Gold Capped: How to price Cataclysm glyphs
by Basil Berntsen 
May 20th 2011 at 6:00PM
Glyph pricing has ignited more internet arguments than any other topic in the WoW blogosphere. Everyone has their own method, and there's always someone who gets offended by it. There is no actual right answer, just basic economics.
The goal of any glyph strategy is to make gold, and the only sensible way to measure gold making is by calculating your profits per hour. The glyph lifecycle is herb > pigment > ink > glyph. There can be a lot of hours in that, so let's look at the best way to squeeze some gold from them.
It's all about balance
The more you sell, the more you have to craft. The more you craft, the more you have to mill. Milling is as boring as sin, and unless you cheat and use some hack to break the terms of service, you're going to be pressing your mill button a lot. There are ways to increase your efficiency and reduce the mindnumbingness (more on that in my next post); however, no matter what, milling time will be a limiting factor.
The type of business you run will determine how much you sell. You will need to find your comfort zone between the competing forces of profit margin and volume.
Profits vs. volume
Silly Basil -- profits and volume don't compete! Yes, they do. The higher your prices (and hopefully profits), the less likely a buyer is to want to buy a glyph. They could buy the mats and get a friend or trade chat scribe to make it, they could hold off for now and assume that prices will go down soon, or they could just get a cheaper glyph. The cheaper the glyph is, the more likely they are to skip the hassle and buy it. This means the lower your prices, the more glyphs will be sold. Somewhere between so expensive that nobody ever buys anything and so cheap that instead of spending three hours a day milling, I should spend it leveling another trade skill and use it to make 6,000 gold per hour, you will find your sweet spot. The more people looking for one, though, the less you'll each make.
Another factor you'll need to consider is how likely your competition is to craft a glyph. On my realm, I can post a bunch glyphs just under their 300g price and without fail, within minutes, I'll be undercut. I've got no idea how often these high-profit glyphs sell, because I'm not willing to look at my glyph mule alts more than once every 48 hours. All I know is that the prices are still 300g (well, 299.87g, actually) when I come back, and I don't get a single sale. On the other hand, when I post a bunch of glyphs at 60g (which is still about 40g profit), I sell a ton.
Heavy undercutting
In order for glyphs to settle into a place where they're selling fast enough to satisfy all the people trying to sell them, you need to do more than undercut by a copper. The more you undercut, the less likely you are to get undercut back and the more demand there will be for the glyph.
Since I am on a two-day repost cycle, I tend to undercut by about 10%. Over the course of a week, I'll drive a glyph being posted at 300g down to the point that it sells enough that my stock gets bought out as quickly as I put them out for sale. This strategy annoys those of my competitors who rely on camping to remain on top of the heap. They sometimes buy out my "underpriced" glyphs and relist them, and they often send me angry letters.
The camping strategy
Ah, campers. Camping is the strategy of being present as frequently as possible, so you can relist your glyphs right below whoever just undercut you. Since the price is not significantly changing, campers compete by outstaring each other. Whoever can keep their eyes glued on the screen for more hours in a day gets the most sales.
The way I deal with campers is to keep undercutting until I push the prices down to the point that the demand is high enough that I still make sales. Also, low prices make undercutting feel like a waste of time (which it really was the whole time) and encourage them to use that time on more profitable things.
Of course, your ability to keep prices low depends on your willingness to craft. If you're going to lower the prices from 300g to 60g, you need to be willing to mill enough herbs to keep all your glyphs in stock, and the more campers who leave for greener pastures, the higher your sales volume will get. If you can't keep up with it, you'll find average glyph prices creep back up, which is exactly what's supposed to happen when the balance of demand and supply is changed.
Breaking into the market
Breaking into the glyph market is never easy. You're going to encounter stiff resistance, and it may come down to a game of chicken. It's tons of fun, though, and there's tons of money to be made.
The first thing to expect is that your competition will step up their camping efforts when they notice a new (serious) entrant. You have a few ways to deal with this. Resetting the prices down way below their former levels (but still above cost) is the easiest one and has a side benefit that some of the competitors may elect to "buy you out" and relist. Of course, you're now making as much money as you have time to craft, until they run out of money or realize you're not disappearing.
