Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Playing the AH part time

As I said I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to hit the gold cap while studying school and what not. While school is going to be my first priority I will still have other priorities as well. Sorry about the delay in posting. Crappy internet and honestly I just didn't have anything worthwhile to write. I'd rather keep my posts to wow and actually worthwhile of your guys' reading time.

I have a feeling I'll still be playing wow about the same amount of time as I normally do but for the past few months I've done nothing but AH pvp and while I'm not completely burned out on it I actually enjoy grinding goblin rep in dire maul (if that gives you any idea how much tolerance I've built up sitting in exodar for months). How long will this last? Who knows I have a pretty bad case of ADD at times and generally rotate my activities in game quite a bit.

I really liked the schedule I was doing and it worked for the amount of time I did it but I felt like I was scraping ideas together and the quality of my posts were degrading so while I'll still be updating my blog and playing the AH I'm only going to update as needed. Some weeks I'll posts 6 or 7 times and other weeks I'll post 2-3 times but one thing you can be guarenteed is posts of a decent quality.

Now on to today's post. How am I going to play the AH and hit the gold cap but spend as little time as possible doing it? Best way I can explain it is more routine posting and sticking to that. Instead of hourly bombarding of the AH during peak hours I'll post every morning on a 24 hour auction. What sells will sell what doesn't will be returned to be re-posted. My goal is to spend an hour or so every morning remaking gems, glyphs, etc that sold the day before and be done with it.

My gold income most likely will drop but this frees up my time for working on insane and still studying for school which is coming up here in a few weeks. I'll rely on having my disenchanter process my crystallized jewelery and I'll find someone to prospect my ore for a set price. I'll lose a little bit of profit but the amount of time I save is my main goal right now.

Are any of you guys part time AH players? If so how are you doing it? Drop me an email or leave a comment to give me some ideas. Right now I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to do this but I have a basic idea.

8 comments:

  1. I consider myself a part time AH player. The bulk of the money I make in game is from the auction house, but I don't have a 'steady' source of income in that regard. (IE, I don't have an inscriptionist - gasp! I know.)

    I log onto my banker maybe 2-3 times during the day. Usually once in the morning while I'm ungroggifying myself. Then again when I get home in the afternoon/evening, and then once more before I go to bed.

    I post what I have that needs posting (I have some Snatch and other specialized searches set up via Auctioneer for reselling/disenchanting/etc), check out a few "hot items" of the day (lately, that's been - keeping an eye on dream shards and arctic furs), and simply make sure I've mailed everything from my alts to my banker that need sent. If I have nabbed some cheap crafting goods, my last login of the evening is devoted to sending the materials to my friendly-crafters to make some things that I sell the next day (or whenever they mail the completed object back).

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  2. I actually forced myself to be a part time AH player. Because I want to do more in the game like grinding strange reps or objects, or leveling alts and experiencing the other faction. So what I did was to a) eliminate all the grindy activities (like inscription and prospecting ore) b) give up any kind of market that need babysitting the AH in order to work (aka undercut/repost). So what I do now is this :
    - I sell vendor cooking recipes that are only sold by one vendor, and usually it's a remote location (profit 150 - 300g / day)
    - I snatch materials for Crusader (50g profit), Mongoose (150g profit), 1H Agility (80g profit), 2H Agility (100g profit), Fiery (40g profit)and others; I craft and put them at the AH at a fix price always, regardless the competition. E.g. I put Crusader at 100g although below me, there is a war going on in the range of 80g. One or two days, a specific enchant may not sell due to this war, but on the third day, I can sell anywhere between 1-6. Bottom line is on any day, some scrolls sell.
    - one of the best sources of income is void crystal shatter; I buy the voids for 6-8g and the large prismatic shards sell for 10-18g per piece.
    - I buy from the AH uncommon gems and eternal earth (up to 10g per), craft rings and necks with JC and disenchant them. I use all the materials resulted to craft enchanting scrolls, and dump the extra infinite dust at the lowest price possible at the AH.
    - I use snatch and trade channel (whenever i can) to buy cheap Titansteel bars and runed orbs; with these I craft dps plate items only and sell them at the AH with profit in the range of 200-1000g per item. I'm puzzled why on my server there are always tanking pieces posted on the AH but no dps ones...

    Anyway, doing all this, gets me a nice, healthy income everyday, without the need of milling/prospecting/crafting for hours. I am constantly looking for new quick ways to get fast gold, like the ones I've mentioned. As soon as I find one, I'm adding it to the scheme. Btw, I only have 2 level 80 with blacksmith, enchanting, mining and jc.

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  3. I wake up in the morning, log my AH toon and empty my mailbag of the night's profits - I'm only making around 1k a day at the moment, but I only have two 80s and my crafting professions are tailoring and blacksmithing, so I think I'm doing OK.

    I'll craft about 1000g worth of mats into my usual quick sellers - bags, spellthread, belt buckles - post them and go to work. Ten hours later when I get home I've sold most of it and reposted the rest to undercut the daytime competition.

    Knowing your competitors is probably more important for part time AH play than for people who can check hourly - I have my keenest couple of competitors on my friend list so I can see when they come online, and I'm getting used to their routines so I don't repost until a few minutes after they try to undercut me. After that, it's a couple of hours of PVE/PVP on my main and occasionally re-logging to check my profit levels.

