Welcome to the Gem-E-Mart, how may I serve you?
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Aug 24th 2007 at 1:19PM
Some friendly advice: if you can't stand dealing with customers, don't become an enchanter or jewelcrafter. Enchanters cannot sell enchants in the AH, so they do their business in the trade channels. Jewelcrafters can still cut jewels and sell them in the AH, but we also make some of our money by advertising our cuts or responding to "LF JC to cut ____" statements. As such, enchanters and jewelcrafters need to learn how to be store owners -- how much to charge, what to offer, when to be "open", how to deal with rude customers, etc.
I've never done enchanting before, so when I set up my jewelcrafting shop, I had to figure out things really fast. I decide that I would charge 4g per blue gem cut, no exceptions and no relying on tips; I would try to "stock" the most wanted recipes, like Runed Living Ruby and Wicked Noble Topaz; and that I wouldn't directly sell cut gems to people who didn't bring me the uncut, as that would either lead to me losing money or them saying, "I can get this cheaper on the AH!" Yeah, well, I can sell it for more money on the AH, so let's both be happy.
But one thing I definitely had to polish was my customer service skills. I'll make every possible effort for an actual customer -- look up stat combinations, recommend gems for certain classes, and direct them to another jewelcrafter if I didn't have what they needed. But man, there are some bad customers out there. People who think they shouldn't pay you for "just pressing a button", ignoring that your recipes were 300g a pop. People who ask you to buy their gems for them off the AH and then come meet them in the middle of nowhere for a lousy 5g. People who use the phrase "the customer is always right."
Crafters, what policies do you have for your "store"? What are the worst customers you've run into?
Filed under: Enchanting, Jewelcrafting, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Arras Aug 24th 2007 1:27PM
For enchanting, if they bring their own mats I give them a discount. If it's my own mats, then the price goes up. Occasionally, I'll have a "fire sale" when I'm trying to grind up and will give enchants to twinks and whatnot - actually, twinks tip the best on my server and seem to be the most willing to pay premiums
One weird thing I saw the other day: A blacksmith was trying level his skill and was selling [Felsteel gloves of Mediocrity] - 8g if you have the mats, 10g for his mats, but add 5g if he gets a skillup.
I've never seen that before...charging extra because you got the skillup you wanted in the first place? Dubya Tee Eff?
TotalBiscuit Aug 24th 2007 1:55PM
Good topic. As an enchanter, I am in the position of not being able to sell on the AH. This is, quite frankly, a fatal flaw in the profession. When you're selling, and yes, you do need salesmanship and service to succeed, you have to deal with two kinds of annoyances before you even get onto the customers.
1) The Charity - These players believe they're doing people a favour by offering loss-lead or entirely free enchants to players, doing it out of the 'goodness of their heart'. What they're really doing is damaging the entire profession market by devaluing it in the eyes of the player-base and stopping legitimate crafters from making a decent living.
2) The lazy-leveller - These are the guys that just give enchants away for the sake of leveling up, or charge a stupidly low fee for mats that are far more expensive. They think they're not hurting anyone by doing this, they'd be wrong for the same reasons as above. This becomes particularly harmful when you pass 300 and useful, diserable enchants, are also generally easy to level up from, so their value goes through the floor and enchanters have to rely on possessing rare recipes to make money.
I generally go for a non-negotiable 4g fee on enchants, with bulk discounts available for multiples. For my mats, I inflate the AH prices somewhat and offer that. I tend to use descriptive, inviting language in my trade channel messages, and give good service. I will generally 'set up shop' under my hibachi grill umbrella, murky and murloc suit. It's a PvP server, but they still love it, I guess there's a little 'rp' in everyone.
That said, it's a hard profession to make money from as regards to the crafting aspect. It's also interesting to note that you do not profit from instances in the same way that miner's, skinners and herbalists do, despite enchanting having a 'gathering' element to it. You are expected, nay demanded to disenchant and open-roll for the shard. From one perspective, that's perfectly fair, but from another, you are providing a service to people that they would otherwise not have, that of value from items which are otherwise nothing more than vendor-trash and you'd imagine there should be some profit in that for the crafter. Sadly however, there rarely is.
TB.
rick gregory Aug 24th 2007 1:33PM
Arras... I bet he'd seen someone in Trade saying that they'd PAY the customer some gold if the enchanter/JC got a point... and misinterpreted it.
I've seen folks do this - "Enchanting [list of enchants] Xg with my mats, free with yours, I'll pay YOU 5g if I skill up" to get through those dead zone ranges like 275-300 or esp 350-375
Eric Aug 24th 2007 1:41PM
i'm an enchanter and i have never sold nor given away an enchant. i tried but my first idiot didn't even know there was a trade window. after that experience i quickly closed up shop and just re-enchanted my own crap over and over again to get the necessary skills.
this is why my enchanting is stuck at level 250 or so.