Not disappearing is actually the key to success. You need to find a level of activity (crafting, posting, and relisting) that you can sustain, and do it for months. You are either entering a fat enough market that nobody stops posting glyphs even though you're taking a share of their profits, or you're going to have to outlast someone. Nobody will lose money in this competition, but eventually someone will break and give up the low profits per hour to find a new market. When this happens, profitability should return to the previous level, and your share of it will depend on how hard you're willing to work for it.
"This sounds stupid."
One thing you can do to break this addon- and competition-heavy mold is try to find a way to inject some value (convenience) into selling glyphs by offering complete class packages in trade. Most glyph sales are coming from new characters anyway, and instead of selling to them when they decide they want a glyph on the AH and you happen to be the cheapest, offer a complete package of all the glyphs for their class for a fixed fee. Players benefit by not having to shop for an hour and possibly spend more than half their money on 10% of the glyphs they'll need.
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 1 of 3)
Orun May 20th 2011 6:33PM
I couldn't agree more. Thanks for the post. I often get hate whispers asking why I am "leaving hundreds of gold on the table" when I undercut my competition listing glyphs for 300g by listing them starting at 99g. Some people just don't understand economics!
Wellsee May 20th 2011 7:40PM
You don't need to undercut like that. Even Basil says he undercuts by 10%, not 200g. You *are* leaving gold on the table.
Gylphs aren't a high volume business, nor is the demand very elastic. To a large degree people need a glyph or they don't. They don't say "oh that glyph is 99, now I'll buy it." They say "oh, here's the lowest cost glyph, I'll buy this one."
Cambro May 20th 2011 8:48PM
I have to agree with Wellsee, you have to think of the buyer mentality. Most of your buyers are going to be regular people that just want a glyph and don't want to pay through the nose for it. Unless they absolutely "need" it, they'll be willing to wait a day or two for the price to come down, or find out the mats, get them, and hit Trade looking for someone to make it for a cheap tip. My opinion is that you could try to sell a glyph at 300% its normal value, but if no one buys it, you've made no money. If you sell it for more than it cost you to craft minus the cost to list it, you've made a profit. In the real world, businesses try to maintain a 30% profit. You can imagine that if Kroger tried to sell fried chicken for $15 per drumstick, they'd make a killing IF someone bought it, but no one would, the chicken would go bad, and Kroger would have lost money. Set the price only for as much as someone is willing to pay. :)
gewalt May 20th 2011 9:43PM
even 99g is retardedly high.
Basil Berntsen May 20th 2011 10:06PM
I didn't have room to talk about glyph walling, but taking 300g glyphs and making them all 50g is a perfectly valid tactic, as long as it results in more profit. It's not something I'd do in a market where the frequency of relists is low, but those realms don't exist.
Oriflame May 21st 2011 12:33AM
Cutting down to where you still make a profit but your competition is frustrated is a move *because* it frustrates your competition. You're leaving gold on the table only if your competition stays in the market forever. If you cut the pie down to 30% of the original size but get a quarter of it rather than 2 percent, you get more money.
I say this after having been annoyed out of my server's glyph market by a good friend who was willing to make less per glyph than I was. I liked the market for its 1000% profits, but not for just doubling my money. He pushed me and a lot of other players out and makes a *ton* of gold now - way more than the 10k a day I was making by undercutting 10%.
If it makes you mad your competition is likely doing something right - even if it is just making you mad.
Basil Berntsen May 21st 2011 8:59AM
Don't forget- the lower the price, the more glyphs will sell.
Goblin May 20th 2011 7:55PM
I love people who heavy undercut down to minimal profit above crafting cost. Each time you do that I get to restock my glyphs, and out source my crafting. This saves me a bunch of time, and with add ons takes very little time to do. This drastically improves my GPH from glyphs.
I would much rather sell fewer glyphs at high prices, than a bunch of glyphs at just above cost
Basil Berntsen May 20th 2011 10:08PM
Just above cost is usually not where heavy undercutters go, however you can try baiting anyone into posting it. I've got an addon post written about fallback and threshold prices that will cover this.
nick May 20th 2011 6:40PM
How much a day are you making with this stray because i have been camping and 1 copper undercutting, it takes a lot of time but i am making 10 to 15 k per day.
