November 2nd Blogging Carnival - What Mistakes Have You Learned From While Playing the Auction House???

For the November 2nd Blogging Carnival the theme is "What Mistakes Have You Learned from the Auction House?" This is my first trip to the carnival in my own booth, although I've been there several times as a guest / visitor and enjoyed all that the carnival has to offer.

Probably my biggest mistake to date when playing the Auction House in World of Warcraft has been following the advice I had found on several gold making blogs, and meandering over to the vendor in Dalaran to buy the BOE "Tome of Polymorph - Black Cat". This sounded like a great idea because:

1. there were none in the AH on my server,
2. I had a toon with exalted rep with the Kirin Tor ( so I'd be buying it at a discount),
3. and even if I didn't buy it for 2000 gold and sell it for 4000 as they suggested i should be able to make a few hundred gold off of a vendor item.

I'd always had success selling vendor items before to people who were too "lazy" or would just rather save time than save gold by running to the vendor themselves including selling the pets right there in Dalaran. So I figured I'd buy one and try it. Well that was more than a month and a half ago and to date it hasn't sold. If I spam it in trade chat, all of the "experts" take a break from discussing Chuck Norris' magical abilities to criticize me for trying to make a few gold off of a vendor item. I've tried lowering the price to a break even point. The greateast lesson which I hadn't taken into consideration was the amount of a deposit it requires to post the item which you get hit with every time, which you don't sell the item. So if it costs me 300 gold to post it for 24 hours today and it expires without selling, I'm plopping down another 300 for the next 24 hour period. My biggest problem is the only Mage I have is level 35... :(

Another lesson which I've learned is being very cautious in trying to control the markets on certain items. I can't stand to see glyphs posted for dirt cheap prices, so I have tried to buy out the cheap ones and try to sell for a little more to bring the market up a little, only to be undercut by the cheap skates (by a ridiculous amount) which leaves me with a stack of glyphs which usually don't sell that well or that quickly. However, I have had this work to my advantage in other markets. For instance selling titanium bars. I try to sell each bar for 18g bid and 19g buyout which seems like a good average price on my server. Occasionally people will post bars for 11g - 14g. Which I snatch up and flip for my standard price and have no problem making my gold on those and keeping the market for the bars I've transmuted up in the range I'd like to see it at.

I always like to find ways to a) learn from my mistakes and b) correct the mistake with as little pain to me as possible. I've thought of how to do this with the Polymorph Tome, and have even considered leveling the mage. (I do need an enchanter, lol.) I've also considered giving this to a Guildie or having a contest and giving it away. (Although if the winner doesn't have a Mage it won't do them much good either.)

Any Suggestions?

Happy Prospecting!
Fat Jack