Pål Aug 24th 2007 1:47PM
I once responded to a call of "LF enchanter" in trade chat. Warning sign right there, I know, but I was a little bored and had some time to kill. It turned out he wanted an enchant that cost two large radiant shards and two greater nether essences (I think). He didn't have the mats so he asked if he could buy them from me, as he didn't feel like going to the AH to buy them himself. After some back and forth arguments, he ended up going to the AH to buy mats. Or, try to buy mats, as it turned out that after buying the shards, he didn't have enough gold for the essences. So, instead of realizing his mistake and giving up as most people would have done, he actually demanded that I'd pay for the rest of the mats. When I said no, he started getting abusive. I ended up /ignoring him and teleporting to Shattrath (he was level 30-something and couldn't follow me).
10pound Aug 24th 2007 2:01PM
This article has very goo timing for me. I am just now getting into socketed items and am learning the ins and out of the cut gem trade. Being a miner, ive held onto every jewel ive ever come across.
Whats the best approach? AH all these jewels and take my proceeds directly to the AH again in order to buy gems OR look for gemcutters to cut them for me in exchange for tip/fee?
Thanks
Epiny Aug 24th 2007 3:02PM
We have every profession in my guild and since my guild is a very small tight knit group of friends I don't have to purchase anything from random people. We make most our money via AH though just because we don't have time to sit in a city and /trade WTS
ScottyO Aug 24th 2007 2:10PM
@6 Too bad disenchanting doesn't give a mini-shard or something that is BoP to the enchanter (in addition to the normal shard), which could eventually be turned into a lesser or greater one that is BoE.
Furtive Aug 24th 2007 2:16PM
Get the addon Craftlist 2 'CL2' from curse or wowace. Then people can just whisper you !enchant and it will autospam them back with all the approprate enchants and mat lists. Also works for other tradeskills like jewelcrafting and tailoring. Really helps keep down all those "what are mats for ?" tells.
Slayblaze Aug 24th 2007 2:19PM
Enchanting is not, and should never be thought of as a "money-making" profession. Partially because of the people that TB mentioned in 1) and 2) above ruining the market due to undervaluation. The other obvious reasons being those already stated about not being able to put enchants on the AH along with the very high cost of getting it to level 375 in the first place. Add in the cost of the runed rods you have to make and most enchanters would be lucky to ever just break even over the course of their "career".
It *may* be possible to actually turn a profit over time - but there we have the real crux of the matter: TIME. In the time spent hanging out in SW or IF checking the trade channel while throwing out the occasional advertisement for your wares, I could have been killing/farming mobs for $$ far greater than aany profit I would have made selling enchants.
The cool thing about enchanting is supposed to be about enhancing you own gear in my opinion. That and not being forced into going and seeking out someone else to do it for you, with the ensuing time-wasting haggle session. Its also nice to be able to do enchants for guildies and I also do them by request for non-guildies for a decent price. But if I had wanted a money-making profession I would have gone with Mining or Skinning, certainly not Enchanting.
SuperSnagg Aug 24th 2007 2:22PM
It would be way more convenient and contribute more to the Wow economy to be able to create enchant scrolls to sell on the AH. Unless there is a high level enchant I want on a twink or high level alt, i just put on an armor kit.
Josh Aug 24th 2007 2:22PM
Leveling my enchanting from 350-375 was a pain. I wasn't getting that many drops while grinding for rep items at all, so I hardly had any mats on me. A lot of the customers I had (mainly levels 65-70) didn't mind having to buy the mats for the enchants that they wanted. In my advertisement, I would say, "tips are welcomed, but not required" and would get a good tip of 5g for doing one enchant to 20g for multiples which is always nice. Tips would generally come from players who have been playing for a while or have had enchanting themselves in the past.
Of course, I had my fair share of bad customers that didn't want to buy the mats from the AH and would rather have me buy them. Even after explaining that it would cost the same, they would get upset and saying they'd find somebody else.