Jack Mynock May 20th 2011 8:28PM
It's not about how much you make per day; it's how much you make per hour. The time spent cancelling auctions, recovering them from the mailbox, and relisting--is time better spent crafting and posting auctions in a separate market.
Cambro May 20th 2011 8:39PM
Sell smart, not hard. :-p There are other alternatives to camping the AH all day. You can be under-cutting by more than 1 copper (like by 10-15%) in small quantities for 12 hours in order to move your product (every item you sell is an item your competitors don't, costing them potential earnings) and go do dailies or quest. Or only log on a few times a day to play the auction house, and spend the rest of your day doing actual work, spending time with your family, or go outside and let some sunlight touch your skin.
MaienM May 21st 2011 5:13AM
Let the sunlight touch your skin? Don't be silly.
Shafty May 21st 2011 11:24AM
Jack, you're talking about gold per hour and tacking on extra time to the low volume, high price model for relisting, but you're not taking into account the extra time spent milling and crafting for the high volume model.
A glyph costs about 20g to make. If I sell it for 300g, I profit 180g. If I sell it for 60g, I make 40g. So I have to sell 4.5 as many glyphs to make the same profit. But, I also have to buy 45.x as many herbs, mill 4.5x as many herbs, use my mods to identify 4.5x as many glyphs to craft, craft 4.5x as many glyphs, mail 4.5x as many glyphs to my auctioning alts, and list 4.5x as many glyphs. I'm pretty sure that takes way more time, especially since it's the milling that is the most time-consuming and mind-numbing portion of the process. Canceling and relisting can mostly be done while doing something else (I'm listing my glyphs write now as I type this comment).
I've been at the glyph game for about a year and made well over a million gold at it, I've done the 300g/glyph thing and the heavy undercutting, and I absolutely make more money more easily when glyphs are more expensive. I agree with Basil about a lot of things, but he's dead wrong on this one. Unless you're using a bot to auto-mill for you (and I don't and never will) high price/low volume selling will always generate more gold per hour than deep undercutting because of the extremely high overhead involved in milling all those stupid herbs.
Znuff May 20th 2011 6:51PM
I'd still like to stab Scribes in the face that sell lvl25 glyphs for 100g.
Where exactly is a new toon supposed to be getting that much gold at that level?
CTD May 20th 2011 7:31PM
Why is a level 25 toon supposed to need any glyphs in the first place?
There's very few glyphs that make a serious difference before level cap (i.e. misdirect for hunters, etc.), the content is faceroll enough as it is. If you really can't stand having that glyph, chances are you're on an alt and could afford the 100g no problem.
Cephas May 20th 2011 9:40PM
A glyph being "level 25" doesn't really mean that you need to or even should get them at level 25, it just means that they are usable at level 25. All glyphs require the same level as the ability that they modify, except for glyphs that modify abilities learned before level 25. And actually, since most core abilities are learned before level 25, the glyphs that modify those abilities are often the best available at any level.
What that means is that "level 25" glyphs are often in high demand from characters of all levels - including level 85s for whom 100g is a totally reasonable price, and there's just plain a lot of demand, which leads to high prices.
gewalt May 20th 2011 9:45PM
no 100g is not a totally reasonable price at all
Faith Trust May 20th 2011 9:48PM
or you could you know, grab some gathering professions.
You can easily hit 5-7kg before lvl 60 with them and not going too much out of your questing way. (unless you go up in pure bg's or dungeons).
Znuff May 20th 2011 9:59PM
The crafting costs for most glyphs, without any exception, is lower than 50g, no matter how f* up is your server's economy.
You can get a crafting profession, yes, but I'm not talking about you and me who are playing this game for quite a while and have learned how the auction house works and how to make money.
As far as for lvl 25's, as soon as you unlock glyph slots, you are notified about this. So ofcourse, most new players will want to at least check out glyphs and what they do... only to see that they can't afford them.