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by Basil Berntsen 
Sep 1st 2010 at 7:00PM
OK, last week I claimed that I'd eventually make it through my emails. I now realize that taunting you guys is probably a bad idea, because this week's inbox made it clear that I'll never dig myself out of the Sisyphean pile of emails I've accumulated. I assume that the winding down of this expansion has everyone trying to prepare themselves for the next expansion by hoarding gold, the only thing that will still be really valuable after the gear reset we have in store for us.
Snowmane writes:
I have around 1,100g, and though it fluctuates up to 2,000 at some points, recently, I'm at a low. I am a 450 alchemist and a 250 jewelcrafter, though that's on hold due to lack of funds to buy things to level with. I've looked at different ways of making money with my profession, but none seem to work. I just don't understand how people can make all this gold and easily equip themselves with things needed for raiding, when I can barely afford gemming and enchanting new piece of gear.
Snowmane goes on to give me the prices for herbs and consumables made from those herbs, and if I do the math, it appears that nothing is profitable. Here's the thing, Snow: It appears that you're only looking at a few of the ways an alchemist can make money. Potions and flasks may sell quickly, but you're right that they have an extremely low margin. If you want to make money that way, you need to get better at buying low and get better at selling high. The average price of materials is going to include times when someone dumps an entire week's worth of farming on the AH for a low price, and that low point is the only time you should be accumulating mats.
On the sell side, check out my post on market timing. Every market has demand cycles, and the consumables market has especially noticeable ones. Raid nights are your target nights, and you should try overcutting those nights to profit if your cheaper competitors run out of stock.
That said, selling consumables is only a small part of the money an alchemist can make. If you can transmute titanium profitably, you can make tons of money mostly AFK. Also, if you have a transmute specialization for the 20 percent yield bonus, you should seriously consider transmuting an epic gem a day, even if you have to sell it raw.
Both of these options (consumable commodities and transmutes) have one thing in common: persistence. You can't just splash into the market and expect an immediately noticeable profit; you have to do your tasks every day and make sure that your stock is always listed for sale. The other thing that I'd suggest is measure your success by profits earned, rather than gold in pocket. Gold evaporates out of your pockets, and even if you're making a decent living with alchemy, it may seem like you're pushing a boulder up a hill if you never seem to break 2,000g because you're constantly spending your earnings on leveling another profession.
Simon writes:
You're stuck in a situation that's hard to get out of, Simon. This actually came up recently on a Call to Auction podcast (episode 14, I think): Some people either have no life, or are botting on the auction house. I'm assuming that since he didn't answer your tells, he's actually AFK running a script. Aside from reporting him to Blizzard, there's nothing you can do but trust that eventually, whatever trick he's using to break the rules will be plugged up. I'd suggest trying to diversify into other markets if you want a low-risk method to continue making profits.I started to sell gems profitably on the AH, but soon this person came and started to undercut constantly by 1 copper. At first, I thought this was just normal, but now I see him online 24/7 all day, every day, and as soon as I put something out, he undercuts it straight away. I don't have the will to fight with this guy, as he is always online and undercutting. What should I do? I tried to talk to him but he doesn't respond. I used to sell lots of gems each day, but now I'm lucky if I get to sell 1. One day I even tried to undercut him all the time but in the end he put them out for like 30g when they are worth 100g. So how should I handle this?
Of course, you didn't expect me to stick with the low-risk option, did you? Here's what I think: He has a lot of stock and clearly is willing to move it at a very low price. Fortunately, he can't keep undercutting below the cost of the raw mats forever. You can do two things to attack his bottom line. First, if you really can get him to post a 100g gem for 30g by posting one for 30.0001g, then post that single auction, and keep buying his undercuts until he runs out of stock. He's an idiot for not programming a minimum price into whatever cheating program he's using, so take advantage of this, and once he runs out, get to work selling his 30g gems for 90g each!
Second, if he seems to have endless supply, consider also attacking his supply. You need deep pockets for this to work, but if you buy enough of the raw materials over time while listing a portion of your purchased items for higher than market price, you'll raise the market price. This means that he either has to pay more at the AH, or that his farmers may think twice before sending him their hard-earned mats c.o.d. at the same cost he used to pay. Honestly, this is not always going to work, and you may be stuck with a large amount of useless gems when Cataclysm hits. It's probably not a bad idea to buy out any underpriced mats you find, but that's always true.
