Use the Auction House Regularly

Z

ZenTseTse

Veteran X
Just tips for those who dont use the AH...

I've used the AH to basically get to 230 tailoring. I have spent perhaps 20-30g on buying silk, mostly from cash i've made selling leather and bags. Likewise, i've pulled out a ton of excellent armor and weapons for very little investment.

You can make a fortune and get sweet gear. Several tips...

1. Check out the Trade Goods and see what you can put up there. Take notes on the going prices of things you can regularly auction. Pull your lowest bid price UP a bit and put your buy-out price either at the lowest price on the boards or 5s below it. Do not dramatically under value just to sell. If the market is strong, all those with buyouts at a good price will win out. Make a habit to watch the prices and help out. If some idiot posts really, really low buy-outs and you are flush with money... buy him out to get prices back to normal.

2. Check out pimp gear. If you are flush in cash, place some bids. You'll likely find some SWEET stuff in the AH from time to time. Place a low bid and see what happens. Very, very often people put up amazing gear with really low starting bid prices. You can easily get things worth many G for perhaps 40s. Don't stress and obsess. Just place bids on win-win gear. Worse case is you put it back on auction at a profit.

3. Take notes on prices and sellers. There's gonna be a pattern among a small # of people in the trade-goods areas. You may eventually need to talk with these people, so take notes on prices and who's doing the main business. Know the market.
 
I havnt even been there yet at lvl 40 :\. I have to find some Strange dust real bad. I no longer can find items that I can disenchant stuff for it. Hopefully I can find some cheap items to disenchant in the AH.
 
Since I'm in the middle to lower end of the leveling pack, my stuff doesn't auction very well. I was also dissapointed that there was zero demand for most of my tailoring gear. Except for hoods (yay for selling like 20 hoods at 40-50s). I'm at 180 right now and I'm hitting the point again where I'm going to lose money by buying the raw mats on the AH and then selling. So until I can start farming mageweave I probably won't bother.

As for buying gear, I usually don't bother with most things as most prices are inflated because basic materials are inflated. I'll pickup things that are extremely out of date, but since I usually get about one blue item per instance run (last night I picked up 1 blue and 2 green in gnomeragen that I'm now using), there's no use for me to buy on the AH.

Since you got your tailoring up there, were you even able to sell your 'Azure' gear. That's pretty much all I can make right now and every mage says "frost?".
 
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Tailoring is so much easier to advance than mining is :(. I wish I hadn't dropped tailoring. Tailoring is easier to advance and make money with :(.
 
for example...

mageweave stacks of 20 were selling on mal'ganis for 1g each. i bought 160.

i bag 8 mageweave bags and put them on sale for 1g 50s each (very low price).

i made nice profit for leveling tailoring (which id gladly do at a slight loss).
 
ZenTseTse said:
for example...

mageweave stacks of 20 were selling on mal'ganis for 1g each. i bought 160.

i bag 8 mageweave bags and put them on sale for 1g 50s each (very low price).

i made nice profit for leveling tailoring (which id gladly do at a slight loss).
Click to expand...

Only thing is there's about 45 silk bags already on the AH all sitting at their default rates. :(

I'm sure mageweave is different since it's new, but I don't have the cash to shell out for the mats ATM.

Bags I have an easier time selling in the trade channel.
 
Helado said:
Only thing is there's about 45 silk bags already on the AH all sitting at their default rates. :(

I'm sure mageweave is different since it's new, but I don't have the cash to shell out for the mats ATM.

Bags I have an easier time selling in the trade channel.
Click to expand...

correct on all accounts. the trade of silk has died down as the market has become flush with it. i used to buy it religiously (im 246 tailor) and turn around bags. i dont do silk bags now.

i used the market to level tailoring at cost or a profit. i bring in good cash from my farming and leveling generally, so i have enough to invest up front. likewise, i have a mount already.

but without spending a ton of time, the AH can definately make you cash.

i do a lot of leveling in feralas now, with my hearth linked to ogrimar. i admit i swing by the auction house several times a day.

i also put low bids on things like Greater Healing/Mana potions and pimp gear. VERY often you'll find that low bids go through on stuff like this. thus you can get tons of stuff without spending much at all. in many cases, if you are smart, you can turn around and make instant profit.
 
Buying hasn't been a problem, as I do the same thing, throw low bids on multiple items and figure one will go through (backfires when you get all 3 or 4). I'm just still waiting on that sellable tailoring item that I can use to move gold. After every even level so far (lvl 28 right now) I have 2-3g left over, but can't break that mark. I'm mainly just trying to hone my techniques so that later I don't have problems getting a mount. I'm at 185ish in tailoring right now and haven't really made anything lately that has sold. I usually just disenchant it. Green Silk shoulderpads - flooded on the market, bags - flooded, azure gear - won't sell, phoenix gear - inflated iridescent pearl prices make these impossible, hoods - sell for about 35-40s sparingly here and there, shadow/healing gloves - don't sell, enchanter's cowl - currently I'm the only one with them on the AH so maybe they'll sell.

