Vicious

Today's post is about being an absolutely ruthless shark on the AH. What I write about today I only do when somebody is really on my nerves or is trying to muscle their way into an important market of mine. It happens the most with gems because ever since wrath everybody and their mother seems to have a JC. It happens daily with glyphs but I stopped caring about that bit once you couldn't trade IotS down. But more importantly it's about the fact that you MUST care about your competition.

Let me be clear though, I am not advocating running around being a dick to everyone that wants to sell 5 gems a week to cover repairs. I'm talking about goblin against goblin. Serious competitors that are trying to run you out of your own markets and not some random dude trying to make some quick coin. If your MO is to ensure that absolutely nobody but you can make gold on the AH then stop reading please.

This is about business, it's not about getting personal. You may not like your customers, but they are your customers none the less so you have to respect them. The dude working in a diamond mine being whipped so he works faster helped put that ring on your wife's finger. The guy that spends a weekend flying in circles around Uldum put your bank account to what it is.

And don't forget that you have to let some people make gold on the AH or they won't be sending any your way. After all, how can they afford your awesome purple shiny if they can't sell anything in the first place? Defend your markets but don't try and make them unusable for the casual seller. They're just as important to the economy as you are. That being said, lets move right along.


First here's a quick tip I thought was both hysterical and greatly practical from a commenter.

Crusard said...

"I have another, slightly more aggressive, way to monitor competition. If I see a someone undercutting me often I have a macro I use to "annoy" them (it is a full block of {x} symbols) till they put me on ignore. Then I can see them and they can't see me. This will not net you any sales but it will make your presence undetectable by your competition (at least your online status)."

Some people only care about their time and their profits when they work the AH. If this is your primary concern as well, then you have failed! You absolutely MUST consider your competitions profits, supply, habits, etc. Your fun comes from collecting gold from the mail and what everyone else does has a direct effect on that. I want to make as much gold as possible and especially in as many different ways as possible. I love exploring new markets and new niches and when I find one that's out of the ordinary I'll defend it to my last copper so I can keep having fun with it.

I am very willing and capable to undercut you by 50g per gem even if that puts me down to material prices and below. I don't care, this is my house, this is my market. And you, You're only visiting.

One thing that I do is I always cancel my auctions before I relist more. I do this to hide the stokpile of goods that I have so that some people are a bit more likely to invest a good chunk of their gold into it. Then I'll stop canceling and just list more gems. And more and more and more! I'll keep listing for 48 hour periods until I have two full pages worth of the same gem up. I know you're thinking right now "But Stok, won't you lose a ton on deposits?" Of course I will, but I don't care because I can afford it. The point here is not making money per sé, but to ensure that I can continue making the same profits later on.

Think about it. If you saw that somebody was willing to list 20 of every gem even down to -your- material costs what would you be thinking? The message that you're trying to convey here is that you have a mass amount of things that you can sell in many different markets and don't care if you lose money. I don't care if I lose money not because I can afford it, but because I want to ensure that you make zero.

And once you list close to or at material costs I'll buy up every last thing that you have leaving you with even less gold than you started with. This leaves a very bad taste in the mouths of the competition and makes them far less likely to try and move in on another market that you own.

When you lose thousands, hell even hundreds of gold in a single market you're not very likely to risk that again. Unless you're swimming in gold and can afford it. Suffice to say when somebody tries to take over one of my markets profit becomes a non-issue. Any other day making gold is my bottom line goal, but now it's no longer about the money.

It's territory.

Yes the AH is mostly about being clever and resourceful, but it is just as much about standing your ground. Are gems making you a killing each week? Don't give them up! Don't let anybody take over a single gem cut that you can do! Take no prisoners! And above all else, do not make a deal to "share" the market because it's only a matter of time before they go back on their word. They may be reasonable, they may be just like you. But when money is involved, real or otherwise, it changes people.

People can bitch all they want about high prices but they'll never sell a flask for 50% of the material costs "just to be a nice guy." And just the same people can piss and moan all day about being undercut by 200g. That doesn't stop them from buying the cheapest thing they can find even when it's because "some asshole" undercut "some nice cool guy eh" by 200.

Fact.

So what's the lesson to be learned here? Don't let somebody take over just to "be a cool nice dude." That's going to cut your income in half. And if you only want enough to be independent then you probably wouldn't be reading this in the first place, that's not who I'm writing this for. If you share the market and do not stand your ground when serious competition shows up you're not going to get to the gold cap until level 100.


Thanks for stopping by!