It's that time again, resets, crashes, bugs, and reports. Today is the day where I, Stokpile the well dressed and lover of all things shiny provide you with some nice reading material while angrily awaiting blizz to get servers back up. As usual, numbers and bottom lines come first.
Income per banker
Gems, LW, misc: 45,000
Smithing and enchanting: 59,000
Glyphs: 5,000
Total weekly sales: 109,000
Weekly profit: 50,000
Total gold: 1,230,000
Well I've recovered from my 3 day long bender and finally got some sleep. Of course during that time I made sure to at least do a cancel/post while waiting at home for a ride to the next stop. I sure as hell wasn't going to be driving myself anywhere, that's for sure.
And holy crap I just noticed I have yet another gold cap. Woohoo number 6!
Detailed Recap
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It seems that titansteel prices are slowly dropping in price but crusader orbs are becoming even more and more scarce. A very annoying catch 22 for the toc epics market. On that note, I picked up the recipe for bejeweled wizard's bracers finally for 1500g. I learned it and sold two of them before the week ended. So they're now in my standard inventory now so long as I'm stocked up with epic gems. I also took my pally into another toc pug and got the other mail dps recipe so I'll craft a set of bracers/chest and see where it goes. I then bought the leather dps bracers for 1500 and am looking to pick up the leather chest piece as well.
I know last time it took a bit to move the bracers, but I said the same thing about the tank piece. Though lately the tank epics have been selling in pairs at a full buy out price which nets me well over 1k profit per sale. Ok 20 minutes ago the mail bracers have sold for a decent 300g profit. it isn't astounding but I'll keep making them as I get more orbs in for the time being.
Seriously, get in on this market if you can afford it. A quick suggestion if you're working in this market though. Set up QA3 to give you a bid set to 90% of the buy out price. You'd be surprised on how many extra sales this has gotten me. Sure you won't get the full amount of profit you'd like, but that's sure better than no sales at all. It also has a way of inciting a small bidding war when there's only one up on the AH. When this happens, people will tend to either say screw it and stop bidding or just buy it out completely when they normally wouldn't.
I'm getting stuffed to the gills with my epic gem purchases. I've even taken to buying up some cut ones as well when the price is right. The profits from the market so far have been very good to me and still allowing me to stokpile a good amount of extras for when ruby sanctum goes live which I hope is today. Taking a gamble on the gem prices spiking up good and high temporarily. And with the inevitable material shortage, thanks to yours truly, I'll be in a great position to take the reigns and get advantage of the price increase. Worst case scenario and prices remain the same then I'm just stocked up to last me until cata comes out.
Since leaving the glyph business, it seems that my former competitors have returned in full force. So of course, I had to trash the market. Again. I pulled glyphs down to 10g and even at that price and barely posting anything I did rather well. I didn't even start crafting new glyphs until like Wednesday when I had only about 800 or so in stock. Heh whoops. Admittedly that was also due to me being out of vellum's of both types so I had to spend almost all my IotS on those to refill. Regardless, it's still a thriving market on horde side and is doing just as well alliance side. All hail the King of professions.
Lastly, twink enchants have been picking up from a brief lull once more. It seems like every weekend is still a promised fistful of sales in that area. Even if I sell none during the week, come Saturday there they go flying off the shelves again.
Thanks for stopping by!
Simply put, WTB your server's economy. On my server, one of the oldest, there is a high population, it’s part of the most competitive battlegroup, there is a lot of activity but oddly, very little demand for goods. There is a handful of business man around the server: goblins, crafters, campers etc. mostly the same bunch. We all play the AH but the profits from this are very slim. For virtually anything. My only chance of making a small profit is to pay attention and act in those markets my competition is not so active “today”. I do epic gems, enchanting materials, twink enchants, blacksmithing, tailoring, cooking and some misc. I’ve been in the AH game for more than 1 year now, and it was never been as bad as it is now. Server is almost everytime ranked as “High” when logging in, but there is such a low demand. Believe it or not, my most profitable business is selling remote vendor cooking recipes. 200-400g per day. These are selling like crazy, everyday.
ReplyDeleteAnyway the idea is, I like your blog very much and I really enjoy your presentations. I just wish it would work on my server too. Good luck !
@ Archangel
ReplyDeleteAny chance you could give a listing on the cooking recipes in a comment? I'd like to give selling them a shot and see if I can have some fun with it as well. Also I'm sure one of the 4 other readers might be curious as well.