Maximize your profits with more advice from Gold Capped, plus the author's Call to Auction podcast. Do you have questions about selling, reselling and building your financial empire on the auction house? Basil is now taking questions for a special series, "Ask an auctioneer," at basil@wow.com.Filed under: Economy, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Gold Capped
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Skem Sep 2nd 2010 3:04AM
Hi guys
Not everyone can be Millionaires IRL and the same is true in WoW. A carpenter is still a carpenter when there is work and when there is not- yes if things where bad if he reskilled and did something else he would make more money again, but he knows his work cycle (and with some practice can optimise income from those skills)
With this in mind- niche markets are great for getting financial independent (read getting ~ 100k) without to much effort. Not load but enough to do whatever I like and something that can be attained by almost everyone.
I do niche markets, because I have limited time and generally I am making gold. But the cost is that sometimes I won't make gold from a specific market for weeks! When this happens either I am buying up my competitors unpriced items to sell later or waiting for the market to settle due to patches/new competitor/random supply flood etc.
Also once your a player in a market you can segement your own pricing too (again something covered by BB) to price to the middle for your bread and butter and then a premium on items before you get a chance to log back on.
pandaba Sep 2nd 2010 3:24AM
For alchemy, there's a few different things to do. First of all, do the daily gem transmute. There's a paladin I don't like to play who has 450 alchemy and transmute master. Every day I spend 2 minutes on that character, make a gem, and put it up for 100-130g. Around twice a week, I get the transmute proc and get 2+ gems for the price of one. Without me really paying attention, this character somehow got 3k just from those 2 minutes.
When I'm willing to spend 5 minutes a day on the paladin, I look for cheap saronite and transmute that to titanium. It's not always a guaranteed profit but sometimes botters or bored farmers will dump bars at rock bottom prices. I'll then send the titanium off to my miner to be turned into titansteel, or if the market for titanium is particularly good that week, I'll just sell the titanium directly.
Third thing to look out for is low level potions and elixirs. The raiding flask market is completely saturated but I don't see much for the lower levels. On one character who is leveling alchemy as she levels, I accidentally put up a half-stack of a low level +str elixir for 1.5g per item instead of per stack as I meant to do. It sold. I thought this was a fluke so I tried it again, and it sold again. So this would be a decent market with no competition. The only catch is that you'll probably have to farm your own mats as low level mats are usually priced too high for consistent profits.
The best items for the low level market are elixirs or potions which would be useful for the battlegrounds. Things like the invisibility potion, catseye for stealth detection, or that potion which makes you untrackable all sell decently.
Peter Sep 2nd 2010 3:25AM
Somebody told me that a good way to mess with scripted/afk AH bots was to mass mail them junk items COD. Apparently that messes with most of the scripts for gathering items from the mail.
eg: buy 100 apples for a few copper.. Mail them to the bot, one per mail, for COD of 200g. Since you can't script the gathering of COD items (nor returning them), this apparently keeps the top 50 slots tied up. They won't be able to do their automated cancel/repost cycle as they won't get the mail.
Caveat: I have not tried this. I don't know what happens if they click 'report spam'. I know you can't script the sending of COD items either so you'd have to do it by hand. Sooner or later a human will come along and fix the mess, but you can supposedly ruin their day.
sherekhan88 Sep 2nd 2010 4:17AM
I made all my money by judiciously selling every single piece of junk (grey vendor trash hoy!) in my inventory that I can carry! No slot is wasted! Only things i toss is if there's a piece of vendor trash with higher gold than what I've already got!
You'd be surprised how much you can accumulate in that amount of time!
Also things that supplemented it was doing old school raids. ZG is easy, with rep items that you can sell for a fair amount of cash on the AH if you don't want or need the rep anymore. Kara is also fairly soloable, but of course, only for certain classes. Generally the tank classes all can solo a fair bit of raids, but a hunter (me) is ably to do so as well.
Thoorin Sep 2nd 2010 5:54AM
^THIS.
I never once had a daily hc run in the last 2 months without at least one person not looting.
Farming old content is also profitable... single run of Stratholme can be 500g from just money drop, add the trash drops, add the blue BoEs that sell fairly well, add disenchants if you got that profession on the toon you go on, and you can make a small fortune since cleaning the place in 20mins isn't that hard, esp. on a hunter with a proper pet. All the more if you got a vendor mount to keep your bags tidy without HSing or riding far to vendor stuff.
mj_punk Sep 2nd 2010 9:18AM
Heres a question regarding strictly making gold with gold. Im an Alchemist. I transmute one epic gem a day, undercut the lowest current gem on the AH by 1 gold, and it sells pretty much every day. I have amassed 17K gold while doing the for about 2 years. Ive made more than that truthfully as I have funded 3 toons epic cold weather flying and kept them in sweet gems and enchants with each new piece of gear. My question is, without crafting or farming, how can I turn 17K gold into 27K? 57K? etc. Is there a tried and true "spend money to make money" method?
