Gold Capped: Profiting with tailoring
by Basil Berntsen 
Apr 14th 2011 at 2:00PM
Tailoring is a profession often accused of being a profitless pursuit. While any profession can be unprofitable if you try hard enough, let's talk about some of the things you can do with tailoring. I'm going to start with the market that's newest for this expansion: PvP gear.
PvP gear
Tailoring can make quite a selection of cloth iLvl 339 blue resilience items; there is an Emberfire set and Fireweave set that may both appeal to aspiring cloth-wearing PvP debutantes. The first thing you'll notice is that this gear is a nice upgrade to the greens and iLvl 333 blues your average fresh 85 is wearing when they ding. You'll also notice that while the blue gear you can buy with honor is all significantly better; the honor prices for those pieces represent a very serious investment of time to earn. At maybe 200 honor for your first battleground win of the day and some 400 honor every time you successfully retake Tol Barad, you're looking at several hours per piece.
For one reason or another, PvP entry-level gear for any profession sells. It usually sells quickly, and that means that unless there's someone already in place really capitalizing on this, it'll sell for high margin.
The addon best-suited for the job of making PvP gear is probably TradeSkillMaster. You want to ensure that every crafted piece with the same materials cost is in its own group. What would happen if you put them all in the same group? It would post them assuming the materials cost of every item in that group is the same, namely that of the most expensive piece. Create a tailoring PvP category, and add all these groups to it. It makes the large number of groups manageable, because you can set a default price and markup for all the pieces and adjust it on a item-by-item basis at a later date if needed.
While regular scans will ensure a fair "market value" number that TSM can use to do your profit calculations, you'll want to adjust the cost of the materials manually to reflect your reality. For example, if you only buy cloth in volume when it's below market value, you'll need to manually adjust the materials cost in the profession setup window of TSM.
- Deciding which items to craft based on profit
- Building a shopping list
- Crafting all the items you've targeted
- Keeping track of how many items you have in your inventory and on the AH
- Posting all your items
Cooldowns
There are five recipes that you can use to make Dreamcloth, which is a component of several desirable craftables. Interestingly, none of the epic gear you can craft directly takes Chaos Orbs, which are required to make many blues and epics for other professions. Of course, you could make your Dreamcloth out of orbs if you have them piling up.
The interesting thing about Dreamcloth is that each of the five weekly cooldowns you can use to make the stuff takes a different volatile. This means that your weekly materials cost for five Dreamcloth will always be the same, but each cooldown has a different cost. I'd recommend using the average cost to make five as your actual cost when you calculate your profits. Anything else won't make sense. Also, be prudent about buying volatiles. If your realm is anything like mine, the price varies by as much as 30% a week. It's not very easy to predict, but it's easy to spot when it happens, and I stock up when I see it.
Two of the things you can make with Dreamcloth, other than gear, are permanent leg armor enhancements and bags. If the epic gear, leg enchants, and bags are not expensive enough to justify the cost for you to make Dreamcloth, don't despair. There's always bags.
Bags? I thought we just ...
Yeah, bags. The best-selling bag in the game, hands down, is still the Netherweave Bag. This market hasn't changed much since I wrote about it in Wrath of the Lich King. People still buy them day and night, and they still spend as much as 15 gold on them! The difference is that nowadays, that's a much smaller amount of money than it used to be. Still, if you can afford the time and effort to make and market these, you will probably be able to carve out a nice profit for yourself.
One thing about the bag market you will want to keep in mind while you work on it is that even a small number of bag makers can saturate the market. The more populated the realm, the more bag sellers it'll support. That said, it's a little lower per person than it was in previous expansions because every new character now has access to cheap 16-slot bags when they get revered with their home faction.
Take a long-term approach to this market. If you can build up an inventory of cheaply acquired cloth, you'll be well set to weather any storms of new entrants trying to undercut you out of the market. Also, this is one of those markets where the demand is so reliable that you might want to consider ignoring people who undercut too heavily and wait for them to run out of stock. Don't forget that each bag takes a long time to make, and when someone tries to out-volume and out-price you, it's only a matter of time until they run out of cheap cloth and are forced to raise prices or stop posting.
Maximize your profits with more advice from Gold Capped as well as 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 taking your questions at basil@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Economy, Gold Capped
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Szass Apr 14th 2011 3:40PM
Inherently risky.
