Time is Money: Using the unmodified Auction House
Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply).The Auction House is something that you've probably been using since you were a wee little thing, still counting coppers. Despite this experience, there may still be a few things about the system that you might not know, and these tricks will help you buy smart and sell with confidence.
Purchasing items
i. Price per item
When asked what the focus of my public school math classes were, the first thing that comes to mind is grocery store navigation. Seriously. I'm pretty sure that we spent an ample amount of time, spread out over the years, working on making change, understanding tax, and learning that price per unit (such as $1 per pound) is sometimes convoluted in order to trick us into parting with more cash.
When looking at the basic, unmodified Auction House, you can quickly determine which stacks of cloth are selling each piece for the cheapest. This is easy to do when looking at several stacks of 20, but often, there are several partial stacks for sale as well, and sometimes you can actually get a bargain by snatching those up. Other times, they're priced at a huge mark-up!
Mouse-over the icon for the item, and the tooltip that appears will tell you the Bid Price Per Unit and the Buyout Price Per Unit. In seconds, you'll be able to tell what to bid on, what to buy out, and what to avoid.
ii. Searching
Conducting searches can take a surprising amount of time. You may have many unique items to look up, and typing out the names each time can be a hassle. Instead, make sure that you are looking at the Browse tab, open a bag, and Shift + Click on the item that you want to look up. This will type out the entire name into the search bar, and you need only hit Search in order to get your results.
This trick is especially handy when you are checking your target markets. For example, an herbalist might only list their Lichbloom on days when it seems to be going for 65g+, their Icethorn for 55g+, and so on. In under a minute, this person could check each herb's demand that day, and know instantly whether or not to bother listing his or her goods.
iii. Setting up filters
Filters help you to narrow your search results. For example, when searching for cheap blues to disenchant into Dream Shards, you will want to make sure the following filters are set up:
- Make sure that "Usable Items" is not checked off. You aren't planning to wear the gear, so you don't want it showing you only cloth items if that is all you can equip.
- Change the Rarity from All to Rare. This will keep the greens out of your hunt for blues!
- Set the minimum level. Items from Northrend do not award Dream Shards unless they are at least level 73. Before that, they will most likely give you Small Dream Shards, which will likely not be worth the amount of money you paid for the blue.
Selling Goods
i. Pricing Greens
Auctioning greens can be tricky and slow. It can also meet with disappointing results. First, decide if you are pricing your greens to be picked up by disenchanters, or whether you are going for top dollar.
When selling for disenchanting purposes, if your items are over level 73, you can sell them for 5g or more, and 10g+ for weapons. This is because these items will drop more dust, or materials of a higher quality. Always double check that you are pricing something over the vendor sell price! Many weapons, for example, will vendor for 10g or more. Don't pay for an auction when a vendor will do it in a pinch.
Selling to players for use is trickier. Use the filters to look up each item's market. For example, if you have a 72 leather hat, do the following:
- Go into Armor, choose Leather, and click Head. Unclick "Usable Items."
- Consider the market. Someone at level 70 might not be willing to buy a level 72 hat yet, while a 74 would probably not buy one that old. Try searching for 70-74 for wide parameters, or 71-73 for a tighter search.
- When examining the other hats, don't just price match them. A hat with intellect and spell power might sell better than your intellect and agility piece!
- Know which stat combinations sell. This isn't related to the Auction House, but rather to class and spec needs. If you are unsure, do some research or ask around.
Finally, consider taking advantage of the first concept that we explored, by changing the number in a stack in order to inflate the price.
Some things are naturally more likely to be bought in small quantities. Someone gathering mats so that they can buy an enchant might only want four Infinite Dust, and might be willing to buy them in stacks of one. Because there is a smaller market for the dust in high quantity, the stacks of 20 sell for much less than smaller quantities.
Filed under: Items, Making money, Guides, Features, Economy, How-tos, Tricks, Tips, Analysis / Opinion, Time Is Money






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Koot Apr 7th 2009 5:10PM
Nice tips! I use some of these tactics often and it has helped me get a lot of money. Hopefully it will help other people too =P
John Apr 7th 2009 5:10PM
How dare you make it seem like this game is playable without the use of add-ons!
richard.ashton Apr 7th 2009 5:10PM
All of this is included in pretty much all Auctioneer type addons.
Braundo Apr 7th 2009 5:35PM
All at the cost of tooltips longer than some novels, and more memory than all of your other add-ons combined. I'll pass.
Kirioth Apr 7th 2009 5:35PM
I can't help but feel that the point of this article has been lost on you to some degree.
Anyway, back on topic.
Excellent advice, and a good read for people just starting out in the auction house game.
Houston Apr 7th 2009 6:02PM
That's why you just use auctioneer on a bank mule and disable it for your main(s). I used to play the auction add-on free, and you can really get into it, but the addons make it much more hassle free. Plus, there are different addons than the hog that is Auctioneer. WoW Insider just did an article a while back on them.
HealsofSteel Apr 7th 2009 5:58PM
Great article!
One other tip I use all the time that fits in with this article is stacking in a way that can force players to buy more than they may have wanted.
For exampl, I am an herbalist and I get tons of Crystalized Life. I sell them in stacks of 3. If someone is looking for enough to make an Eternal Life they have to but 4 of my stacks of 3 which means they buy 12 rather than 10.
You would think they would just buy what they need but I sell tons this way.
Shanks Apr 7th 2009 5:51PM
The shift-click tip is a good one, but watch out for those pesky suffixes. You'll end up searching for just Barbarian War Axes of the Tiger instead of all Barbarian War Axes. In general, when searching by item name, leave off the "of the..."
