Casual guide to making gold
Addons - Use of add-ons are key to running a successful gold making business in WoW. They add simplicity and consistency to the process that would otherwise require lots of organization. Keeping track of trends, materials costs, creating your auction-able items, and finally posting and collecting your rewards!
- Auctioneer - This addon provides additional functionality to the typical Auction House window. Straight out of the box, it allows for scanning of the auction house, and quick posting of a large number of common items. Later on, I'll discuss some of the functions that I use every time.
- Lil Sparky's Workshop - This addon is a crafter's buddy. It combines the average AH price of items with the materials cost to give you an idea of what your profit will be to sell that item.
- Minimalist - Primarily used to auto-sell gray items. Gonna have to look for a replacement as this addon hasn't been updated in a few months.
- Postal - Grab all mail in mailbox with one click.
- Skillet or Advanced Trade Skill Window (ATSW) - Both these add-ons provide the basic functionality of allowing you to queue up builds. ATSW has the additional functionality of allowing you to click on recipe items when shopping at the auction. Considering both add-ons don't have a recent update, expect this to change with 4.0. The author of Skillet (and Lil Sparky's) is currently working on a replacement, which is still in early beta stages called GnomeWorks.
- GoingPrice_WowHead - This addon provides me the current price as posted to WowHead. I use this as a fact-check when buying items on the AH.
Check out FelFire for an even more detailed list of various add-ons. Aphroditi has included a few others that are also extremely useful. For example "Auction Filter Plus" is great when buying mats on the auction house, IF you are not already using Auctioneer's SNATCH feature.
Process - I vary my process based on what day it is, because the traffic patterns are always a bit different. I have enough bag space on my primary bank alt to hold approximately 50 individual items. Bags are cheap, buy the biggest for each slot and fill up buy up all your bank slots too.
Everyday:
- Daily alchemy transmute. My 20hr cooldown is done and I can create another epic gem for resale. (Note, I've picked the xmute specialization on my main, so that I proc additional gems. It seems that each time I think about respeccing back into flasks, I proc a x5.) Email gem to my bank alt. (flip to bank alt)
- Empty Mailbox - Often done on a bank alt so that I don't fill up my main's bag space.
- Scan Auction house - Using the quick scan (>>) button added with Auctioneer, I can scan my auction house in about 3-5 minutes.
- Do Everyday items.
- From Auctioneer, select the Appraiser tab. From here I can relist my auctions that failed to sell. I typically save the re-post to Tuesday after the reboot, or Friday afternoon. Both are specifically days that I have found have a higher amount of traffic. Higher traffic = higher demand, typically higher prices.
- High priced items (i.e. Sunday's resale buys) and items like gems that are highly fluctuating, I'll post individually. (Post Item)
- When posting individual items, I tend to avoid posting items that have a lot of competition (except for cloth). I have enough bag space that I can hang on to an item for another few days.
- Use the REFRESH button to do a quick scan, to see what your competition looks like and to gather the most current pricing.
- Raid/Instance drops and stable items (cloth, enchants, etc.), I'll tend to Batch Post.
- Do Everyday items.
- Use the Auctioneer Search function and select Resale. This search specifically looks for items posted lower than I've seen on the AH before hand that would make a handsome profit. Filters:
- Profit of 100g
- Items that I can afford
- Bids and Buyout
- Search then sort by PCT column. I believe the lower # is higher amount of profit.
- Bid or Buyout items on this list. Unless the deal is really great I don't buy seasonal items, darkmoon cards or most green/blue items. I like to buy fairly high-demand items, like pets/mounts, weapons and armor that look like they have broad reaching specs, and maybe the occasional holiday item.
- I've spec'd my bank alt (lvl 12) into enchanting. I've found that a few of the low-level glyphs (Corruption, Bloodrage and Penguin) typically sell fairly well (5-15g). I can post a few of those with minimal effort. This is server specific, but where Lil Sparky's helps out.
- With BOA gear, there is also a bit of a market for lvl 1 weapon vellums. The trick is the mats can't out weight the sale price, check your server. Don't see any? You found a niche!
Useful Links
- Fel Fire - A warlock blog, that has an excellent auction house guide.
- Just My 2 Copper - Blog with regular updates on gold making. Often the blog contains community tips and tricks that the author responds to. Somewhere on the site, he's also posted a long list of all the items he regularly posts on the AH (still looking for it).
- Kripparian's YouTube Channel - Here's a top DPS rated hunter, sharing some of his tricks to play the AH. His videos are top notch and very informative.
Overall, I am not promising that you'll ever reach the gold cap using this method. At least not if you are a consumer like myself, but isn't that the reason for making money is to spend it? "You can't take it with you!" Find a niche that has a little competition, regularly create your crafts and post them when you can maximize your profits. Like the stock market, play it for the long run, not the quick profit.
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