Ka-Ching!

OK, let’s say that you have now filled your bags and you are ready to sell your stuff. After all you have made no money until you have sold your stuff. How should you sell it? Should you make something out of it? Should you hold on to it or set the price unusually high. Let’s consider just selling the stuff and at what price.

To start off I recommend you get an addon called Auctioneer. This addon will automate posting good and give you a relative idea about how items are priced. Good use of this addon will help you make money, but more advanced use will come in time as you get familiar with the market.

NOTE: When you post a new item and before you create a new auction be sure to hit the “Refresh” button every time. If you do not you may loose money by posting auctions that will not sell. You will only have to make this mistake a couple of times before it becomes a habit of “refresh”ing.

Note: As you become acquainted with the market you should expect to make a normal return. If prices fluctuate wildly price your good at your prices and you should be able to get it. Never think you have to undercut the market all the time (although you will most of the time) or gouge people to make a profit. The rule is this: YOU HAVE MADE NO MONEY AT ALL UNTIL IT IS IN YOUR BANK. You can’t eat your mats, so to speak.

Auctions and Buyouts

Obviously there is a difference here, the auction price is the minimum you will accept for the item you are selling and people can bid up the price to whatever the market will bare. A buy out is an ideal price you would like for your item. The advantage of a buyout is the buyer gets the item they purchase immediately. People bidding in auction must wait until time expires and take the risk of other people outbidding them or buying out the item. In all honesty we are not interested at all in auctions, what we want to for people to buyout our good outright so we get paid sooner. The tactic you will notice most people taking is having the auction minimum bid being about 10% or less than the buyout price. This tactic entices the buyer to just buy it outright which is better for us and them since they know they get the item. A good example is my price for Deadnettle. I price it at 10g a stack buyout and minimum auction is 9g. I never have people bid the price, and if someone does, someone else will always come along and just buy it out.

Note: The auction prices and buyout prices are handled separately and this being the case it is very important to pay attention to them separately. There is a tactic of pricing the an auction price very low and when people automatically price auctions the can mistakenly price it too low. The person who priced the auction low will then bid on your sale at this very low price. If they win it they will turn it around and sell your item a high price and make a profit. Be careful of this and price your auction to your liking and not automatically based on the market.

One of the other things to make your prices more appealing, price your items in nice round numbers. I usually shave off any copper and usually round to the next lower 10 silver. Say if Auctioneer says a good price is 13g 47s 32c, I would price it at 13g, 40s. When you price like this it is easier for people to understand and are more likely to buy your item. Some people will say it doesn’t matter, I think it does and since I am successful I will stick to this thinking.

I am going to take this looking at some of the more common conditions you will find in the AH. Remember, this is where you will be making your money, it is important to understand what you are looking at.

You post and there are no other sales of what you are selling

This is simple to understand, if you are posting something that normally sells a lot it means there is a large demand for the item. You are now the only one to provide this on your server. So how should you price your item? Let’s take for example “Adders Tongue”. When the market is doing a brisk turnover of this item you notice the price tends to level out at about 14g a stack. Since this is the usual going price you should really expect to get 14g a stack, but we have a situation where you are the only seller and can now set the price. What will you do? Will you gouge people for it and set the price way high like 40g? Will you set the price at the normal selling price of 14g pretty much assuring sales? Will you set a premium price and take advantage of the market but selling it for about 20g a stack? Obviously you will not set a price lower than the normal selling price because there is no point in loosing money that way. Setting the price point at a gouging 40g is ridiculous, no one will buy it because everyone knows the normal price and the stack will sit in the AH until someone is absolutely desperate for it. This could be a long wait and you loose money the longer it sits there, reposting it every couple of days. (Remember that there will be other people posting their stuff and they will easily undercut a price that is too high.) Your best strategy is to set the price slightly high but not so outrageous that people will not bite at it since it is in high demand. A 20% to 40% mark up in this situation is reasonable and everyone will understand you are getting a little more because of the situation and you will sell your stuff.

You post your stack and see the market is flooded

A flooded market is not uncommon. You see the pages of auctions for the same thing you are selling and the prices have dropped through the floor. Our Adders Tongue that usually sells at 14g a stack is now selling at 5g a stack. This is disheartening, but now you have to take a real close look at the prices and the size of the stacks being sold.

If the stacks are all large and you look at unit price and they drop steady you really are not in a position to sell and make a good return. In this case you should hold on to the mats and bank it until the price comes up. If on the other hand the stack are all small, say 1 and 2 each, price your mats at the normal price or even a 10% discount and wait, it will eventually sell because there really is not all that much on the market, it just looks like there is. ADVANCED TIP: If the prices are real low but the stacks are very small you have an interesting consideration here…. You could buy everything that is lower than your normal or discount price and the resell it all at your price. Since you will have bought everything at a lower price you can make a profit off the cheap goods and sell your stuff. That’s a Ka-Ching in my dictionary.

But why would people price stuff so low in the first place? Well simple; if you then post to undercut the cheap price, the person posting the cheap price will snap your sale up and later repost them at a nice profit. If you on the other hand buy all the cheap stuff and repost it at a normal price, the guy trying to screw people into undercutting will have made very little money for their work and you will come out on top just by selling normally.

You post and you see the price listings are around the normal price

This is the condition you will normally see. This is where you undercut your competitors by a couple percent and turn your profit.

Should I sell the raw mats or should I manufacture something?

Oddly enough this is a question I get asked a lot and it depends entirely on market conditions. It is really simple to figure out: add all your unit costs up (don’t forget AH cut) and subtract that from what you are going to sell it for. Then add up the sell price for the mats you have and subtract the AH cut. If the first is greater, make something and sell it. If not just sell the raw mats and be done with it. You would be surprised how often it is more advantageous to just sell the raw mats than bother to make anything from it. In fact I don’t bother checking to see if there is a profit from manufacturing something form my farmed mats any more, I just sell it all on the AH and forget about it.