Play the farmers

This entry is inspired by a post at maintankadin in one of the gold making threads that cropped up. It's the website that taught me and many others how to run a prot pally and not just face roll left to right. The proper way is from right to left. I felt that the theory behind it warranted going a bit more in depth with to explain and expound on. This is one of those times where if you're not consciously aware of something you can't do much with it, let alone capitalize on and take further. Here's the original question and answer I'm referring to and a link to my entry describing the effects of different markets upon each other.

Courtesy of Ceela from Neptulon-EU.


Rodos says:
Does anyone have a good strategy for artificially lowering the price of raw materials (other than dumping large quantities of said materials)?

Context: Primal Might sells well for me, but recently the price of Primal Air shot up to 60g each, and Primal Water is high too, which really eats into the profits. I sent Rodos out to Nagrand and sucked up about 5 air over breakfast this morning. I transmuted 3 and listed the other 2 at the current (high) price, so I'll get a decent return on my farming time either way, but I'm lazy and would prefer to just buy, transmute, list, collect gold.

How do I start a price war that I can capitalize on? I realize that if there's a real shortage there isn't a lot I can do, but I'd like to probe and see if I can bring some suppliers out of the woodwork.


Ceela replies:
Given time, the high price will encourage farmers anyway, as long as it looks like there's money to be made. You might be able to persuade them to farm more by buying one or two from each seller so they realise there's a profit to be made and start warring on price :) Alternatively, if you can spot a pattern in when they (re)list theirs, list a couple yourself just beforehand at a deep undercut to force their prices down.

On my server saronite ore's just on the downswing again from a big supply shortage/price spike. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or not that prices started coming down again once I gave up waiting it out and mass-bought at the higher price, thus making it a bit more worthwhile farming (I suspect that nobody was buying at all for a while).


Given time, the high price will encourage farmers anyway
This is a fact of WoW. When profits get up there people will swarm to get while the getting is good. I wrote about it once while talking about the life cycle of different markets and the secondary ones that effect them. Encouraging people to look into farming it by posting in /2 on a few different names commenting on how the prices are crazy and how gosh darn, if only you could farm them yourself!

If nothing else, you can usually rest assured that prices will always be swinging so long as there's a relatively consistent demand. So if you are wishing the price on adder's tongue would go down, you usually just need to wait for it to happen. And sooner or later it definitely will and prices will crash then the cycle will begin once more. Be there when it's time to buy.

This is also the very same reason that I try to keep my prices low if I don't have a pseudo-monopoly (god that word sucks to type). If you saw that heavy armor kits or belt buckles were selling at 200g each, I think you'd try to craft a few to sell. After you undercut of course. Then another person gets the same idea of course. Then I have to be a jerk and crash the prices.

Of course.


Buying one or two from each seller
This is a great tactic for those that don't buy up everything they see regardless. But even if you do, take a look at who the sellers are. If you see somebody selling a ton of mats that are out of your buying range, buy a couple anyways to encourage them to keep farming. Eventually they will lower their price to either undercut the other farmers or to try and get more sales faster. Either way they'll all end up in your bags at the end of the day and that's the point after all.


List a couple yourself
A great way to manipulate the UF's is to give them the illusion of competition. The people that spend a few hours a day farming are willing to list their stuff at rock bottom prices if they have to so they can ensure daily sales. Also, they aren't usually clever or patient enough to buy your cheap wares and relist at their price. If you post a few stacks a little bit beneath theirs a minute or two after they do they'll usually still be there at their tent near the AH and post a bunch more under your. Then just hop onto another toon and buy them up. The only thing to be careful of is that you goods can easily be bought by somebody else and have no effect on the farmer at all, leaving you with less mats than you had a bit ago and usually losing a few gold as well. Granted it's a small risk but a risk none the less. However the fun when it works just totally makes you feel like a boss.


Prices started coming down again
When you buy up an ass ton of mats that's going to draw attention. If it's in a material flood it'll keep it going for a bit longer as people see there's still good profit to be made. If it's in a drought they'll still see that people are willing to pay a certain price and it'll encourage them to keep up the farming. Everything in the AH game tends to have an effect and, depending on the item, can have some very large and immediately noticeable ones. If you work it right they can greatly play to your advantage.


Thanks for stopping by!