As for your situation, I'd think that it's more a case of getting the right supply as opposed to the right market. With a huge server, there's going to be an equally increased supply even though you say the demand isn't it's match. Most goblins are able to get away with low profits because they have another way to make a profit in sub markets or just have suppliers for VERY good deals on mats.
On my alliance project, I'm getting crystals for 15g each and listing scrolls at dirt cheap after raids end and the AH is cleared of them. My best advice is to try to time your auctions as best you can and catch the demand when it's at the peak.
Nice numbers. 50K profit! A sixth gold cap!
ReplyDeleteTOC epics. Holy crap these are awesome! I only sell the the tailoring ones but those rock. Sold 6 epics in a week for great profit. I can imagine the fun you have with toc epics from all professions.
BTW since taking over the netherweave bags from you I have driven out most of the competetion and can now set my prices. :P I love it.
Taking Notes,
Mulegirl
Setting a proper minimum buyout is important, I think. When posting some things in Auctioneer, I notice that my competitors have barely gone under the buyout price, so I undercut the bid even more. When someone puts a bid on my auction, I'm happy to make a sale, and not get the item back -- I don't feel annoyed that I didn't 'get the profit I wanted' -- that minimum bid price *should* be set to a profit I'm willing to take, after all!
ReplyDelete@ Indy
ReplyDeleteYou're right that the bid price should be no less than the min profit you'll feel happy with. As you've noticed, but others may not have, is that if somebody lists an item for 1500g with a 1k bid and you list the same item for a 1500g buy out but with a 900g bid yours will show up first and either get the bid or the buy out. I used this tactic a lot to deal with a few campers on the epic markets and it certainly paid off.
@ Mulegirl
Yeah the tailoring ones are definitely good fun, but I've always been leery on the mp5 or spirit based ones. Mostly because there's always a bunch of the patterns up for dirt cheap and rarely any crafted on AH either. Also because of that way I gear my toons, I try and avoid spirit like the plague.
On my priest I'm always casting so I rarely get any benefit from spirit and as a mage, well, long live haste rating! In the near future I may splurge and pick up an ICC recipe and see if I can sell one. Unfortunately that limits me to only LW as no other toon has the necessary rep to get them and I refuse to do a rep grind for it with 9-24 morons.
twink enchants are being very good to me as well. The biggest problem I have is keeping them in stock. I had to farm essence of air this weekend because I was running out of agility scrolls and nobody was putting in the ah.
ReplyDeleteright after I spent an hour in silithus grinding up a few dozen, a whole pile appeared on the ah for 25g ea, which at current scroll prices is still very profitable. So I bought them up. Still glad I farmed though, I have enough essence now for about 25 scrolls which will probably only last me a week, maybe 2. I really need to find somebody who wants to farm these.
God I still remember in TBC, I used to buy these on my way up the ah food chain to flip from like 50s to 3-4g, and ended up unloading 100+ around my buy price when they were moving too slow at decent prices to be worth bothering with. If I'd known what they'd end up being worth in wrath, I might have stockpiled a couple tabs of them.
I know I might shoot myself in the foot here, but I think it’s only fair to share something, as long as you and others like you, thought me so much from you shared experience.
ReplyDeleteI play alliance side and here is the list:
Booty Bay: Cooked Glossy Mightfish, Fillet of Redgill, Giant Clam Scorcho, Hot Smoked Bass
Westfall: Clam Chowder, Spiced Chili Crab
Loch Modan: Loch Frenzy Delight
Felwood: Chared Bear Kabobs, Juicy Bear Burger
Winterspring Monster Omelet
Feralas: Baked Salmon, Lobster Stew
Tanaris : Grilled Squid, Poached Sunscale Salmon, Spotted Yellowtail
Azuremyst: Crunchy Spider Surprise
Desolace: Heavy Kodo Stew
Auberdine: Fillet of Frenzy
Arathi Highlands: Barbecued Buzzard Wing
Feralas: Hot Wolf Ribs, Mightfish Steak
Ashenvale: Big Bear Steak, Lean Venison
Theramore: Dragonbreath Chili, Roast Raptor, Mystery Stew
Stormwind: Crocolisk Steak, Curiously Tasty Omelet, Crocolisk Gumbo
The route is : Azuremyst, Auberdine, Felwood, Winterspring, Ashenvale, Desolace, Feralas, Tanaris, Theramore / boat to Menethil or to Booty Bay from Ratchet / Arathi Highlands, Loch Modan, Westfall, Booty Bay (or the other way around if you go to Booty Bay first).