Blizzard may or may not add a new type of cloth for any new items.That or some other catalyst item not yet available in game.
Looking to the past, Blizzard does not usually introduce new gear without creating a new grind to get said gear, though there are exceptions. Gems coming from the same ore for example.
All in all, I wouldn't bet a lot of gold that Dreamcloth will increase its current value.In fact using history as a guide, it will likely be worth less and less as time goes on.
Basil may disagree, but I thought I would chime in.
Jack Mynock Apr 14th 2011 3:58PM
Hasn't tailoring been the exception to this? In wrath blue cloth like spellweave was used from release up though recipes from ToC. In BC spellcloth was used to craft a few tiers of gear also.
rhorle Apr 14th 2011 4:49PM
@Szass
Its not that risky. In WoTLK cloth prices remained constant and did certainly have upswings in demand. Remember cloth wasn't BoP. With 4.2 any tailoring recipes will use dream cloth so there is certainly going to be a higher profit per cloth when those appear.
Its like when cataclysm first released and you could sell craftable epics for 10k. Because it was new. However unlike with cataclysm there will be less vendor bought gear to compete with tier 12 craftables.
The only thing will add uncertainty is how you obtain the patterns. As the longer it takes the less profit there is to be had. So it isn't risky, but it is a opportunity that has a short window.
Pyromelter Apr 14th 2011 5:56PM
rhorle has it right. Especially if the new tailoring patterns that are best-in-slot drop off of some rather difficult bosses, if you are in a guild that isn't pushing progression, saving that dreamcloth isn't going to help you all that much.
If you are in a top-end guild, then saving that dreamcloth is what you definitely want to do, because you are going to want to outfit yourself and your guild first, and then profit off of all the other players out there.
TinyLittleRobot Apr 14th 2011 3:07PM
For farming cloth, can anyone tell me if the treasure finding pot works in TB?
TinyLittleRobot Apr 14th 2011 3:10PM
Never mind, I forgot I asked this in last weeks Gold Capped. Looks like I need to pop a potion and get to farming :)
Revynn Apr 14th 2011 3:24PM
I recently did the Shattari Skyguard rep grind for the mounts and while running around killing ghosts, I stocked up enough Netherweave to make almost 100 netherweave bags, selling every single one at 15-20G a piece. It's still my most reliable source of income, even if you have to deal in huge numbers to see massive profits. 5G per stack --> 18G bag = a pretty win profit margin. I just wish I had a tailoring hat similar to the Chef's Hat.
I don't know how I've gone all this time without knowing about the Dream of Destruction Dreamcloth thing . . . Especially since I'm tailoring capped and have 9 orbs sitting in my bags doing nothing.
rip Apr 14th 2011 4:13PM
How does one acquire BoP Orbs without either
A:Rolling Need(which everyone that can does) or
B:Being exceptionally lucky with apparently 9 greed rolls(although everyone rolls need)
Especially if you were unaware of their only use thus far in tailoring?
Revynn Apr 14th 2011 4:20PM
I got them shortly after hitting 85 while still grinding gear in heroics. I hadn't capped my tailoring yet but was under the impression that I would need them eventually and started stockpiling. Once I got to 525, I realized I (apparently) had no use for them and stopped rolling on them. I've just been holding onto the ones I have on the hope that they stop being BoP some day.
rip Apr 14th 2011 4:27PM
Ah, that makes sense. Apparently my negative-nancy side kicked in there. Much apologies.
Aris Apr 14th 2011 4:44PM
Making Dreamcloth isn't the only thing tailors can do with orbs. Behold! I present to you the most absurd tailoring item ever to grace a male toon...
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=75288
It looks quite nice on the womenfolk, though. =)
Thundrcrackr Apr 14th 2011 3:28PM
I have never made money with tailoring.
Every expansion i spend thousands of gold leveling it, only to find out that people are selling the crafted items for equal or less than what the mats cost.
If it weren't for the flying carpet mounts i would have dropped it a long time ago.
Bronwyn Apr 14th 2011 4:48PM
I'm inclined to think you just haven't found the right market; I won't pretend that tailoring makes huge profits (especially compared to some professions), but I've definitely been able to at least make back what I've spent on leveling over time.
Pyromelter Apr 14th 2011 5:44PM
Probably depends on the server. I've made more money on tailoring in my wow career than any other profession, with far less effort.
Selling bags + spellthreads = profit.
