Flipping The Leather

   I have talked about how to make gold by flipping various items on the auction house, and today we are going to be looking at the leather market for our profit making. Before i go on into explaining i just want to note that farming leather is the most unique way of farming as it requires that you actually go and kill, loot and then skin the animal, and as such it can't be done by bots, not very effective that is.

   Well the two items we are going to focus on today are going to be the Thick Leather and the Rugged Leather. The reason why i chose these two is not a random one, but a rather strategical one and i will explain why.

   Like i said farming leather requires that you need to kill animals and skin them, but with all the perks that give you plus bonus on your XP you will find yourself with a too low skill to be able to skin animals due to low skill, and in demand for leather to be able to break the 300 skill mark. 

   Now the reason why i didn't choose any of the lower tier leathers was because leveling in the Heavy Leather bracket of leatherworking requires about 150 leathers to get above it, so the demand is smaller. At the same time leveling leatherworking in the Thick and Rugged leather level is about 400 leathers each. So the demand for these leathers is almost three times bigger then the demand for the Heavy Leather, and the lesser class leathers.

   So we have a market where the demand is rather large ( all the people who are leveling leatherworking ) but at the same time the supply is low. What this offers is a rather unique opportunity for playing a Dam Strategy. 

What the idea of this strategy is that you will act as a dam build on a river (Auction House), and the only things that can pass through it will be the things that you allow it to pass. In this example it would be the Thick and Rugged Leather, but to make it more clear, this is what i exactly did.

   Log in on your server and check the prices for these two leathers. If you find them at prices lower then you would like to be selling them buy them out ( in my case i found the market with about 70ish stacks all priced between 30-60g per stack ), then you go ahead and post them all up for a price that you want them to sell ( again in my case i relisted them back at 140g per stack ). Since you have posted your innital stacks, check the auction house from time to time to check for people undercutting you, and if you see someone undercutting you then simply buy him out. The reason why this can work for these leathers is because you won't have to deal with a lot of competition as it is a sort of a Niche market. As a more hands on information, i managed to sell around 60 stacks in about two hours while i was out leveling my character, and made about 4000 gold by simply making a monopoly on the market.

 Now this works better on a high population server, and usually in the peak hours as that is when the most players are playing and leveling their professions, and if you would like to give this a try that would be the time to do it at.

   So, like always, keep an eye out for good opportunities out there.

Inflation Or Deflation In MoP

   What will happen in MoP with the economy? I have had this on my mind for quite some time and i finally got down to making a post in which i would actually like to ask you, the readers to comment and share your point of views. 

Case 1: Inflation

   This is what usually happens with WoW on every expansion releases. Cold had a post about making gold from the inflation up on his blog, and he was actually on the mark. But to break it down to bare basics and it would be very simple. Prices will soar high, the currency in circulation would go up exponentially but at the same time the worth of the gold would go way down.

   What this would mean is that we end up with a economy where it will be normal to pay for a lets say for instance a gem, to pay up to 5k gold. As it is now  it might sound insane, but if everything goes as it has been in the past that might be the grim case. 

   If this happens then i am afraid Blizzard will break their own game's economy, and the player group that Blizzard will be aiming for the most ( the new players ) will have a negative experience as they will hardly be able to afford anything.

   So if Blizzard decides to go on with this strategy and we see inflation, then it would be wise to try and invest our gold into trade goods that we can sell down the road. Best example for these investments would be things that are used to craft exotic things Titansteel ( for the Mechano-Hog ), raw gems, even epic ones as they will become the twink gems for the Cata tier, as well as enchanting materials. The thing is that if you decide to get into liquidating your gold you will have to wait a while until the supply dries up and the prices start going up.

Case 2: Deflation

      This is actually what i think, and hope that it will happen, deflation. Let me explain as to why i think so.

   There was a talk previously about the item level shrinking of items in Cata. For all of you that didn't read about that, it is basically a shrinking in the item level and stats of items from TBC to Cata, and that would be done so we don't end up with abilities hitting for 500k damage, and health to go up in the million range.

   As this was a option that Blizzard favored, there is another aspect of it that is going to follow, and that is the prices. With lower item levels their vendor price will be lower as well, and also with the lower item level of items the quest gold would be lower as well. 

   So if this is the case, then we will see a decrease in the flow of gold into the economy and in return see the prices of items go down to a more manageable level. So just like Blizzard is trying to get away from the 500k damage hits and Millions HP, i am sure they are trying to move away from the case where their gold becomes nearly worthless and we see the same thing that happen to Diablo 2 where the only worth in the economy in time was trading 1 item for another as gold was worthless.

