Profiting Off Laziness Followup

Few days ago I wrote about profiting off peoples laziness and selling vendor sold items in the AH. Today's blog is short and sweet but I wanted to show you that ANY level char can make ANY amount of gold. I made a level 1 character with 5g. No bags or anything. This is my backpack and what I emptied out of the mailbox since I've made that post.

Not exactly record breaking but in a couple of days I turned 5g into 150g with less then an hour of play time on the character. All I did was hit up various vendors and pick up 5 of each item used in trade skills. 5 of various dyes, threads, parchments, etc. If the merchant had recipes I picked them up.

Currently I'm at 50g or so but I purchased 4 netherweave bags and restocked on a bunch of stuff and started selling various spell reagents and such. I have no idea where I'm taking this but its a fun little experiment. When I get to around 1k on this character I'll probably start flipping items and what not but for now I'm building capital.

Behind The Scenes: Updated Saronite Shuffle

Well I went through and updated my saronite shuffle prices. Here is what I'm looking at currently:

1 ring = 2-3 dust, 1-2 lesser essence, 1 small dream shard
Dust = Currently at 2.5-3g. Basing everything off 2g each
G.E = Currently 12-15g each. Basing off 10g essences.
D.S = Currently 12-17g each. Basing off 10g shards.

1 ring yields the following:
75%: 4-6g in dust
22%: 3.33-6.66g in lesser essence
03%: 3.33g in small shards

To figure out the cost of one ring we do the following:
Eternal Earth = 8g (old pricing was 6.5g)
Gems = 1.5g (Technically I'm selling them to myself to prevent the "its free mindset")

1 eternal = 5 rings
5 rings = 8g + 7.5g (1.5g*5 gems = 7.5g) = 15.5g
15.5g / 5 = 3.1g per ring to craft

Going to use my typical 1000 ring batch which produces the following:
1000 rings * 3.1g = 3100g

75% of 1000 is 750 dust procs.
22% of 1000 is 220 lesser essence procs.
3% of 1000 is 30 lesser dream shard procs.

750 dust* 2.5 = 1875 dust
220 L.E. * 1.5 / 3 = 110 Greater Essence
30 shards * 1 /3 = 10 Dream shards

Total cost: 3100g
Total sales: 4945g
Total profit per 1000 rings: 1850g
Total profit per ring: 1.85g

Since I'm selling my gems to myself we can now figure out the cost of my saronite ore. I buy ore at 15g a stack still as there is enough of a supply for me at this price range.

We can assume that because of double gem procs on prospecting we will on average get 4 gems in which are not shadow / jade. ( I have it written down somewhere where I prospected over 1100 stacks and that theory held true)

4 gems @ 1.5g = 6g
15g - 6g = 9g per stack of saronite

You can plug in the numbers based on your server and follow what I did to see how it results for your server. I tried to explain it the best I could. If your feeling lazy you can always dig up the link to Sarainy's spreadsheet found in my archive posts and plug in the numbers that way as well.

Profiting Off Laziness

This is something even low level auctioneers can do to make some initial start up funds. Generally they can be bought out for a fairly low price (couple silver to a couple of gold depending on the level of area) and can net a pretty good return.

Finding recipes such as Frost Oil which is sold from 1 vendor out in the middle of Alterac Mountains can net a profitable return. Vendor sold for 25 silver and depending on your server you can get as much as 10g or more simply based off peoples laziness. Great way to earn some extra cash while leveling up an alt.

Another great money maker is selling recipes xfaction. Sell horde recipes on the ally ah and vice verse. You can pick them up for dirt cheap and sell them as high as 50-100g to people going for the cooking recipe achievement. What I've heard works best is making a DK (if you don't have one already) on the opposite faction. Pick up On a Pale Horse (crusader in the unholy tree) and run around collecting recipes. Have a friend help you bring them back over and sell them.

I have a friend who was doing this for the longest time. I'd help him bring recipes over and he'd toss me 1 of each recipe for my time. Doesn't sound like a lot but I was making 50g per recipe. Also selling vendor pets xfaction is another source of easy gold. Combine this tactic with farming the black tabby and you can make some hefty profit for very little work.

Selling High AND Fast

Yes, contrary to popular goblin belief it is possible to sell high AND fast. Some markets you can't do this in and others you can gouge as much as your want and they will sell regardless of the price. Why? Because majority of the people are lazy and want the item now. They are going to the AH to get that item instantly. If they didn't mind waiting they would go out and farm it for "free".

Some Examples:
Eternal air was selling on my server for 3-5g. I spent about 500g and cleared out the eternal air prices and reset them to 15g each. Of course I got undercut and the price settled to about 10g. Which was my original goal price and still three weeks later eternal air prices are sitting at 12g each.

Fires were selling for 8-10g in bulk and I bought out everything up to 15g and started selling singles for 17g while stacks were still sitting at 15g. In 2 days I made about 2k profit from this little stunt and prices are still at the 15-20g mark.

I had hundreds of shadow that I paid no more then 4g for. After a market reset they haven't dropped below 5g each and I can sell stacks a day for 6-7g per eternal.

Arctic fur while I did not see this coming is selling at an incredible rate for 80g. I picked up 9 stacks awhile back for 20g per fur and was using them to make leg armors and what not. I decided to see if furs were selling at this outrageous price and to my surprise I sell over a stack a day of fur for 80g per fur. (That's 1600g a stack)

Enchanting mats are another great item although a bit harder to push up prices. But people will buy enchanting mats regardless of the price. This is 100% fact and the proof is patch days and new seasons. How quickly was enchanting mats selling at unbelievable prices then? Yea the demand was higher for them at those times but you can't deny that there is always a demand for enchanting mats.