A good tip a friend told me is that Inscriptionists use herbs in fives, and so they may be more likely to bid on convenient stacks of multiples of five rather than have a couple extra herbs they can't use, or bid on another auction to obtain that fifth Ice Cap. It's worked wonders for my wallet, and I've never used an auction addon.
nieboh Apr 7th 2009 8:20PM
True about the suffixes.
I often wish the shift-click entering for item names in search would automatically drop the "of the ____" part. If I need to search for a specific item I can type that in myself. I think I waste a lot more time deleting all the suffixes than I would ever waste adding in the few that I actually need.
Dobmeister Apr 7th 2009 6:11PM
I prefer the socialist-leaning side of the auction house. When I sell my Level 45 Leather Green Of The Eagle, I do not want to be pressured into charging 20 gold, simply because the Auctioneer-powered, profit-seeking competitors are doing the same. I sell my stuff cheap so either alts and new players can gear up competitively, or so enchanters don't feel ripped off. Just because it's the optimal stat combination and level req is close to the top end of a bracket, doesn't mean we must all rip off the world in the vain hope a twinking b****** will splash out on +5 stamina & +4 agility.
Turtlehead Apr 7th 2009 7:46PM
An auction is about as purely a profit orientated a thing can be, so I have to admit this strikes me as strange.
Further, you're giving that gold to the people you find most contemptible. They're the ones who spot all the low price items on sale. What do they do? Resell at a higher price or (more likely) DE and sell the mats high.
If it makes you happy, keeping doing it despite not accomplishing anything. Everyone has delusional things we do that make us happy. Coping mechanisms keep us sane! :)
As for soaking twinks, heck yeah. If someone wants an enchant or item from me and I know its for a twink my price instantly goes up x10. Most pay then swear a lot, which allows me to report them and get them kicked for a day. It's quite satisfying.
Twink buying on the AH actually helps new players gear. They don't NEED anything bought from the AH and what drops they do get sell for more gold than it otherwise wood. Selling a level 19 blue for 200g makes more sense than wearing it for three levels and being broke.
Rosemary Moore Apr 8th 2009 11:08AM
Actually, I also sell greens for cheap. Sure, bottom-scanners probably do pick up a lot, but you can't assume they do for everything. I don't buy to price up and resell, and I've picked up many items for ridiculously low prices just by chance. And anyway, especially for greens that sub level 20's would wear, the stuff you get from DE'ing isn't all that valuable. I know that when I've been on a new server with a low level char., I really could use that reasonably priced gear.
And at any rate, the argument about high-rolling twinks helping everybody just doesn't hold. The chances of getting a nice BOE blue is small anyway, even smaller for low-level players. Nice greens, sure, it's better, but still nothing to count on. Cash that low-level players can count on still comes from gathering, and that's pretty small potatoes compared to what you can earn at higher levels.
Worcester Apr 7th 2009 6:31PM
Sell greens? I just had a friend DE several bags full of greens and even some blues. Now I have the materials for my own enchants :)
And that's probably why I'm still pretty much broke. I just lost interest in playing the Auction House.
tatsumasa Apr 7th 2009 6:44PM
now if people would only learn that they don't have to undercut by obscene amounts to make their items sell first. if people want a shard they're going to take the first one on the list whether it's posted at 1 copper less than the next of 5 gold. huge undercuts only drive the market into the dirt so no one makes any money.
Draelan Apr 7th 2009 7:11PM
Agreed! I don't hate people that undercut me by a small amount, I expect it and do it myself. However, when I put up my stack of Heavy Borean Leather on the AH, and less than an hour later someone undercuts it by nearly 25g, that's just insane.
Koso Apr 7th 2009 7:26PM
For Greens I'm usually just de'ing them utilizing the guild chanter, and sell the mats, far more profitable, than hoping someone is going to by my of the Eagle or of the Beast or whatever.
Always someone leveling enchanting mats sell more effectivly imho.
Ã…fterlife May 6th 2009 8:04PM
Using the guild enchanter huh, thats nice and all but what happens to that chanter when the guild is of mediocre size and everyone does that. When does the chanter get "his" time?
Koso May 7th 2009 10:22AM
I guess, for our guild at least it is a given, we have two chanters in guild both whom have stated that they are more than happy to de for us, our guild is pretty big around 250+ unique members. So i guess it depends on the guild. Plus our guild chanters and scribers are busy making scrolls for chants that they lvl up pretty quick.
For our guild at least it hasn't been a problem
Alternator Apr 7th 2009 8:12PM
I have avoided selling greens, have other people found this a worth-while type of item to list?
Rylka Apr 8th 2009 8:25AM
Some greens are in high demand, especially those with variable stats that happen to match well with the item they are on.
(INT + STA) or (INT + SPI) on cloth would sell well to magical types.
(STR + STA) is pretty useless on cloth but is in high demand on mail or plate.
The same goes for weapons. If the stats are on an item that can't be used by a class that would want those stats, then it won't sell well.
If you take a quick stroll through listings for the type of item you are trying to sell, you can usually find which "... of the ..." item tends to have a higher price. This will give you a good clue as to whether or not to try and sell your item as is.
If you lucked out and got a good stat match up you can price it to be used as is. If you got something fairly useless, you can price it for enhcanters to buy for themselves to dis-enchant, or you can ask someone to DE it for you. (Enchanting mats almost always sell, and there is no risk to you. See my comment around 20.)