Friday, May 31, 2013

Yourself - The One Person You Shouldn't Compete With - Part 2

Last week, in Part 1 of Yourself - The One Person You Shouldn't Compete With, we covered the breakdown of the different armor classes and how they are split up in between specs.  This week, in Part 2, we will be covering other factors to consider when posting your gear to the auction house.

Other Factors to Consider

When trying to identify your customer base and deciding how many items to post of each category, consider your server population and how it is split up between different classes and levels.  You can find this information on wow.realmpop.com.  Once you're there, you need to know what you're looking for, how to find it, and why.  Also, it's worth noting that this site is only updated weekly.  Its stats are based off of characters that post on the auction house, that character's guild, and everyone in that guild.  This site is unable to record anyone who is guildless, and anyone in a guild with no one selling on the auction house.  That being said, this site covers ALMOST everyone and can be used as a relatively accurate representation of the WoW population.

Since we are already using 77-79 cata greens as an example, this is the audience we will target for this example.





First, select a region.  But before you do so, make sure you read the whole page so you have a full understanding of the data that you're looking at and where it comes from.








Realm Selection




Once you've selected a region, you'll see this page.  Here you can sort by the different categories as listed on the pie charts (mmmmm pie) or you can select a specific realm from the scroll box on the bottom of the page.  I'm selecting a realm since I want to be realm specific, when deciding what my posting limits should be.


Faction Selection


Here we'll be selecting a faction from the pie chart.  I think I'll go with blueberry... errrr.... Alliance.  On this screen you can also get a good look at the faction balance of the server. 






















Getting into the Details



After selecting my faction, I also set the level slide at the bottom for my target customers for the 77-79 Cataclysm greens market.  Here, I can see what gear will probably be my best sellers, based off of the class balance of 380 characters.  I add up like classes that buy the same gear.  You can add your own weights to each class or you can use my weights as a reference.  For example: Cloth users are made up of Priests (32), Mages (40) and Warlocks (29) for a total of 101 characters or 26.57 percent of my customers.

 I can go into further detail, noting that of the three classes, there are only two specs who use spirit, both being from the Priest class.  Going into this detail will change my percentages as I will be sorting my cloth gear into two groups: healing and dps.
People are less likely to pick a healing spec for their main spec, but.... since we're talking about leveling players here, I'm going to weigh each spec a little differently than I would for level 90 characters.  I'm guessing that 40% of the Priests are healers, and the other 60% are dps.   Of course, I could be way off, one way or the other, but I'm going with my gut and game experience to come to these types of conclusions.  Of the 32 priests, my guess is that there are 12.8 healers, I'll round that up to 13.  Meaning I have 88 cloth dps characters to sell to.  

I've finally come to a conclusion that about 23% of my customer base is cloth dps, and only about 3% are cloth healers.  Doing this for each gear type will give you an idea of how many 77-79 greens you should be posting at a time.  Not all of these characters will purchase gear, and not all of them will purchase it from you.  Some players hold onto these greens for their alts when they see them cheap on the AH or pick them up while doing something else.  After gathering all of this information I've concluded that I should sell 1 healing piece and 3 dps pieces per equipment slot, not counting rings, which are doubled since rings take up two slots.  

After sorting out the cloth wearers, I do the same for the leather, mail, and plate wearing classes.  Once I have all these numbers together, it's time to set up TSM auctioning groups for these items, which leads us to part 3.  Part 3 will be live next Friday PST.


Friday, May 24, 2013

Yourself - The One Person You Shouldn't Compete With Part 1

Wait... What??  That's right!  It is possible to compete with yourself, but not in the way you compete with others on the AH.  This is definitely something that you want to avoid.  I will be covering this subject in three parts, maybe more, but the plan for now is for three.

In Part 1, I will cover basic factors to consider when choosing how many of a certain item to post.  More specifically, I will be using the 77-79 Cataclysm greens market as an example since gear is pretty expensive to list on the Auction House and is commonly re-listed.


Listing Too Many of One Item

One of the most common mistakes I find on the AH is when people list a wall of crafted items that are the same or almost the same.  For example, with Jewel Crafting, someone will list 10 Brilliant Primordial Rubies at one time.  While these are quick sellers, the market is ripe with fierce undercutting, and it's highly unlikely that this person will sell all 10 without having to re-list multiple times.  Listing auctions costs gold, gold that you lose when you cancel your auctions to re-list them.  You also lose this gold if your auctions don't sell.  However, you do get the gold back if the auction does sell.  If you're using an add on that tracks your sales, look at your sales history for an item or item set that you sell.  How many sell at a time?  How often are they bought in that quantity?  Who is buying them?  Which days bring higher sales, and which days don't.  These are all good questions to ask yourself when looking at consumable items that you sell. 