   So if this is the route that we see Blizzard takes, then the best thing would be to have liquid gold as it will be worth much more.

   So what do you folks think will happen? Will we see a case of inflation, or a case of deflation or something else. I would like to hear your opinions as well, to either agree or disagree with me, and how are you going to approach the release of MoP .  

So, like always, keep an eye out for good opportunities out there.

The Hush Hush Vendor

   To all the readers that have been reading this blog, you have noticed that on number of occasions i have stated that one of my favorite ways to make a profit is when i sell something that is either very cheap, or even better, a vendor item for a big profit. Well this thing i am about to tell you has made me tens upon tens of thousands of gold over time, and i have kept my mouth shut and by luck no one has caught up on the thing, and read on if you want to know what i mean.

   Well as the saying goes, a picture is worth 1000 words. What i meant with that profitable venture is this guy, Stone Guard Mukar. He is the Quartermaster in Wintergrasp ( If you are Alliance then it's Knight Demeron ) and as you can see on the image that i made for you nice people, he sells a few things of interest. 

   What i mean with this is that he sells the PvP metagems which the lvl 80 twinks buy for their gear. Now here is the best part, they are only 24 honor each and what that means is basically, you log on your Tauren go sit on a gnome, and buy yourself a meta gem that you can go ahead and sell it for 495g ( the price that i was selling those ), and another good thing with these gems is that the posting fee for those is 1s.

   The reason why this is a good seller is due to the fact that the people that play their twinks in PvP don't bother with checking where they can acquire the gems and go straight for the Auction House, and that is where you are waiting with your gems to offer a helping hand to their needs.

   A word of advice though, don't flood the Auction house with more then one of each because they move slow anyways so you want to make it seem like the gem that you have left on the Auction House is the last. So if the potential buyer doesn't buy it, he will have to look for a JC with WOTLK patterns, which is a hassle that many people want to avoid, and in return he buys your gem.

   So there you are, you can make some decent gold by simply keeping a stock of one each on the Auction house and laugh when you think that, that guy that was camping your corpse and you somehow managed to kill him and got that honor actually made you gold.

Cheating Yourself Out Of Profit

   Here i am back with one of my rants. Today i am going to try and cover one of the most important things that i have noticed that people do that are basically robbing themselves out of profit. The thing i am referring to is under pricing, or inadequate pricing.

   To try and explain this phenomena i will use two examples. The first one is how the real life economy disparity between countries is. For instance lets say that a person living in country A has pay check of 2000$, another person living in country B has a pay check of 1000$ and a third person living in a country C has a pay check of 300$.

   Now what all these people have in common is the need to buy a TV. Lets say that a nice new TV on the market would be 500$, now that would be an OK price for person A, an affordable for person B and damn expensive for the person C.

   One of the things i have been actually doing for quite a long time in WoW is asking all the people that i ever traded a single question, and that question is "How much gold do you have?" The reason behind this is not because i wanted to sell it for higher if they could afford it, but i wanted to get a general idea of what's the most common gold circulation among the normal/causal WoW player. The answers i got actually did give me a fairly good idea because i came down with numbers that implied that about 60% of the player base are all under 20k gold mark, then you have some 30ish percent that are 20-100k another 5% with 100-500K and about that same number with people over 500k. For similar numbers you might check some blogs or forums, but the problem with those is that the audit is pretty much from people that are on that site exactly for that reason, to make gold, and in return those are the people that fall into the last 10%.

  Well this same example can be seen in WoW as well. The way this happens in WoW is not with a TV but pretty much everything else you are selling. For instance i have seen on way too many instances where a person that has a certain item that he wants to sell it, ends up selling it for a fraction of it's worth and loosing out on the profits that he could have been making. The most common example with this is how people price their crafted items and to a certain degree the transmogrification market.

   The way people usually price their commodities is by the group of gold owners they are in (lets say you have 20K). Just put yourself in their shoes, you have an item that could be worth 10k to a person that is in a higher gold owner class then you , but you deem it too expensive because you doubt anyone would pay 50% of your total gold stash and you price it for 4k which seems like a 20% increase of your gold sum. 

   Now here comes another buyer that has a bit more gold in the sack, and takes your 4k item on the AH and re list it back for 10k. A few days pass but he eventually sells it to someone and makes a 6k profit over doing nothing but buying your item and re listing it back, and there you are happy with 4k profit while you should be pissed for missing out on the extra 6k you should have netted in. 

   But let us take a look at a more direct market with a more direct approach to prices. Let us take a look at the PvP gear and how people usually price their commodities and how they should be pricing it.