Rob Sep 2nd 2010 9:30AM
Couple things. Pretty much play the ah if you don't want to farm or craft.
You can sell stuff like recipes on ah
Or you can control markets by buying low and selling a bit higher. Is 25 percent. This requires some risk .
Generally once I get to 10 k or so I can start influencing markets or buy 100s of stacks of herbs at a shot from farmers
Urgata Sep 2nd 2010 9:43AM
Where are these realms that people can get rich transmuting titanium AFK?
Titanium on my realm is 14-15g per stack, saronite about 40g.
Urgata Sep 2nd 2010 10:47AM
WTB edit button.
Of course, that is a single titanium bar for 14g, Saronite for 40g (so 2g each), cost to transmute 1 bar is then 16g, and if you assume 20% transmute mastery procs that works out to about 13.3g per bar, so 14g titanium is almost exactly breakeven after paying 5% commission to AH.
Bronwyn Sep 7th 2010 11:19PM
We have the same issue on my server, though if you buy Saronite Ore you can usually make a SMALL profit. The margin goes up if you are transmute spec'd. But I don't bother, it's way too much work for far too little reward.
Coopthar Sep 2nd 2010 10:44AM
< First, if you really can get him to post a 100g gem for 30g by posting one for 30.0001g, then post that single auction, and keep buying his undercuts until he runs out of stock. He's an idiot for not programming a minimum price into whatever cheating program he's using, so take advantage of this, and once he runs out, get to work selling his 30g gems for 90g each!>
How about buying up his stock at 30g and then immediately turn around and sell it for less than market price on ? If he's a bot he can't undercut you there. Very low risk and your margin will be as high as you want, if you can really buy up his gems at whatever price you get him down to.
Ahoni Sep 2nd 2010 11:32AM
I recently started putting effort into making money. Oh, I had money, just not a lot. I had three 80s, each of which would have 2500-5000g at any one time. I didn't worry about money, but I never got close to a chopper or mammoth or any of the really high end craftables, or the Kirin Tor money sinks, um, rings.
After reading a few articles on making money, I got busy. I started with my Tailor. Emerald Bags and Soul Pouches sell regularly for good profit. Spellthreads were dicey. Sometimes I could make money, others ... not so much. So I created a spreadsheet and listed the mats and their cost, and calculated what I could sell at and still make a profit (including AH cut!). Once I knew my costs, I could do a better job of buying mats. I knew what price point I wanted, and I didn't go above it. This led to a few dry periods where mats were scarce or expensive, but I just rode it out. Over time, I started to accumulate mats very cheaply. Know your prices and stick to them. Don't over-pay for your mats. Also don't pass up cheap mats because you already have some. Buy cheap, always.
From there I moved on to other professions I have maxed. Blacksmithing was basically worthless for profit, but alchemy (Xmute master) gave me a daily Epic Gem xmute, as well as the xmute for titanium (huge money maker) which could then be smelted to Titansteel (huge money maker). Then I leveled JC. I have found that Northrend blue gems are much better profit than Epics. Everyone has the epic recipes, and there is lots and lots of competition. I can barely make 10g on an epic cut. Blues however, I sell every day for 20g+ profit each. JC of all the professions I have leveled takes the most WORK to make money with, just because there are so many different recipes, and you need to research them. Accurate Ametrine may have a large profit margin, but it doesn't sell quickly. I may have to list them 3 times to get one sale. Epic gems have a high list cost on the AH and if you fail to sell, it hurts.
Some BC and Vanilla recipes make good money. Soul Pouches are relatively cheap to make and I sell 5 a week at 75g each. Silver Spellthread also sells for 75g+.
Once you know you markets, it is fairly easy to make money. Three months ago, my bank had 2000g. Today it has almost 40,000g and I am bringing in 10,000g profit a month right now. Nobody starts there. Learning the markets takes time and some hard work. Nobody jumps right in and makes huge money immediately, especially not in these mature markets. You need to put in time to learn the market on your server. This will not come easy. You need to search the AH and find what mats and finished products are selling for. Once you have that knowledge, you can find a way to make money.
jdryner Sep 2nd 2010 12:13PM
Hey All,
I have news for you...botting is the easiest means of profitability for gold sellers (IMHO). Hacking an account is not nearly as easy (I assume) as writing a script that, for example, takes the bot from point (a) to (b), mine, defend itself (as needed), and move on to point (c), etc. Of course, all they need to do is have one of them that knows how to write code, they then share it amongst themselves. Heck, they probably use account hacking, general game hacks (characters that float in the air, stand on top of one another - advertising a website that sells gold, no less), and botting.