Consumable items are any item that, when used (consumed), are unable to be used again.  Some examples of consumable items are:

Enchants
Leg Armors
Gems
Shoulder Inscriptions
Crafting Materials
Potions, Flasks, Elixirs

With these items, you don't want to post too little, and lose sales, but you also don't want to post too many and waste gold.  Posting too many of one item, costs more time to cancel, collect, and re-list.  Time can either be your friend or your enemy, both in WoW and in real life.  For the most part, time is only your enemy when you are inefficiently managing your time.


Gear is Expensive to List - Do it Wisely

Not everyone has time to do in depth research and analyze numbers, stats, etcetera.  Add ons do reduce the amount of time you need to spend researching but they don't do everything for you.  Knowing your items and how to sell them is important.  If you understand this, and use this knowledge to set up your add ons, you'll waste less gold by posting too many of one thing or too many like items.

Cata and MoP greens are popular markets which this applies to, so I'll use them as an example.  Many gold bloggers who are active in these markets talk about how to price them so they sell.  They give general guidelines for purchasing too.  With this knowledge you can go one step further and sell appropriate quantities.  For each armor class (plate, cloth, mail, leather) there are different types of classifications (healing, tanking, dps).  Furthermore, you are most likely going to sell more dps gear than healing and tanking gear since a majority of players choose to dps.  Alternatively, some healers and tanks may also choose to have a dps spec and gear for the sole purpose of doing dailies quicker.  You generally want to post more dps gear and comparatively less healing and tanking gear due to this factor.  There's more to it than that though.  Below is a breakdown of each type of gear and how many different class specializations can use it.  The higher the usage number is, the higher your chances of selling the item.  You can tailor your auctions by using these numbers with respect to your realm population and competition.  Also, you may want to segregate your gear by number of stat modifiers as well. 2 Base stats +0 secondary, 2 base +1 secondary, 2 base +2 secondary.  All of these sell, but I have found that they all sell better when priced differently.  Also, AVOID selling items with one stat or stamina plus a secondary stat.  I've been watching 'of the beast' modified items sit on the AH for weeks now without budging.  I should probably be nice and let the seller know what he's doing wrong, he's likely to have already paid in AH fees what he's asking for the items.


Gear Breakdown

Plate Gear

Tank - 3 ( Blood Death Knight, Protection Warrior, Protection Paladin )
Heal - 1 ( Holy Paladin )
Dps - 5 (Death Knight - Unholy/Frost, Warrior - Arms/Fury, RetributionPaladin )

Mail Gear

Heal (spirit) - 2 ( Restoration Shaman, Elemental Shamans will sometimes buy this )
Dps (agility) - 4 ( Hunter - Beast Mastery/Marksmanship/Survival, Shaman - Enhancement )
Dps (intellect) - 2 (Elemental Shaman, Restoration Shamans will sometimes buy this )

Leather Gear

Heal (spirit) - 3 ( Druid - Restoration, Monk - Mistweaver, Balance Druids will sometimes buy this )
Dps/Tank (agility) - 7 ( Druid - Guardian/Feral, Rogue - Assassination, Subtlety, Combat, Monk - Brewmaster/Windwalker )
Dps (intellect) - 2 ( Druid - Balance, Restoration Druids will sometimes buy this )

Cloth Gear

Heal (spirit) - 2 ( Priest - Discipline/Holy )
Dps (non spirit) - 7 ( Priest - Shadow, Mage - Arcane/Fire/Frost, Warlock - Demonology/Affliction/Destruction )

Cloaks and Jewelry

Heal (spirit) - 17 ( dps sometimes buys )
Dps (intellect) - 17 ( healers sometimes buys )
Dps (agility) - 11
Dps (strength) - 5
Tank (agility) - 2
Tank (strength) - 3


Things to Take Note Of

Remember that there are 2 ring slots, so whatever number you decide to assign as your maximum posting amount for one gear slot, should be doubled for rings.

At the 77-79 level range, some players are wearing heirlooms, but not all of them.  Gear for heirloom slots will still be sought out in order to get a quick ilvl boost from having the gear in bags and not equipped.  Boosting ilvl is important for getting into the Cataclysm dungeons as early as possible.

On average, I spend about 1k per day on AH fees for gear alone.  I'm writing this because I want to cut down on those fees without cutting down on sales.  1k per day doesn't sound like a lot, but that is about 30k per month or 365k per year.  Keep that in mind when deciding on whether it's worth your time to do a little organizing.

Remember this is to intended to set posting quantity limits per item slot as well as item class/type. And this same thing can be used for the 83-84 MoP greens market.    


Summary and Continuation

I feel this can be used to get a general idea of how you can cut back on your AH fees and improve the organization of your auctioning set up, specifically for the green gear markets.  In part 2, I will be using wow.realmpop.com to get an in depth look at the gear category balance of the customer base for 77-79 Cataclysm greens.  And finally, in part 3, I will show how I will be setting up my auctioning groups for these greens, using TradeSkillMaster.  In the long run, the time spent doing the research and setting up your groups and limits, will pay off.  At that time, you should be spending less on AH fees and less time re-listing failed auctions for these greens.  I hope this helps you (and me) spend less gold than you need to, in order to sell your greens.