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  4. I am a part time AH player and make anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 gold a day weekdays and between 2,000 and 5,0000 weekends. I simply buy low priced items and resell. I also engage in the enchanting market with my focus on twink enchants (with the decrease in infinite dust I may start to look at higher level enchants).

    Basically anything I can buy for less then I can sell it for I do, I am very discriminate of what I buy on the AH but I am so spread out in so many markets that I do very well for the time I spend.

    Also I buy darkmoon cards, build decks, turn them in for rep, and sell the cards. I only buy the cards when they are cheap, slowly building decks. I buy main undeath cards (under 50g each) and nobles (under 500g each). The Death cards sell for around 900g-1000g (400g-500g+ profit) and the greatness cards for 4500g-5500g (500g-1500g+ profit). Last fair I had 4 Death cards and 2 Greatness cards for a nice 4,500g profit with minimal work. The profit margin increases depending on how much I can buy the cards for, usally well under my minimum prices.

    I also buy vendor pets and sell those. Incredible money to be made on these I sell at least one of each a day usually for 200% over cost usually much more.

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  5. I'm definitley a part time Ah user. I get a couple hours on the weekend, but during the weekdays I have 45 minutes max to spend in game. While I visit it daily typically, it's not unusual for me to have to skip days. I am, however, an inscriptionist...which helps. That said, I imagine any tradeskill (especially enchanting) would work similarly for how I do it (I have Enchanting also but cut it out recently due to time constraints).

    This is how I get around it and maximize what I can do in a very short time:

    All crafting I do is saved for Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. Everything I sell is made in sufficient quantities to last me about a week at those times. For glyphs I carry all my well selling glyphs in stacks of 20, and others around 10-15. I also use 3 different AH mules for glyphs, one for general stuff, and one currently taking a rest that was specifically for enchants and infrequently sold items.

    This allows me to do the following:
    I log onto one of my glyph specific AH mules, scan the AH and start posting. I tried batch posting, but stopped when I realized overall time was longer than just sitting through it manually. Auctioneer shows current glyphs for sale, and auto adjusts my price within a specific range to undercut people if possible. Since Auctioneer shows the glyps for sale, I can buy as I go when I see glyphs that are cheaper than what it costs me to make (as long as I don't go above a full stack total inventory).

    When I'm done with that mule, I log on my next glyph mule and repeat. Each mule only carries glyphs of a specific class and I can fit all glyphs in the inventory of 3 mules this way. In this way I eliminate runs back and forth to the bank, and still have enough room in each mule's inventory to temporarily hold any great deals I see during the scan. Any non glyph deals I find get mailed to the 4th mule to deal with when I have time.

    Most of those deals I am checking are Enchanting related as they have no deposit cost. That means I can just post them at my markup regardless of where the market is and not worry if I am grossly overpriced. If they sell that day fine, if they sell in 3 weeks fine.

    It's very fast, and allows me to do all my AH moves in 20-45 minutes tops during the weekdays. When I have an hour or 2 on the weekends I can catch up on crafting. The worst that happens is a couple Glyphs run out by Wednesday or Thursday and I lose a few potential sales. I post every day, but i twould be just as easy to increase the number you post and only post every other day.

    Good luck!

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  6. Quick addition:

    I enable batch posting on every glyph. There are days when I have zero time but can visit the computer for a minute or two between other work. In those cases I just batch post everything. It's terribly inefficient, but as low as deposit costs are... you still make money. it just takes a LOT longer to empty your mailbox 2 days later ;)

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  7. I'm mostly a part time AH player but even then I sometimes have a hard time keeping up with gold making, school and making new blog posts (I wrote about it a while ago). As a scribe the most important thing is to keep the glyph stock filled but many times I just don't have the time or energy to do it. That is probably one of the biggest issues for part time players, the longer you wait the less your daily sales gets and the next time you fill up you have to make 500-1000 glyphs (not fun).

    The best way I have found is trying to make milling to less of a grind and just do it when you don't have anything to do, while your raid is having a manabreak, when waiting for a PuG or when you are just standing in Dalaran (or flying in circles above it).

    I guess the same could be done with crafting glyphs as well.

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  8. To speed up glyph making considering the above posted comments:

    I don't mill. I only buy Ink of the Seas on the AH. My price limit is 2 gold and below. I mail them all to my glypher as I get them, and they sit there happily until he is ready to make glyphs. Time spent gathering materials for glyphs that way = only the minute or two extra to mail them after running a scan each day.

    I make my glyphs only on the weekend, and only in Dalaran. I load up with Inks of the Sea, and sit in front of the Ink exchange merchant and trade for Inks I need while purchasing extra papers as I need them. In 30-45 minutes I can replace the 1000s of glyphs sold utilizing that specific location and several trips back and forth to the nearby mailbox.

    Again, that's not the largest possible return on investment, but it is incredibly time efficient. For reference, average profitable glyph sales on my server are only about 4 gold each and I am still selling over 1k worth everyday. That's 500 gold profit each day at a crazy low glyph price for 20+ minutes of "total" work.

    You could make more milling your own inks, but that woudl obviously add hours of work that you probably don't want to spend if time constrained. I buy an Ink for 2 gold and I now know the max expense to create every glyph without having to rely on spreadheets or addons.

    Milling can also be sped up if you really must go that route by the addon enchantrix. Milling becomes a quick single click procedure using it. For making glyphs, however, there is no faster way to do it than to be able to sit in the Inscription shop in Dalaran and make them all there.

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