   The way this usually plays out is almost always the same. The person that is making the gear deems it a great deal if he spends 100g on the materials to sell it for 200g as in reality that is 100% profit margin, but the problem arises when you take that same item and sell it for 1000g. Then what happens is your 100% profit margin you made is basically still a 100% profit but at the same time a 900% loss as well.

   This same thing can be seen the most with the Transmogrification market. Yes, granted some people sell their items for 5,10,15 gold that you buy and flip, but those are not the people missing out, those are the misinformed, the actual people that are missing out on the profits are the people that are re listing the auctions. A perfect example of those would be a forum post i saw where a guy was asking the same question "am i cheating myself out of my profits" and he explains that he prices the items in 3 tiers a 200g, 400g and 600g and the reason? Well he is probably in the first gold owner class where his total gold sum is lower then 20k and a 600g is a good profit for him, and if you tell him that he could have flipped that for 10k he would laugh, or cry if you show him a printscreen of the actual sale.

   Anyways not to make this post any longer than it has to be i will leave you with a few last words. If you happen to be selling gear, or pretty much anything on the auction house never limit yourself with setting a low price. For instance like i said with the PvP gear, if the materials are worth 100g then set your high price at 1000g and your lowest price at 200g, that way if no one else is nuking your sales you will end up making a 100% in your worst case scenario, and up to 1000% profit in your best case scenario. Just remember there is no going price, the worth of anything is as high as a buyer is willing to pay for it. So one last time, don't be afraid to set high prices for the things you are selling and i am sure you will find your profits to be much higher then you are accustomed to.

   So, like always, keep an eye out for good opportunities out there.

Making Gold With Mechano-Hog ... Kinda

   So you have seen those guys in trade channel selling Mechano-Hogs asking for 20k or 30k, so why not look into that market and see if we can make some gold off it. 

   First things first, when thinking about getting into the Mechano-Hog market there are two things you need to have decided. First thing is do you want to sell the actual mount or get into manufacturing the parts for it's creation, and the second one would be that you have at least enough gold to be able to buy the vendor items from the vendor at K3 in Stormpeaks.

   Ok lets look at the first scenario where you would be selling the actual mount. This market really depends on two things, first one is the competition and the second one is the size of your server. The reason why i mentioned the competition is because if there is a fellow engineer  making these and posting them on the auction house for a 1000g profit then it is up to you to decide if you want to get in on the action for a cut of the meager earnings, or take the diplomatic route and get to a agreement where you get him to raise his prices to a profitable level.  The second thing i mentioned is the size of the server. The mount market is more of a luxurious goods market which means it's slower to move, and it is only logical that the bigger the server is the bigger are the chances that you net in a sell, but you will be combating more competition as well, so it's a more or less a two sided blade.

   So not to drag on a  simple sale, if you have the gold and the materials make the Mechano-Hog and put it up on the auction house, and it would be a good idea to advertise in trade as this will promote your product and increase the chances for a sale.

   Now we are going to look at the second part of this market that i deem it to be much more profitable, and that is the market of providing the materials that are required for the chopper. As you can see on the image the two most important things like i said were having the gold to pay for the vendor items, and the materials. 

    When we are talking about the materials you should know that there are two items that are the main concern, the first one is the Titansteel Bars as you will need 12 of those for a single chopper, and the second one is the Arctic Fur which you need 2 for each chopper you intend on making.

   As far as the Titansteel Bars go there are two ways to obtaining them, first one is farming and the second one is transmuting the Saronite into Titanium, and then smelting it into Titansteel which will require some additional Eternals. If the Eternals are pricy you might want to check out how to exchange frozen orbs to Eternals. Now since no one really likes to farm it is a much more effective way to transmute the Saronite into Titansteel and then post it on the auciton house.

   Now i can't say for your server in particular but on my server i picked up some stacks of Saronite for 40g/stack and about 80 Frozen Orbs for 8g each, and then went and posted the Titansteel Bars for 475g and managed to sell 16 bars in 3 days. So there isn't much to say because this market is a very low with supply and even if you are selling the Mechano-hog you want to have some Titansteel Bars up on the auction house. That way you will profit from anyone that wants to have the Mechano-Hog no matter which way he chooses the direct purchase or the materials, he is buying them from you.

   As for the Arctic Fur  it's down to the Auction house, so whenever you see some up there snag it and put it in your bank for safe keeping.

   So a fast recap of the post. Mechano-Hogs are profitable, if you choose to sell them on the AH talk to your competitors and negotiate a mutual price, if you decide to sell Titansteel then go for the Saronite and transmute it from Saronite and keep an eye on cheap Arctic Furs on the AH.

   So, like always, keep an eye out for good opportunities out there.