Delilah Aug 24th 2007 2:23PM
As a tailor, I make most of my money in the trade channel too - "LF Tailor to craft Girdle of Ruination, I have the mats," or spamming my own tailoring macro. Since I've gotten most of the BoP and BoE epic recipes (shakes fist at Battlecast Pants), I actually have a list of people farming their mats and hoping I'll have a nether for them. My one policy though - I will not haggle. My primal nether price is set. If you want to go find it for cheaper, go ahead. But I paid 600g for that Girdle of Ruination recipe (really cheap actually), I busted my ass through heroics to get a primal nether, and you're going to pay what I'm charging (which is the low end of average for my server) or go elsewhere. I've gotten a couple of belligerent people, and when I tell them "well go find someone else then," twenty minutes later I get another (sheepish) tell asking if I still have that nether available. Why yes, yes I do. The price has gone up though. :P
Foxfyr Aug 24th 2007 2:25PM
I started JC because I didn't want to rely on other people every time I wanted a gem. I got all the rare recipes because I'm obsessive compulsive about them.
I started advertising in trade how many I could cut and never asked for a fee. When people ask me what I should be tipped I usually tell them that it wouldn't be a tip if I told them that.
The result of this has been that most people tip over 5g per cut, come to me with tons of gems to cut, and constantly refer their friends and entire guilds to me.
There is the odd cheapskate that doesn't tip because he thinks it costs me nothing and doesn't think of the thousands of gold I've spent on the recipes, but in the end I've found its worth it.
Selflessness isn't for everyone but I've found it to be fairly profitable for me ;)
Paul Aug 24th 2007 2:33PM
Similar to the experience 4 had, when something like that happens to me, wasting 10 minutes of the hour i have to play in a night sometimes, i give up on selling enchants for a while and become one of those people 5 talk about.
Sorry, but just like idiots have partially ruined PUGing, they've partially ruined enchanting.
One time, a level 20 or so was looking for some enchant for his character, he wanted the best 2H weapon enchant I had. I told him it would be X and Y mats, and that I didn't have them, he would have to get them off the AH. He didn't even know how to search for things on the AH, so (and maybe I should have just been a jerk and stopped helping him there) I carefully explained how to get things off the AH.
He then said he couldn't afford those mats, and asked what my next enchant down was, i said it's X for 22g, or something. "Oh, I can't afford that either" After about 5 other enchants in decreasing value, I finally listed off a 2g enchant, and he STILL couldn't afford that.
I'm sure that night I re-enchanted a shield like 20 times, or sold some enchants for half-price just to make up for the lost time and frustration.
I know, i know, everyone is new at one time or another, but when I was new, I did the research on enchants, etc. myself, so that I was using my own time learning, not wasting someone else's.
joe Aug 24th 2007 2:38PM
i make way more money disenchanting things on the AH and selling the mats than pimping out my services. IMO the easiest way to make money in the game.
cynmoon Aug 24th 2007 2:48PM
I use enchantrix, which, after multi-weekly scans of AH (it used to be daily, but that's way too difficult) takes the average price of mats, and allows me to adjust the price to whatever percent above cost I want it to be. I stick with 10%, because to me that seems fair, and it's a shame to mark up. I also never advertise enchants I don't have the mats for. However if somebody is looking for an enchant, has the mats, and it'll skill me up, I'll do it for free. (Sometimes I'll do it for free even if it doesn't skill me up, especially for twinks because they usually tip)
Yet people STILL complain about how "unfair" my prices are, and how I'm "ridiculously overpriced."
If people bemoan my prices I let them know how I charge, and that if they want to go to AH and buy their own mats, I'll do it for free. Nobody has ever taken me up on that offer, and you know why? Because of the way auctioneer averages I usually end up selling for less or equal to the cost of current mat prices (sometimes it's more, but rarely).
I actually had one player accuse me and my "homies" (I swear to you, he used the word "homies") of jacking up the AH prices purposely to ruin the gaming experience of those that wanted enchants, and that he was going to report me for it. Bzuh? Yay for /ignore.
I've pretty much given up on selling enchants, and instead I've skilled up by twinking out my lower-level characters. I'll still try to help out somebody on trade "LF enchanter to do X" but for the most part, it's just not worth the hassle.
Trunade Aug 24th 2007 2:54PM
I have an enchanter/JC in one, and I only buy patterns I myself would repeatedly use. If someone says LF and I have it, I'll offer to do it for a tip. I don't NEED gold bad enough to tolerate a rude customer though. I often pass if they demand more work than a 1-5G tip is worth.
Ghen Aug 24th 2007 3:00PM
If they don't tip me, I don't say thank you. Thats pretty much it for dealing with bad customers /shrug.
As far as how I run my business, see the statement above. I just want tips, and if you give me a tip I'll say thank you and maybe even a smiley face and a request for your return to my 'store'.
crazyterran Aug 24th 2007 3:10PM
5G is lousy? I'd take my business away from you then.
Some people are getting overly greedy.
Your recipe costs 300g? if your not supplying the mats, I'll give you what you deserve depending on your service and how you talked to me.