What all these recipes have in common is that they are all sold by only one vendor (with a few insignificant exceptions) and also, those vendors are, somewhat in remote locations.
I know there is a horde counterpart to it (done it on a starter character), but I don’t have a list for it ready. The system I use is this: take one of my 80’s with empty bags, and follow a route through all the vendors. I buy recipes, and send them to two of my alts from various mail boxes along the way. I pick up 36 of each from the list above Booty Bay – Desolace and a mix of 36/24 of each from the list above Auberdine – Stormwind, based on my experience of how good they sell.. The first set of 36 pieces x 17 recipes fit in 50 mail slots to one alt. The other ones (mix of 36/24) fit in 31 mail slots to another alt. This way I have a healthy supply for 30 days, before the unsold ones return to the main character, when I make another trip to complete the ones that sold. I post with QA3 with minimum of 3-4g and maximum of 21g. The average price range they sell is around 12-17g. 80% of the time I sell ~20 recipes per day. Some days I collect +600g from the mail box, some days I collect little as 80g (but this is rare). I have screenshots to prove it for almost 2 months daily, I think. There are competitors, but whether they don’t have a proper system, or lack bag/alt spaces, no one is selling every recipe at one time, like I do. Why are these recipes selling? I think they are bought by people doing the cooking achievement, but some of these recipes are a bottleneck in leveling cooking. I’m glad this market works for me, as I use this gold as a buffer fund for safely relisting items on AH that have high deposit cost like Spellweave or epic gems. I can freely post 100 Spellweave on the AH, as the high cost of doing it (maybe 80g or so) it’s covered by the daily income from the cooking recipes business.
I will need to rush home soon, but I’ll post another comment regarding your observation about a business man’s supply you mentioned. Have fun!
wow congratulations on the 6th cap.
ReplyDeleteDo you feel you make quite a lot from the ToC repicipes. I never got into those markets.
I just wanted to say that I love your blog. I've been grinding out gold for the last few weeks now and I've decided to focus heavily on the enchanting scrolls market since it has no listing costs.
ReplyDeleteI picked up the +22 int enchant last week (because of your guide to BOA enchants) and I wanted to share something simple - in most cases it's MUCH cheaper (and faster) to simply buy 42 Fiery/Lava cores (10g each on my AH) to get Thorium Brotherhood revered rather than grinding Incendasaur scales and kingsblood and dark iron ore and all the rest.
My goal is to get Goldcapped before the expansion. I'm doing this because I'm trying to get every single achievement in the game in one year and many of them need a lot of gold. If you're interested in my journey, feel free to check out http://wowunderachiever.blogspot.com - I have posted my current gold-making strategies on there.
This is a great blog. To be honest, I find it far more useful than Gevlon's :)
@Deathspiral: Gevlon stopped caring about gold grinding last year. His blog is more of a rant of why he's right and everyone else is wrong. LOL
ReplyDelete@Archangel: I have the same type server, one that's been around forever and is good population but nowhere near the volume of Stok's. We have multiple AH players on the server and here's what I do to make 25-40k a week: Be open to changing markets and keep an eye out for deals always.
I shop for bargains habitually, but only spend maybe 20 minutes a day posting. Everyone's server is different, but for med-high pop servers especially, timing is everything. At the moment people are selling raw mats at high prices. Everything is overpriced. Saronite is in especially short supply while prices are matching raw mat prices. It's pretty foolish around here, which is why I tend to deal in high dollar items anymore... those being items with a price tag of 500g to 10,000g. I still sell lower priced consumables, but in the sandbox I choose to play in there are very few people willing to slap down 50-100k in gold a week, and sometimes 150k. The stuff tends to have wider fluctuation in prices making it far more challenging and not for the cancel/post monkey, but the profits are insane.
@Stokpile
ReplyDeleteBejewelled Wizard's Bracers - Sold 2
Royal Moonshroud Bracers - Sold 3
Royal Moonshroud Robe - Sold 1
Merlin's Robe - Don't have yet.
This is over the past 5-7 days.
I may try out some ICC patterns since I have the rep...
@ Archangel
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great post. I remember selling a few of those while leveling up my priest actually so I'm sure the rest of them are worthwhile to pick up as well if you have the time to do so. Now if only you had a list like that for the horde =(
@ Mule
Ah so the spirit cloth does sell, I may give it a shot if/when I can pick up the patterns or maybe the leather. Not wanting to make the SP plate as only one spec in game can use it.
