So I was thinking last night how I could inflate the prices of ore and eternals to the point where my competition couldn't shuffle. Of course artifical inflation is the easiest and most profitable way to achieve this (which is basically buying everything and creating a demand for an item which doesn't exist).
Now the following tactic I'm about to talk about is the result of me sitting on over a tab of enchanting mats and 10-15 crates of more enchanting mats. With the price of enchanting mats dropping it doesn't make sense in my mind to keep producing more enchanting mats. Does it?
I can buy eternals up to 8g each (competition doesnt want to pay more then 5 or 6g) which makes my crystallized jewelery cost 1.6g in earths. Factor in the gem vendor value of 50s and the cost is 2.1g.
The crystallized jewelery vendors for 3.14g. Yes, I'm vendoring rings instead of disenchanting them. "Why in everything holy would I do that?" You might ask. Well look at it from this perspective.
I'm making a little over 1g from vendoring the items. Shuffling was resulting in 1.8g profit after everything is all said and done not including ah fees. So you might be thinking "yea but your losing 80s per ring and basically throwing money down the drain." and in a sense your right. I am throwing money down the drain BUT I am making a profit. I'm able to buy as much as I possibly want from as long as I don't exceed my price limits and I'll make a profit almost instantly.
This means I can drop 10k on eternals and ore. Craft rings and vendor them. Cut and sell the rare gems. I won't make as much money but the fact is I'm hurting the competition. I'm taking those eternals and ore away from them and preventing them from shuffling.
The only reason to do this is to cause inflation in eternal and ore prices. The fact I'm sitting on 200+ stacks of dust still is still allowing me to continue selling enchanting mats. When I get low on enchanting mats I'll make up some more dust but until then I'm vendoring rings to remove the items from game. The reason I don't just sit on the rings until I need enchanting mats is it recoops some of the cost. I don't have the liquid to continuously inflate the market prices without selling them to the vendor. (Well I'm sure I have the liquid but I'd rather not sit on tens of thousands of rings and eternals.)
The results of this so far is eternals hovering in the 8-10g range and saronite over 20g a stack (which 10-12g is normal on my server). My other shuffling competition got really loud in trade trying to find ore and eternals but couldn't and in fact has been pretty quiet lately (briefly logging on and back off and I'm guessing to check ah prices only to see things haven't changed).
Play smart and do your math before attempting this to see if it'll work for you. I'm not saying run out and do this but more or less throwing the idea out there for you guys to chew on and think about. Oh, one last thing, don't burn your citrine. You can use them for jade pendants for shards (if they are still profitable). You can also try selling gems in stacks of 3 or singles as well but that's up to you.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
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Your journey to the Dark Side is nearly complete, young paddy-whack. One more step, and you'll be vendoring the saronite directly.
ReplyDeleteI've made my gold almost completely with Inscription and know that market well. JC, on the other hand AND on the surface, seems VERY simple/straightfoward. Get ore, prospect ore, cut gems resulting from the prospected ore, sell gems. BUT, with Zamboni's "Saronite Shuffle" post on JTMC, I'm completely
ReplyDeleteblown away.
An idea for a follow up post, Carbon, is to maybe summarize what exactly Zamboni's talking about for the JC noobs out there (includes me)!
Keep up the good work with your blog. I enjoy reading your new posts.
Carbon, I am trying to weed out the MMO Kids as well. One thing not to forget about is the raw gems. At least on my server, I am able to buy these for sickeningly cheap which lets me run with a cost per dust of under 1.5 g. After reading your blog, I realize my price point is way to low to drive out some people, but god will I be hated after tonight.
ReplyDeleteOn a lighter note, if prices realy go up, the 1.5k eternals, and 5 tabs of ore are going to be real sweet.
Why are you using the vendor price of gems in your cost equation instead of whatever you paid for them? I can't find a spreadsheet at the moment, but am i correct in assuming that you're gems are costing price of saronite/x
ReplyDeletex being the number of greens per stack, which i can't think of the number off the top of my head. Even if you get 2 per prospect, thats 20g/8 gems= 2.5g per. (unless your consider them free, after selling blue gems?)
I just got out of class, so sorry if I'm making a stupid mistake.
I was using vendor value simply because its set in stone and can not be changed. I could sell the gems for 20g each but its not consistant sales.
ReplyDeleteSure I could have done the 1.5g per gem I normally do but then I would have to find a buyer for that price. In a sense the buyer is the merchant so I'm going off their price.
Even at 1.5g gem and 1.6g earths I'm breaking even. Meaning if I sold the gem for 1.5g and didn't buy the earth I'd make the same.
However my goal is to burn the eternals and take the money I get from my vendor to buy more ore and eternals. Selling rare gems as I along.
Plus selling the gem by itself is defeating the purpose of inflating prices anyways :)
I really like what you're saying about doing this not necessarily to maximize direct profit but rather to keep prices high against your competitors. Smart thinking. Good post!
ReplyDeleteI do not support counterfeiters, although I found this amusing :-D
ReplyDeleteAs others have pointed out, I enjoy the fresh ideas on this blog, keep it up!
