Bidding

Bidding is a big part of the auction house, but I have not really read anybody touch on it before. There's a lot of auctions you'll find that are not just buy out only and some with a very low bid cost. When you make a bid on an item, the only thing that you have to lose is the time it took to make the bid. Some times you can get materials that are way below market price just with bids, but it's a good idea to know when and what to bid on.

First here's the general mentality of having a low low bid price. Lets say I want to auction [epic item] and it's worth 5,000g. I know that it might sell for that price, but I want my money now and I don't want to deal with deposits and checking for under cuts, and so forth. So I'll put it up for a very low bid thinking that since the price is so low I'll get at least that much hopefully attracting attention and have more bid on it. However this doesn't work for low price items like gems or flasks because people want these things NOW! But you can still find a cut gem with a bid price of less than the materials every day.

Things that you want to try to win a low bid for are things that typically take a day or so to sell or have a specialty market. Things like gems, rare recipes, motorcycles if it's below mat cost, things of this nature. Some that you'll waste your time on are herbs, belt buckles, or flasks because these types of items sell very fast and in large amounts.

You also need to keep in mind that people camp their bids just as much as they camp their auctions and you know how much that is. Because of that making a bid on any auction that has 48 hours left is almost a promise to get you out bid on defeating the whole purpose of bidding in the first place. Even some things will be bid camped at 24 hours remaining.

Here's the thought process or "mental check list" I go through when I see a low bid for something I want with a decent price. This is all assuming the bid is cheap but the buy out is far too high to pay.

I will place a bid if it:
-Has 30 minutes remaining (listed as short)
-Doesn't sell frequently or is specialized (old world mats or expensive wotlk mats)
-Is something I am nearly out of
-Is below material cost
-Is being bid camped. I'll do this until it's at my threshold and bid a little bit more based on price solely
to mess with the camper.
-Is an item from outland or high level old world item (arcane dust or illusion dust)
-Has potential for high resale, such as epic ToC trade recipes

I will NOT bid if it:
-Has over 12 hours left (listed as long)
-Sells very often regardless of price
-Is priced right at my buying threshold
-Is expensive and being camped
-Is rarely seen, like a golden pearl (this means many are watching and waiting to bid at the last moment)

Granted it takes almost no time or effort to bid, but when bidding on 50 things at once, which is common to do, You can get your mail box very cluttered with failed bidding and the time it took to make all of those bids has been lost. Bidding can save you a bunch of gold if you do it right, but if you don't pay attention you'll end up increasing the bid price for no reason which is silly.And you don't want to waste your time after all, do you? As usual, time is money friend!


Thanks for stopping by!