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 2 of 2)
Gothia Apr 10th 2009 7:23AM
So you vendor greens? I'm sure you will get that epic flyer anytime not smart guy.
rtwinger Apr 7th 2009 8:13PM
If someone undercuts your price, then buy it. Resell for your price. I have made a ton of money doing this.
Malkia Apr 8th 2009 6:48AM
Another good tip, depending on your server... I made a lot by asking a guildmate to disenchant stuff for me. He was more than happy to disenchant the greens I mailed to him and mail them back as raw materials. If you know an enchanter sometimes selling the materials on AH rather than the greens themselves is better. Checking to see if the item would be more valuable as dust over it's un-disenchanted state only takes a moment too.
Boozeclues Apr 10th 2009 6:41AM
Selling cloth on AH is generally a bad idea. AH takes WAY too much. save it till you get enough then post in trade SLIGHTY undercutting the AH. theres always someone leveling tailoring, first aid, or rep that will buy it.
Rylka Apr 8th 2009 8:12AM
Another benefit to having a friendly enchanter dis-enchant items for you to sell on the AH yourself is that you risk none of your own money trying to sell enchanting mats on the AH.
There are items that the game considers to have "zero" worth, things you can not sell to vendors. Enchanting mats are some of these. Because the fee the AH charges you to put up an auction is based on the vendor price of the item, these items can be auctioned for no fee. That means if someone undercuts you or they just don't sell, you are not out any money. It's safe to just keep throwing these items up on the AH over and over again until they sell at a price you like.
(If you wanted to you could even use the AH as a kind of temporary bank by putting these items up for ridiculously high prices. Every two days they will end back up in your mailbox and you throw them up again. If you need them before the two days are up you can cancel the auction at no penalty. Of course if they do sell you get an unexpected windfall. )
This "vendor worthless" technique also works for items that have a very low vendor value compared to their typical AH price. If the AH charges you a few silver to put up something that usually sells for lots of gold (like some tailor cloths or Northrend spices), then throwing it up over and over again isn't much of a risk.
But still, it's hard to beat zero cost, no risk marketing. :)
Gothia Apr 10th 2009 7:38AM
Why use the auction house to hold materials? You can make a level 1 alt and use the mail system to hold your items for 30 days. That seems much more productive way to store items and if you need your items log onto your alt and return to sender. Of course, you method of an unlikely windfall would drive up the market price for the item you posted causing inflated prices and screwing up everybody's auctioneer data or you could dupe an trusting soul that is buying multiple items to mistakenly buy your item. Do you have anymore good suggestions for ripping off WoW players?
Rylka Apr 8th 2009 8:28AM
Another quick tip.
You can find out the vendor price for an item in the standard AH fairly easily.
When you first put an item in to auction window, the price the AH suggests is 4x the standard vendor price. (The exception to this rule is that the AH puts up a minimum value of 1 silver, so if 4x an item's vendor value is less than 1 silver you will still see just 1 silver).
Evi Apr 8th 2009 12:40PM
YEARS of playing and I never noticed this. Thanks, Rylka!
Rylka Apr 8th 2009 1:15PM
My sincere apologies for the misinformation.
The correct multiplier for the AH suggested price is x1.5.
That is, if a vendor will buy the item for 20 silver, the AH will suggest 30 silver for a price.
raful Apr 8th 2009 9:14AM
Are there any addon for saving money (like deposit box) that are up to date?