Gold Everywhere!

Hello Again! I'm back with an update on Rifampin's progress. Afterwards, I'll explain why stack size is important like I promised in my previous post. For reference, I am up to 6g 65s in my bags, and 435g worth of items on the AH.




So after having made a decent wage from the items I bought earlier, I decided to invest MORE (tough choice, huh?)

Here are some of the items I bought:



























































As you can see, most of my investments are commodities, such as cloth and ore. They tend to sell well and sell OFTEN. Prices fluctuate, so you can grab cheap items and then relist them immediately, or one or two days later when prices rise (depends on your server's economy.) Be careful with these investments, though. You NEED to scope out the market fluctuations first so that you know when to buy, and when to sell.

An excellent AddOn for this specific purpose is Market Watcher. It'll allow you to scan and save data for items that you specify, and then view the market prices in a convenient graph form. Obviously you need to have scanned for at least a week or two (more would be ideal) before you begin to trust its data, so go pick it up now! I will let you in on other AddOns I use as time goes by.

Anyway, after those investments, I threw my remaining stock and the new items all on the AH for a marked up price:
























































I believe I also had some ore up on the AH that is not pictured. You should be posting a few, small stacks (generally) of each particular item up when there are fewer of that particular item on the AH. You should also make sure not to post when prices are low for that particular day. The less auctions up at the time the better. If there are none up at the time, and the item is in high demand, you can really gouge prices, so keep that in mind.

Here is my progress as far as sales go (the daggers sold!):



























































What this image doesn't show is what hasn't been selling for me. I had to relist the two daggers, leather, and enchanting mats several times before they sold. This is okay! As long as you have money in your mailbox, you're doing it right!

You are almost definitely not going to sell everything, and you will probably end up relisting most items at least once before they sell. This is why I suggest that you set your default auction time in Auctioneer to 24 hrs. I prefer this setting because I can manage my auctions at the same time everyday, and I'll be able to match prices more consistently than if I were putting them up for 48 hrs.

Now I'd like to explain why stack size is important. For items like ore and herbs, selling in stacks of five is ideal because this is the stack size required to prospect or mill these items. Think of it as the lowest common denominator; if someone wants to purchase 40 of a particular item, they will still buy your stacks of five. However, if someone only needs to prospect or mill for one more gem or pigment, they will not want to purchase an entire stack!

For other items, like bars, spider's silk, or crafting parts, people almost invariably need less than a full stack to craft or use for their purpose. They do not want to sell the excess, and so they would rather pay a bit more per item for their stack, at a lower total cost to them. You can use this perception for your own gain, and not simply when setting prices. If you need a particular item, you can always buy a full stack and gouge prices for the excess to make some of your money back!

The reason I do not sell cloth in small stacks is because most items that require cloth are either crafted in bulk, or require an entire stack per item. It's much better to simply sell stack by stack than to try and fiddle with a lower number, especially considering how common cloth is.

If you have a differing opinion, extra advice, or any comments, please feel free to express them!

Meet Rifampin

This is my new bank alt; Rifampin. Yes, he's named after an antibiotic. Don't ask.



He started out on an alt's realm (highest character level 24) with 3g, a couple of greens, and some spider's silk. I know that I started out with more than most people do with their alt bank alts (heh), but I'd like to delve right into the action, and I didn't get the idea for this blog until I had already begun.

So let's get started, shall we? Here is his progress so far (he is currently at 60g 32s 22c.)

This is my BeanCounter list (from Auctioneer) of all the items I have bought in an effort to create a larger investment pool from which I can draw funds:

Let's analyze exactly what I've done here. First let me mention that this is done on the pretense of an AMATEUR; I am in no way advocating myself as an expert!

Anyway, with the few gold I started out with I bought a green dagger (the Sacrificial Kris), which I re-posted at about 500% profit. It eventually sold, but this was a risky move, and let me explain why.

First of all, I had not scanned more than once or twice on this server, so auctioneer's data was obviously skewed. Not to mention that investing a large majority of my funds on an unnecessary (for the buyer) item could have turned out poorly for me. I stuck with it, though, and bought an undercutter's auction, and sure enough, I made a hefty return, despite not having sold the second dagger yet.

*EDIT* I was mistaken! I have not sold either of those daggers. This is a perfect example of why it's a risky maneuver; there were other people posting the same (or similar) items. That, in combination with the fact that I am pricing it relatively high, and that it is a non-necessity item, means that I will have a difficult time selling it. Fear not, in failure there is a lesson, and you should always improve upon your mistakes!

After that, I sifted through the trade goods looking for oddly numbered stacks and inexpensive items. I also bought a few cheap recipes that I knew would sell. Here is what my auction's list looked like after a day or two of trading:




























































I had bought and posted a lot of different items after having sold a recipe, a green, and some spider's silk (which go for 9-10g per piece on this server.)

Note that I have put up most of the trade goods in stacks LOWER than 20; you can raise the price of materials if you put them in lower sized stacks. Remember, not everyone wants a full stack! I'll explain the logistics of it at a later date.

The results:










































That's it for my first post, I hope it was informative and look forward to writing another soon! I'll be updating this with Rifampin's progress frequently, and I'll also try and fit in some of my own theory posts, and analyze what I have gathered from other sources that has granted me some success.

Until next time!

What's this here for?!

Hello, and welcome to the first post on my AH blog.

It's inspired in large part by Gevlon over at Greedy Goblin, Markco over at Just My 2 Copper, Tyson at MMOAuctioneer, and a variety of other informative AH blogs. After having read a bit (or more : P) of what all of these fine individuals have written, I decided to try my hand at playing the AH myself.

In the past I had only bought and sold cheap, rare weapons and armor for a considerable, but unremarkable profit. I had learned this technique from Tyson at MMOAuctioneer.

Anyway, I decided I wanted to go further this time, and try to really capture the essence of the AH market. My main server's bank alt has been doing well, having completed his first week and a half (or so.) I'm up to 4.2K with about 1.5K in assets. I hope to continue this progress and eventually be making as much as Gevlon!

I am, by all means, an amateur. I created this blog so that I could catalogue my experiences and hopefully hand out just a bit of (if not more) useful information for those starting out, and those hoping to increase their profits.

I am not going to recycle old information, but I might explain some of the better known techniques just the same as the lesser ones, as I know exactly what I wish I knew starting out.

I will not initially be covering my main server's economy. Instead, I will be using a bank alt on an old server of mine, who started out with only 3g, a couple of greens, and some spider's silk to his name.