-Coldmeiser (Drenden, US, A)
Spark Sep 2nd 2010 2:11PM
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jdryner Sep 2nd 2010 12:13PM
I have news for you...botting is the easiest means of profitability for gold sellers (IMHO). Hacking an account is not nearly as easy (I assume) as writing a script that, for example, takes the bot from point (a) to (b), mine, defend itself (as needed), and move on to point (c), etc.
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Well, yes. But that requires an account with which to do it. Blizzard has gotten better at detecting bots and killing accounts. So scammers need a constant flow of accounts with which to bot, spam, transfer gold, and other tasks. Along the way, they might also liquidate whatever they can get their hands on (banks, gear, etc.).
Our most recent scammer victim in our guild didn't raid the guild bank. The scammer took a couple potions. But otherwise, they dropped her professions, leveled up mining, added a recruit-a-friend, mounted up on their rocket and proceeded to farm ore. That is, until Blizz got our ticket and shut them down. When our guildmate got her account back, she found that MOST of her stuff was intact (Blizz had to restore a few things) and she had a wealth of ore and gems. I suspect this scammer didn't want to alert us by doing the usual guild bank grab (which did have us leaving "her" running for about 24hrs longer than we would have otherwise).
As for the difficulty in "hacking" an account - it takes about $200. That will buy you one month of service consisting of a sizable number of nodes in a botnet and the latest version of the service's malware with the game-account plug-in. You can spend more for more nodes and additional services / malware options. But $200 will likely start pulling in WoW accounts. No technical knowledge required (so much for "hacker") - just pay up and wait for the botnet to start reporting account credentials.
Bronwyn Sep 7th 2010 11:21PM
And don't forget that some of the money they spend is actually from stolen credit card accounts- I know several people who have had fraudulent charges show up on their cards with the Blizzard store- everything from server transfers to months of account time, etc.
lishuss Sep 2nd 2010 6:13PM
i had a thing like that last question going on back when i was leveling my enchanter/tailor.
i was selling most of my supplies on the AH for one simple reason. i just made the Magnificent Flying Carpet mount and needed to scrounge up 5k to use the damn thing. but every time i posted something on the AH, this one dude would wind up undercutting me a good deal. now i hate stupid-high prices so i naturally undercut a good deal to begin with, so between the two of use constantly undercutting each others' enchanting dusts/cloths/enchantment scrolls the server's economy went straight down the crapper for a few weeks.
after the 18th time of this i was starting to get really annoyed until i got a pm one day that read "so, what is it you're trying to save up for?" it was from the guy i was fighting in the AH with, apparently he noticed that were were playing dueling banjos with pixels too, and was getting rather curious. I told him and wasnt all that shocked to realize he was saving up for the exact same thing,
we both had a good chuckle about it but ended up undercutting each other even more just for laughs. it wasn't a smart idea because it meant we both had to work a LOT longer just to get the required money.
half the chanters on the server were pleased when we finally got our mounts because that meant that the could finally go back to making money.
Stickemup Sep 3rd 2010 7:32PM
Professions? Auction house?
Run a GDKP on all content you know. You'll make ez money as a carrier, and it's quicker than grinding mats. Some of these raids can be painful carrying un-geared alts (or more surprising, inexperienced mains, but it still happens, though you gotta wonder where they got the gold). A singular icc25 GDKP with some heroics can net you 10Kg after the pot split. Even a regular TOC25 can net you 2k gold.
Selling titles and mounts from Ulduar - the 10 & 25 drakes, Mimron's head, Starcaller or other titles - these are big sellers, and still have a very high demand. Get a good team of regulars you pull these with, and you'll get a reputation and a waiting list. You can advertise the services on wow's realm forums, to get clients, and Blizzard supports the GDKP and title selling practice. If you're consistent, you'll end up with a large enough waiting list that peeps will bid.
If you're regularly dropping the LK in icc25, bring in a couple Kingslayer title buyers, for 25K or more each. Guilds are pumping up their guild banks doing this. That won't profit you directly, but it sure makes raiding cheap when your coffers overflow.
Grinding mats/professions right now makes no sense to me - the real money is in raiding, because the only thing of any lasting value is the achievements.
Evlyxx Sep 4th 2010 4:16AM
"you need to get better at buying low and get better at selling high"
Really? I thought the best strategy was to buy cheap, sell normal.
jfofla Sep 8th 2010 2:20PM
I have a question for Gold Capped
The Goblins have a racial that allows them to buy everything as if they were at max rep with the faction. Therefore, wouldn't Goblins get the max discount on AH fees, even at lvl 1?
If this is the case, shouldn't all Horde Bankers be Goblin after Cata drops?