What about your dream shard market? Are you using your huge citrines from this scheme for it (since I think there is no way of getting rid of dark jades short of vendoring cut gems and icy prisms)
ReplyDelete@Last Anon - Yep, It's why I said not to burn citrine if dream shards are profitable in the last paragraph :D
ReplyDeleteThere's a problem with your analysis. In comparing vendoring to producing dust/essence etc. you have to use the same base price for the gems.
ReplyDeleteYou came up with 1.85g profit for disencrafting rings and selling dust/essence/shards based on a price of 1.5g per gem (which makes sense as you can usually sell those gems in quantity to disencrafters who want to avoid prospecting and doing a complete shuffle for 30g/stack or close).
But if you use 8g as your eternal price, and 1.5g as your gem price, then you do not make 1g from vendoring the rings, but only 4s.
You have to use the same pricing to make a fair comparison. There is actually a 2.8g difference as long as dust prices stay at or above 2g (which so far they seem to be doing on my server). IMO, it's worth the work to de and sell the dust once you have made the rings. (2.8g/10secs is 1k/hr and that is a generous time allowance -- OTOH) Whether the whole process is worth it is another question.
Also, if your process lifts the price of ore or eternals, that has to go into your calculation also. (You should be using ah prices for inputs if they are legit market prices at which you could sell, even if you can get much cheaper). Sounds like the whole shuffle even for 2.8g a ring is kinda borderline g/hr wise if you aren't pushing to hit cap fast.
Kinda bitter as I just spent 2kgold leveling JC quickly on my new horde dk banker so I'd be able to do the shuffle right at lvl 65 (which he hits the next time I get an hour to run a couple dungeons or do a bunch of quests). But, whatever, I might level cap him and JC is as good a prof as any for pve/pvp, even if it doesn't end up being a big profit center.
Mostly I'm bitter because infinite dust is dropping down toward my profit per slot threshold for items worth trading on slim margin. (I don't and won't bot mail/ah so this matters). 20% margins on 4-5g dust was pretty decent at an average 75s profit per piece and 15g per slot. For 3g dust, it's down to 40-50s ea. which is pretty borderline considering this is trading profits so I can't count on turning over 50 stacks every day, but usually get a bunch of returns.
All you gnome/goblin bloggers are making the markets more efficient, jacking my arbitrage swagger.
@ Gnome of Zurich - The point of this process isn't to make the most money. It's a tactic to inflate prices to hurt competition while not losing money. It's allowing me to take everything under a set price and basically vendor it for the same price. I have enough dusts so I'm not 'losing' sales. :P
ReplyDeleteI just posted 2000 singles of dust last night out of sheer boredom and that was just cleaning out my mailbox. I can't push dust quick enough. This process allows me to remove the items from the market at zero cost to me (other then time but making rings and vendoring is /afk time anyways).
I still get rare gems out of it as well so while.
I'm first to admit I'm throwing money down the drain but this tactic is indeed working. The shuffler I was trying to choke hold out of shuffling hasn't been seen in days now (getting close to a week).
I do not understand why you care about hurting competition unless in the long run it will make you more gold. Why does some other guy making gold bother you?
ReplyDeleteThe dust will sell, if not at 2g, then at 1.8 or 1.75g. And buying up the ore and eternals and making the rings already accomplishes your goal of driving up the price of inputs, whether you vendor the rings or de them.
And if it really isn't worth it because you can't sell the dust fast enough at any price that makes sense, it might be better to just sell or vendor the gems. But in that case, either saronite will fall, or blue gem prices will rise, because this is one of the primary sources of uncut blue gems.
I don't know, I just have trouble seeing how spinning your wheels for minimal/no profit is helpful, ever.
has getting rid of this other shuffler resulted in higher prices or more sales at similar prices on your cut gems or enchant mats? And is it a big enough difference to make up the time/gold spent fairly soon? If not, why did you care about getting rid of him?
Less competition is less competition. Am I making more money in the end? Yea I sell more. Gem prices are fine and still strong.
ReplyDeleteMy point is why disenchant more rings for more dust when I have hundreds of stacks of it already? I can make scrolls (and I do) but it's not putting a dent in my pile.
I'm selling the gems uncut in stacks of 1 and 3 as well but it doesn't make sense to me to create even more dust which is plummeting in price.
Your suggesting to vendor the gems which is what my original math was based around. :P Vendoring the gems does not yield as much as making rings and vendoring the rings.
The only time I'm 'spinning my wheels' is when you compare selling the gems for 1.5g to another player. If I'm selling bulk gems to another player then they are obviously shuffling and I then defeat the entire purpose of inflating prices to begin with.
Why do I care so much about hurting my competition? Because the AH is the only true form of PvP ;) I dislike more alliance then I do horde and this is where I can show them that :)
Am I greedy? of course. Aren't we all for playing the AH to such an extreme? In a sense driving out competition is a way of flexing your epeen without being obnoxious about it. You're putting your money where your mouth is and forcing them to find another market to find :)
I don't expect anyone to agree with this tactic and I know many people don't. However it is a tactic and it is effective depending on your goals. :D
I like it. PVP on. If i wasn't making a steady small income from epic cuts I'd jump on this. As it is I have enough gold and just can't be bothered.
ReplyDelete