to sell.  Adjusted my pricing model down by 5%.

Plus, from the PvP server I recently started playing on.




Successful flip.


Shinn's Tales of Gold: How to add my Vendor item list's to TSM.

Shinn's Tales of Gold: How to add my Vendor item list's to TSM.: I did do a video about setting up groups for vendor items, but that shows more about setting up prices and doesn't show how to Import s...

(TIP) Tome of the Clear Mind



The sell price is wrong on this screen shot.  Gnimo sells these for 50s.  The realm I play on, the AH sells them for 20g.

Or, if you are an inscriptionist you can make these.  However in my travels between AH and mail, I run into Gnimo often so I just purchase from him.

For those who don't know.  Gnimo is the mech-gnome looking vendor who repairs on the 3 passanger mammoth mount.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Scured Bro? Don't be Scured!

2 Stacks of 20 Wild Steelbloom.......73g....will it sell?
Only 48 hours worth of time will tell.

EDIT (August 22nd, 2014 @ 1:14pm EST:
Second posting of auction was last night.  This afternoon I received this:


Why do I joke about being scared of something like this?

Having played an herbalist, I know how easy this is to get and how cheap it can sell for.

What I don't take into mind is that I am a level 90 herb/inscription don't really want to go back into the first zones to go farming for this.

Also, as an inscriptionist, I have often just hit the AH, picked up the cheap singles to the count I needed to make my ink.  I have never paid over 10g for what I needed.

But then, I guess I, like most of you are smarter than most.  Go looking for the deals and part of the reason we are flipping items on the AH and making money.

So, getting my head wrapped around the fact that someone will pay this much for a stack of 20 or pay 700+g for a stack of moss agate just places me in a position where I need to rethink and relearn certain strategies.

Just because "I" wouldn't pay that much for something so simple to get.  Doesn't mean someone else won't pay for the convenience of not spending their time looking for it in the fields of Azeroth.

Lesson for all of us newbies to gold making.  The minute you think someone won't, is the minute your competition sells it to them for the price you were thinking they wouldn't pay!

Peace

-AuctionWench



Everything has a beginning.

August 14th is when I seriously decided to start making some serious money in WoW.  I should point out, that I am talking about in game currency - not actual cash.


I was curious how it was done and started looking at auction tools.  That led me to: TradeSkillMaster which led me to PhatLewts and WoWProfitz (thank you both for your video introductions to TSM).


I spent the weekend of August 16th, 2014 getting comfortable with the tools that I was using.  My (auction) toon had around 1k gold on it.  When I left the game at the beginning of Cata I had about 13k.  Coming back into the game at the end of MoP I used that 13k and the gold made by my toons questing to help my wife and sons (who also play).


Something went off in side of me, as it often does in many of us and I decided to try this for real.  To get serious, to make gold on the auction.  So, now I taking notes about my endeavors to try and pass on to all of you.


I will say, that in the beginning, I am being a script kiddy.  PhatLootz is kind enough to put import lists on his site to help me get going.  Especially with the Xmog gear.


Sunday August 17th, 2014 I started running my shopping list against the auction and found a number of Xmog severely undervalued.  I bought them up and re-listed them.  I am currently carrying ~100 Xmogs and the list is growing.  Every time I find one for a few gold, I buy it up.


I am also using “Bargain Finder” on WoWuction and have found a few undervalued blues that I have picked up.


My bride is trying to max her Alchemy out and is “discovering” items on her way to try to get living steel.  She gave many stacks of potions which I in turn put on the AH (I realized that she meant for me to use, but...um...I like gold).  


Monday August 18th, 2014 I realized that I am getting serious about this as I spotted a few deals on WoWuction and had my wife pick them up for me. (I hadn't discovered the online auction house yet).  I listed them when I got home at their normal market values.
I also started building shopping lists searching out gems (raw and cut) and potions/flasks that are undervalued.  I came to this conclusion while I was trying to level my own Jewelcrafter/Alchemist.  Out of all my toons.  Only my Herbalist/Inscriptionist/Mining/Skinning are maxed out. Everything else is below 250.


How am I doing?  It is a slow roll getting the money coming in.  However, I am sensing progress.
According to TSM, my sales so far are not going to win me any contests.  But in order to get my stock to where I would like it, I need to spend money to make money.


So:
August 14th: 288g36s40c
August 15th: 345g11s84c
August 16th: 32g65s91c
August 17th: 522g10s14c
August 18th: 233g86s68c


Tuesday August 19th, 2014
Today I made a GRAND discovery (you can laugh at me all you want, I was out of the game when they implemented this feature).  I found the online auction house.  I was at work and looking at the WoW site when I realized that there is an auction house app for the phone and one on the web site.  I then proceeded to check my auctions when I saw that “I can buy!”
So, the items that I had noticed on WoWuction.com that were bargains are now sitting in my mail box waiting for me to get home.


According to the auction house, I have 447g18s97c sitting in my mail also. (EDIT: 493g23s63c was the final)


If that is the case.  I have made around 1869g in 6 days (311g/day).  Not a good start however I am proud of myself.  I am not expected everyone to fall at my feet and throw me their copper…..well, yes I am.
My total buyout right now is sitting around 23000g. I have spent around 1500g to acquire this, reinvesting much of the money I had earned.
 
This will start to pick up shortly here in the future.


As I stated, we need to spend a little to make much.