Tailoring seems to be out of favor with a lot of the AH pvp types, you won't see people canceling and reposting 100 times a day with tailoring items (again, at least not on my server).
Neirin Apr 14th 2011 3:42PM
Netherweave bags have provided my petty cash since BC. I only average a profit of ~4g per bag, but it adds up very quickly.
I've found that the epic cloth belts are particularly unprofitable as far as boe epics go. On my server they've been selling at close to material cost for almost 2 months. Depending on the prices of volatiles, sometimes less than material cost. The legs fair a bit better, but I haven't seen them above maybe a 5-10% margin for quite some time.
Actually, I've noticed quite a few items where volatiles are the limiting reagents have low profit margins. Truegold is another classic example. On my server Truegold sells for ~400g, which only comes out a handful of gold better than the raw mats.
Brainded Apr 14th 2011 4:25PM
Yeah, but if you take the time to blast through an 80 Heroic or two (and you don't really need a full party for this), with Cloth Scavenging you should easily be able to farm enough cloth for at least a couple of bags. Frostweave bags sell for around 200G on my realm. For me, that seems like a pretty good time investment, since at 85 it only takes 5-10 minutes to run a Wrath Heroic anymore.
rhorle Apr 14th 2011 4:42PM
The section on cool downs is a bit inaccurate. There are six patterns to make dream cloth, not just five as seems to be implied. The sixth pattern uses chaos orbs and has no cooldown. The "low cost" dream cloth can mean a serious margin of profit even when selling at the low end of the AH.
Since a tailor should never have to buy embersilk since they will usually have enough for six dream cloth by the time they get 5 chaos orbs.
Amaxe Apr 14th 2011 4:43PM
"Yeah, bags. The best-selling bag in the game, hands down, is still the Netherweave Bag. This market hasn't changed much since I wrote about it in Wrath of the Lich King. People still buy them day and night, and they still spend as much as 15 gold on them! "
We spend 15g on them because right now, that's the cheapest we can get for a 16 slot bag now that the economy of Cataclysm is disrupted.
I'd say the demand for 16 slot bags is pretty inflexible nowadays, but the demand for the Netherweave bag is going to entirely depend on the price per slot. If it goes too high for example, we might start seeing 12 or 14 slot bags become purchased more.
The advantage of Netherweave bags are you can't hardly go five feet without picking up the cloth in Outlands, compared to the cost of other 16 slot bags so it seems probable they will remain the cheapest.
Bronwyn Apr 14th 2011 4:51PM
The other thing to remember is that Netherweave Bags don't require any enchanting materials to make- unlike the Frostweave and Embersilk bags. I think that's pretty much 100% of the reason why they are still in demand, like you said, because price per slot is low. Runecloth bags are a pain because they require rugged leather, and once you get below 14 slots there's just no point in even spending the money imo.
Netherweave are a nice sweet spot, but if Blizz ever introduces another bag that takes straight-up cloth and thread, demand will probably go into the toilet.
Cambro Apr 14th 2011 4:54PM
I strongly suspected there would be a huge demand for 16 slot netherweave bags, not even with Cataclysm, but with 4.0 when all the new character possibilities were unleashed...and I wasn't disappointed. I stockpiled some netherweave before-hand, and used every bit to craft bags. I was selling bags for anywhere from 25-40 gold EACH. I was buying stacks of netherweave for 5-10 gold and making upwards of 400% profit. There were several people on my server doing just like me, and we made obscene amounts of money. But of course there must come a saturation point, when people have stopped rolling alts, so I got out of that market and moved on to other stuff. There's one person in particular I see still listing netherweave bags, 2 pages worth, for higher than other people, and I have to wonder if they're still trying to sell off their excess inventory or if there is still a market. Either way, if I were that person, I'd only be listing a few at a time, not 50.
I agree with what you said about the crafted pvp gear, it is definitely worthwhile. Being a new level 85 with no resilience sucks in pvp, plus it helps you get into heroics. I'm not advocating pvp gear over pve gear in heroics, but it definitely helps, if you know what you're doing. I actually surprised myself yesterday, my shaman managed to heal a couple of heroics wearing about 6 level 339 pvp pieces and a couple of 352 pvp pieces (I had some honor lying around). I don't think I would craft and sell pvp pieces blind on the auction house without really watching the market, but I wouldn't hesitate to advertise crafting them in Trade.