Sunday, October 31, 2010

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

3 comments:

  1. Nice post, good lessons to learn for all of us.

    Market research is the key on those high value items. I have done research for weeks before buying something like your "black cat" tome. When you see one listed, make note of who is selling it and after the auction is over, pst the seller or send in-game mail. Ask if it sold and how long it took. Tell them you had no luck. You may find out valuable information.

    For your specific tome, I'm not sure what makes most sense. I have to this day a Bold Cardinal Ruby in my bag as as reminder from 2 years ago how bad an idea it was to purchase a bunch of them to resell--took forever, and tied up all my working capital. Maybe your tome could sit in your Mage's bag as just such a reminder and motivation to level as fast as possible?

    Just a thought....

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  2. I'm sorry to hear about your unfortunate Polymorph Black Cat experience! I discovered it only a few weeks after Wrath came out, but was always too weary of it's high cost and the high posting cost to give flipping it a try. Perhaps a different approach in Trade would work to at least get back what you initially paid for it. If you said something along the lines of "Bought Tome of Polymorph Black Cat, but never leveled my mage. WTS for the vendor price of 2000g" perhaps someone who is intending to purchase the Tome anyway will buy it from you! I know I have been meaning to get around to buying one for my mage, and would be tempted to buy it from a player with a similar story. :)

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  3. Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to try to unload it somehow. I'd rather not have a 2,000 gold reminder of my mistake. I have thought about selling it at cost in trade. What I'll probably do is make a decision if I ever think that leveling my mage will actually happen, then make the push to sell it at my cost if I'm not going to. At the least it would save someone some gold who didn't have the Kirin Tor Rep.

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