@ Deathspiral
I know the lava cores and such are faster, but you need to have X rep to turn them in first. And on my server they're up to 50g each. Wasn't an option for me sadly.
@ Liam
The toc epics are huge profits and very low competition. To me, it's the best niche market I've ever found.
hi
ReplyDeletefirst im a huge fan of your blog realy awesome work !
you have talked about the effort it takes to figure out what profession generates how much income
i use a programm called wsr ( wow sales report)
http://sites.google.com/site/wowsalesreports/home
this nifty little tool parses your beancounter lua und puts it in a nice execel sheet. i had a nice pivot spreadsheet build to filter and search for all kind of things, but my harddrive crashed. im working on a new spreadsheet since i found it realy nice to have such an great overview over the amounts of items bought/sold amounts of gold, average sales per day/week and so on.
just wanted to let you know about wsr
i'll post again as soon as i've finished my spreadsheet, althoug im not sure if you could use it since i run the german client
very nice list archangel, I may put an alt in this business as well.
ReplyDeletebtw, I take issue with one thing you say here: "I can freely post 100 Spellweave on the AH, as the high cost of doing it (maybe 80g or so) it’s covered by the daily income from the cooking recipes business. "
This doesn't make sense. You have that daily income whether or not you list 100 spellweave. If it makes sense to list 100 spellweave, then it makes with or without daily income as long as you have enough bankroll. If it doesn't, then same.
You should list N+1 items, when the profit from selling the N+1st item times the expected chance to sell out all N+1 is greater than the deposit cost on the last item. I would never list 100 spellweave on any server I've been on. I usually list a max of 10 or so at a time, because my experience is that when I list more than 10, I almost never sell them all.
If your profit is X and the deposit is Y, then you want to list a number of items that will sell out at least Y/X of the time. List more, and you are breaking even or losing money on the extra.
With spellweave, you are making maybe 5-10g profit, with a 60s cost, so you need to sell out 15-30% of the time to make listing the last one a good idea.
This is why listing a pile of enchant mats/scrolls or glyphs is fine. With 60c deposit vs. at least 1g profit, if you sell out even one in 100 times, it's worth it. With a 60s deposit, you need a 100+g profit to feel that way, and if you're getting 100g profit on spellweave, I'm transferring my tailor to your server.
"@ Deathspiral
ReplyDeleteI know the lava cores and such are faster, but you need to have X rep to turn them in first. And on my server they're up to 50g each. Wasn't an option for me sadly."
Just to clear up this misconception: I started at 0/3000 neutral. No rep is needed to turn in cores.
@The Gnome of Zurich
ReplyDeleteI understand exactly what you are saying and you are right. My thoughts are the same (well, not so insightful as yours). Deposit fees rely on my bankroll.
What I was referring to, is the fact that I like to think about the profits from cooking recipe business, as a "buffer fund" or "safety net". I used the 100 Spellweave just as a forced example to underline that if something goes wrong (like losing 60g of 100 unsold Spellweave) the loss will compensate with the daily profit from the recipe business and will not cut into your bankroll. It's just my personal view.
On a side note I mentioned the Spellweave because I just stumbled across a cheap supply of Eternal Fire (18g while the price is in the 24-28g range for more than one month now). 200 eternals more exactly. I used 100 to make 200 Spellweave (Tailoring specialization). As I didn't played in that market for some time, I decided to risk it. So I crashed the market from 48g per piece to 33g and posted 100 cloth. 20 stacks of 1 and 20 stacks of 4. It was all sold in 48 hours with about 8g profit per cloth after the AH cut.
@Zerohour
You just described my server :) You are so right about the timing but unfortunately, we've passed that stage already. It's not enough anymore. To many smart AH players.
@Stokpile
I'm glad you liked the idea. I made the list myself, just using wowhead with some added filters. Usually for many recipes the source states "Vendors". But the ones in my list appear on wowhead with the exact name of the NPC seller, as he/she is the only one selling it.
I had a plan to extend this to Outland recipes as well, but I'm lazy and always had some other nonsense things to do, so i never tested it. More than that, there is actually an entire list of all the BoE recipes for all professions sold by vendors, with rankings for resale value. I never used it but just for refrence you can find it here http://www.blizzardguides.com/vendor_profession_recipes_guide.html
Have fun !