Titansteel is another hot item that will sell at whatever price and the fact its limited to 1 per miner per day helps this. I've bought bulk titansteel for 115-120g each and flipped them for as much as 150-175g each.

Lichbloom drops below 20g a stack on my server. Yet a few weeks back I reset the market and was selling lichbloom for 60g a stack. Sure the price is back to 23g but come Tuesday I'll be back selling 5 lichbloom for 10-15g and they will sell. They always do.

You want to sell high and fast on netherweave bags? Soak up all the netherweave cloth for a few weeks and watch bag prices go up. Bags will still sell just as fast at 20g as they will at 10g and most likely your competition will be out of cloth by then.

While I am a supporter and a firm believer in crashing markets to drive off competition there are just some markets where you just don't need to. There is simply no reason what so ever to crash some market prices.

Now I'm not saying go out there and be stupid and try to manipulate every market. Some servers it simply wont work if you don't have enough liquid to eat your way through the flooders. Don't buy out 500 eternals to reset a market. Wait until there is 20-30 eternals to reset. Play smart and you won't get burned (as often).

I'm sure I'll get flamed by all the wanna be goblins out there and that's fine. They can keep flipping product like they're working at McDonalds for minimum wage. I'm sitting back and running the restaurant profiting off their cheap labor. ;)

Making Money Off the Insane.

I didn't really think of this but for those of you who are not grinding the insane achievement you could possibly be making money off of those of us who are.

I've noticed a pattern on my server where if I keep the AH clean of pristine black diamonds the price bottoms out. People don't really know the value (generally) and will toss them up cheaply if they don't have a starting price to guide them like they would if they see a few posted at 200g each.

I'm willing to spend 100g per pristine black diamond and I have a few people who are scanning the AH for me and buying anything under 100g and cod'ing it to me in addition to me scanning the AH when I remember to. For awhile there was a handfull in the 200-300g range and prices weren't coming down simply because people would check before posting and see the value. However if you keep the AH clean of the diamonds you have a better chance of picking off cheaper diamonds.

Find someone whos grinding the insane achievement and find out what they will pay for black diamonds / librams / etc and add them to your snatch list or auctionator lists. Not only will you make their life easier but you'll also make some cash.

If you don't know anyone you can flip them on the AH. If you see one or two for 20 or 30 gold try buying them out and reposting for 100-150g. Buy up cheap librams of Focus, Protection, Rapidity and try to flip those as well.

For you rogues out there you know the junkboxes are typically sellers simply because you are the only ones who can farm them up. I'd honestly gladly pay 5-10g per junkbox but every time I mention how many I need I seem to lose the rogues interest.

For you scribes (and even non scribes) you can make rogue decks and piece together other cards for decks and try flipping those. It takes an insane amount of decks to get to exalted so if you can find someone grinding darkmoon rep you've hit a jackpot if you can work out a deal with them.

Signs of people grinding Insane in the Membrane:
People buying junkboxes
People buying librams of protection, focus, rapidity (only these 3)
People buying pristine black diamonds
People asking to turn in your darkmoon decks for rep during the fair or people buying rogue decks / etc

Any of these are generally good indications to make some easy money as all of the reps require a ton of work and random items.

Auctioneering 101 - Finding A Farmer

So I've been sitting here most of the day trying to think of something I could possibly write about and while there are quite a few things I could write about I'm not really sure where to begin. So I guess I'll start with one probably the most common question I've heard around the auctioneering community: How do I find a farmer?

The answer is quite simple. Stay in trade and always keep an eye out for people selling bulk goods. You can also look through the auction house and send in game mail to the players who you notice are posting the appropriate quantity.

Also there seems to be (at least on my server) a pattern to how the farmers advertise their goods. Oddly enough farmers on my server NEVER deviate from this pattern and I can spot a farmer just by how their advertise. For my server they will always /2 WTS [Saronite Ore] [Titanium Ore].

Thats it. Only WTS [item] [item]. Can be herbs or ore and has yet to fail me. 99% of the english speaking community will generally tag something along with their links like pst, a price on the goods, or a quantity. From my experience I've yet to see a (non english speaking) farmer do this.

How do you maintain a relationship with your farmer? It's actually easier then you think. They care about one thing and that is money. They want to sell their goods as quickly as they possibly can and will generally sell things at 50-75% of AH value. Even cheaper if your buying everything they have. ;)

That brings me to my next piece of advice. Buy EVERYTHING they have regardless if you can use it or not. They remember this and if you continuously start buying everything from every farmer your name will get known eventually in the farming community. When I buy ore I buy all their titanium ore and bars, titansteel bars, every eternal, everything. Often times I end up spending 7-10k on a single purchase.

Now you might not be able to afford a 10k purchase and that's fine. Buy what you can but not to the point where you went broke. If you only have 10k spend 5-8k on goods and leave some play money on the side. Even flipping the eternals you picked up off your farmer is good income.

Also don't forget to barter with them a little. A few things I don't barter with and thats my ore and herb prices. Lotus, eternals, gems, bars, etc all get bartered. Why? because your buying these to flip generally and typically the profit margin is lower then your normal saronite shuffle or whatever you may be doing to make money.

Also I would like to note buying in game goods for in game curency is NOT against the rules and you WON'T get banned for it. I have purchased hundreds of thousands of gold in raw gathering materials. I have no idea what they are doing with the gold they receive. It's none of my business and blizzard will not take action against you. If it was against the rules I'm pretty sure 99% of the JMTC community would be permanently banned. ;)