Wowecon.com

This website is a fantastic resource, often left unused and unknown to many players. The people running it collect all kinds of useful market information for you: prices of items over time, prices on different servers, items that sell too low, etc. It's a fantastic way to learn more about your market! I can't stress its usefulness enough to you all. The more you know, the more deals you'll find, the more efficient you'll be in your money-making. So, go surf Wowecon!

Ideas

Hey, sorry for the lack of new information lately. Had a couple days off of work, and haven't been motivated to DO any work. =D

Anyway, I've covered enough material at this point that I'm struggling for new information to write about. So, again I turn to you, my few readers. :p Post in the comments what you want more information about, and I'll do my best to oblige!

Price Manipulation For Easy Profits

Update: This method simply will not work. There are too many rich players out there, using the Auction House just like you. If they see your low prices, they'll snap it all up and relist it for 5 times your price. Even if you flood the market, it will all be gone. Unfortunately, the economies are too full of legitly and non-legitly rich players to pull something like this off. =(

So, this occurred to me as I drove to work today. I've been trying various things on the Auction House lately, and I plan to try this over the next week or so.

The way people make money in the Auction House is to buy low, and sell at actual value or even higher. But what if the low bids aren't low enough to turn a nice profit? If the market isn't gigantic (like Linen Cloth, or other low-level crafting items), you can tilt the market just enough to really make a killing.

Find your market of choice. The items must be frequently bought on the Auction House, but not so huge that you can't control it a little. Mid and high-level crafting materials usually make good candidates. Again, I'm using Mithril Bars. I buy all of the bars available at auction. I then relist a small portion of them for significantly less than they are actually worth. Seems crazy, I know, but bear with me. Now, when someone decides to post more Mithril Bars, they are forced to undercut you to sell them. Buy those, too. Buy all of them you need to in order to keep your auctions in the majority, and force the overly low prices. When you've built up a good amount, let your auctions expire/sell out, and post no more.

What we're doing here is deliberately driving down prices. If all went well, you've now got a decent stock of whatever item you chose, and you acquired them rather far below market value. Now, simply allow the prices to rebound to regular levels. It could take a day or two. To speed it up, buy out all of the auctions again, and relist them for the prices they went for before you drove them down. Now you can re-sell the items you bought at rock-bottom for their actual worth. You can even undercut for more than you normally would, because your profits will still be huge! If you try this, let me know how it works out in the comments. I'll keep my results posted.

Some things to watch out for that are occurring to me now that I'm checking out the Auction House:

• It must be an active market! If no one is posting items in competition, people are just going to buy your low listings, and prices will go back to normal.
• There is a risk that the market is smart enough that competitors will simply wait for your items to be sold, rather than lose their own profits to underbid you. For this reason, a gradual slide down in price might be necessary.
  

My Ore Experiment, Part 2

Okay, so, I made 30 gold profit by selling the Mithril Bars I bought. However, there is simply too much Mithril on the market to control it all. I can't afford to buy 190 bars a day. So, the market is too big, but the concept is sound.

I'm moving on to Felsteel bars. There is 1 stack of 5 on my Auction House right now, and I'm going to buy it, break it apart, and sell the pieces for more. I'll let you know how it goes!

My Ore Experiment

Okay, so here's my latest experiment in the Auction House. I'm taking Mithril Bars, and buying every one I see. Usually, there's only 8 or 9 listings, so it's not a huge investment. Then, I break them up into smaller amounts (1-6 bars) and re-list them, but raise the price of each individual bar. For example, I bought 20 bars for 17 gold, which puts each bar at a little less than 1 gold. I re-listed them in smaller amounts, with the prices per bar at 1.5 gold. This way, the total amount is less, but I'm actually making profit. Also, I can now cater to people who only need 1 bar, or 2, or whatever, who might not buy if I listed in stacks of 20.


Really, it's just a way of tricking the consumer. Like how everything is $xx.99. The fact that it's 1 penny less than a whole new number doesn't matter, because it LOOKS cheaper, as long as the front numbers are small. So, this is kind of a dirty trick I'm trying, to see if I can short-sight the buyers and make easy profit.
I'll keep you updated on how this works out!

Jewelcrafting - Sparkly Gems for Fun and Profit

Most people consider Jewelcrafting kind of a money sink. I'm not sure where this rhetoric came from, but go on and ask someone if they think Jewelcrafting is a good money spinner. It's like asking of Blacksmithing can make money for you. Well, it's partly true. You stand to spend a lot of money raising your Jewelcrafting skill, but once you hit 315, you're golden for my purposes.

If you're a miner, save the high-end ore you mine. If you need to, buy it from the Auction House. Once your Jewelcrafting his 275, you can prospect Fel Iron Ore, and once it hits 315, you can prospect Adamantite Ore. Prospecting means you use the ore in order to look for gems in it. Gem drop rates have gotten a boost lately, which is nice, though it knocked prices down. The process is simple: get ore, prospect gems, hope for a blue, sell uncut gems. Even if you have to buy the ore, you might be able to easily make up the profit by selling the gems. Check your Auction House prices on gems before you do this! If they're really low, you might want to wait for the market to go back up.

The best part about this tip is that is conceivably requires no effort from you. Buy ore, sell gems, repeat. With the right economy under you, you can stand to make a ton of money by doing this!

Swiftthistle Is Always in Demand!

Probably the most useful item in a Rogue's bag is Thistle Tea. This stuff gives back 40 energy when you drink it, which is a vital component for many perma-stun combos, and is simply darn useful at any point. Given that, there's always a market for this stuff. Now, take into consideration that Swiftthistle, the herb used to make it, CANNOT be picked directly, and you have a winner. Swiftthistle is also used in some other useful potions, like the Swiftness Potion, and agility potions!

Swiftthistle is randomly-found when you pick Briarthorn and Mageroyal, and has a small chance of dropping off of some mobs. Now, this is important. Not only is Swiftthistle useful, it is very hard to come by. If you know how to farm it, you can make a lot of money!

My advice? Don't bother with mobs. It's too unreliable. Grab your herbalist, go to Westfall, and pick every bit of Briarthorn and Mageroyal you see. Westfall is the best for this, I think, because both herbs are in the area. Briarthorn can be found in lots of places, but usually with higher-level herbs, like Goldthorn, for example. Also, if you're Alliance, you're 100% ungankable while you work, and if you're even level 20, the mobs won't be any problem for you.

So, pick pick pick! When you get some stacks, pop those onto the Auction House. You'll be amazed at how high a stack of 20 of these l0w-level herbs sells for!