If I can sell anyone of these I usually put the money right back in to buy silk and start leveling again. I just remember in leatherworking I used to sell nearly everything I made, now helping my disenchanting seems to be about the only use. About the most sickening thing was buying 2 iridescent pearls for silk boots only to pickup better ones 2 levels later. Then to find out that it sold for < 20s to the vendor. Just broke it down for a shard.

edit: How much are mana pots going for?
 
honestly, i dotn find that general tailoring products sell well. unless you are in an extremely busy server with lots of peopl 10+ levels below you using the auctions... it isnt gonna likely work.

bags seem to be the one exception.

i auction bags, leather, silk and various green weapons/armor i find which might sell well. i keep the bid low but enough to make it worth it. i put the buyout usually at twice the bid.

if you dont get a free mount (i.e. warlock), then try to save as much as possible from level 20 onwards...
 
PyroTeknik said:
Put a freaking buyout price for crying out loud.
It's annoying when you have to wait for the damn thing to finish.
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well, for generic trade items i completely agree.

however... for pimp, rare items sometimes a buyout isnt something you'll feel comfortable setting... especially when you think somebody might REALLY REALLY want it.

you can always set an insanely high buyout price... but that's not always gonna be how folks want to auction stuff off.
 
Well, I mean mostly for trade materials.
Craftsmen usually want the materials immediately, even if they have to pay a little more for it. I mean, if you really need hide for this leat shirt, do you really want to go to an auction house only to learn you have to wait 2 days? I'd rather go get them myself in that case.
 
exactly.

tradestuff, folks like to buy instantly.

but i think for the more rare stuff, there's a more nuanced market. folks MIGHT buy out but they might just keep eye on bids for a while.
 
I enjoy the fact that weapons you can mark up 5-10x vendor prices and still make a ton. So far by being cheap and not really wasting money on advancing tailoring (just have about 50 bolts of silk in the bank) I built up 10g, then dinged 30 and spent half of it on new spells.
 
PAY MAJOR ATTENTION TO THE BID TIME LEFT!

This is extremely crucial. Especially if you know how the auction house works! The auction house runs on a 30 minute timer. It doesn't matter if you post something at 1:15 with a 2 minute timer. It won't end at 3:15, it will most likely end at 3:30.

This is easy to determine because of the bid times:

Very Long
Long
Medium
Short

Very Long is 8-24 hours.
Long is 2-8 hours.
Medium is 30 minutes to 2 hours.
Short is less than 30 minutes.

The way I figured this out was with my own little testing. I was bidding on some trade goods because I felt lazy and didn't want to run around collecting ore for blacksmithing. I was bidding on things with short and medium timers. I was watching the short timers like a hawk because some people know (some, not all) that the AH runs on a 30 minute system.

THE WAY I FIGURED THIS OUT, is that I bid on 10 Short items, and I won them all within 1-15 seconds of eachother. They were all different sellers too, so they couldn't have possibly posted the same items on sale in 1-15 seconds of eachother. (Well, there is a slight possibility, but think about the odds).

I then bid on another short item to test my theory, and about 28-30 minutes later, my auction was won. I waited another half-hour, I had nothing better to do in Ironforge, and ALL...*ALL* my medium-bid items went to short. I won all those within 1-15 seconds of eachother.

Pay attention to bid times and AH recycles. This is on my own testing, if you have different results, let me know.
 
People want to buyout at auction

your starting price doesn't matter often, as long as your buyout is set fairly

that said, you have to look at the market forces at work; and hope that assholes don't flood the auction with garbage

that said i was one of the first people to start auctioning mithril on mal'ganis, and between bronze, iron and mithril i made about 30g in 3 days.

to other gathering fellas out there, stop trying to undercut people. If we all use the same high rates, we will all sell. Nothing pisses me off more than someone who drops 10 items for auction at half the price we were selling before... like wtf man you could have made double.
 
Skyler said:
PAY MAJOR ATTENTION TO THE BID TIME LEFT!

This is extremely crucial. Especially if you know how the auction house works! The auction house runs on a 30 minute timer. It doesn't matter if you post something at 1:15 with a 2 minute timer. It won't end at 3:15, it will most likely end at 3:30.

This is easy to determine because of the bid times:

Very Long
Long
Medium
Short

Very Long is 8-24 hours.
Long is 2-8 hours.
Medium is 30 minutes to 2 hours.
Short is less than 30 minutes.

The way I figured this out was with my own little testing. I was bidding on some trade goods because I felt lazy and didn't want to run around collecting ore for blacksmithing. I was bidding on things with short and medium timers. I was watching the short timers like a hawk because some people know (some, not all) that the AH runs on a 30 minute system.

THE WAY I FIGURED THIS OUT, is that I bid on 10 Short items, and I won them all within 1-15 seconds of eachother. They were all different sellers too, so they couldn't have possibly posted the same items on sale in 1-15 seconds of eachother. (Well, there is a slight possibility, but think about the odds).

I then bid on another short item to test my theory, and about 28-30 minutes later, my auction was won. I waited another half-hour, I had nothing better to do in Ironforge, and ALL...*ALL* my medium-bid items went to short. I won all those within 1-15 seconds of eachother.

Pay attention to bid times and AH recycles. This is on my own testing, if you have different results, let me know.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I've bid on Short Items and had them finish at different times. Things might have changed lately, but I remember this happening in ST/OB.
 
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