Thursday, May 16, 2013

Guest Spot on The Happy Hour Round Table Episode 2

Image taken from thedrunkenmogul.com

I'm extremely late getting around to this announcement, but better late than never.  This past sunday I was a guest on GoblinRaset's (The Drunken Mogul) podcast The Happy Hour Round Table.  This was my first podcast and it was live on top of that. I was a little nervous and unsure what to expect.  Although we had some internet issues, I really enjoyed the experience.  I'm definitely looking forward to guest spots in the future!  Head on over to the domain of The Drunken Mogul and check out The Happy Hour Round Table Episode 2  and show GoblinRaset some love, since he just hit the 500k gold mark!  Also, Erogroth of GetRichWow.com  just hit gold cap, congratulations to the both of you on hitting your major goldmaking milestones!

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival June Topic

Thank you Cold for passing this carnival off to me.  It's an honor to host this project.  Thanks to all who have congratulated me on being the new host.  Everyone is welcome to write a post for the blogging carnivals at Copper to Gold.  All of the previous carnival topics that were hosted at Cold's Gold Factory can still be found there. 

What If I Don't Have A Blog And I Want To Participate?



If you don't have your own site, you can still participate in the gold blogging carnivals. Sometimes a topic may tickle your fancy or you may have a unique spin on a blogging carnival topic that you would like to have read by others. Well, you are in luck. There are blogging sites that will post and host your content as a guest post. Just follow the normal blogging carnival rules that the others follow and get your post hosted and live prior to the carnival. Then, just submit the link to me (sonomad98@gmail.com) for inclusion in the upcoming gold blogging carnival.

Be sure to check out How To Get More From Blogging Carnival Participation.

The friendly sites willing to host your content are:
  1. Squidoo - Join up and make a lens on the topic and earn money too.
June 2013 Gold Blogging Carnival Topic

For the last few weeks I've noticed a lot of talk on forums, twitter, and the like, about server transfers.  Lots of people are asking about it.  As the amount of WoW subscribers dwindles, and more people start taking vacations as summer approaches, it will become more challenging for most people to do what they like in WoW.  Whether transferring servers for the purpose of raiding, gold making, or increased player interaction, more people are into making gold now than ever before and want to know what to do when faced with the decision to transfer servers.  
So for this month's topic, lets discuss what we would do if we could only afford to transfer one of our toons and wanted to take all of our gold with us.

If you were to transfer servers and could take only one toon, which one would you take and why?  What goods would you use to transport all of your gold over the 50k transfer cap?

New Host of Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival

Passing the Torch

In some recently exchanged e-mails between Cold and I, we have discussed his Gold Blogging Carnival and its future.  Cold has passed me the torch as the host of the carnival, so all submissions should now be sent to me.  I will be keeping with the traditional schedule of the carnival as well as back linking to Cold's site for all carnival rules, previous topics, and info.  I will also host the a copy of the rules and info on my site.  I will be copying some of his work over to my site, such as his template for his carnival announcements and general info under the carnival tab of my page.  All credit for the carnival idea belongs to Cold, therefor the name of the carnival will still be Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival.  Cold has also done a write up about passing the torch, so you should go check it out!

My Thoughts on the Carnival

I'm honored to be the new host this carnival, as it is something I have read religiously over the last couple of years (sans my hiatus from wow).  I've been reading Cold's Blog ever since I first started making some serious gold at the end of Wrath of the Lich King.  This carnival has introduced me to a lot of other gold bloggers out there, whose blogs I always read.  Right now, there aren't many new things to write about as far as WoW gold making goes.  Not anything that hasn't been covered yet.  However, different perspectives and approaches to those same ideas are always a great and welcome thing.  Each individual gold maker is different from the next in some way or another, it is this diversity that makes Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival such a great success and wonderful tool for both bloggers and readers alike. 

June 2013 Carnival Topic Announcement

Check back a little later today for the official topic announcement for June.  I need to finish getting my site ready to host the Carnival before I push out this awesome topic.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Fun Fact Friday - Wrath Epic Gems

Epic gems from Wrath of the Lich King are a nice little niche market that you can get into with little to no gold investment and a little time.  You can cut them or sell them raw, whatever suits you best!

Onyxia's Lair





Onyxia turns the other cheek





Every week I take all 3 of my 90s and my 85 Blood DK out to Dustwallow Marsh to do a quick run of Onyxia's Lair (10).  Actually, it takes forever on my DK, not worth the time investment for the gems alone.  My main purpose is to land myself a shiny new mount Reins of the Onyxian Drake.  I'm trying to avoid spending ~200k gold on a mount that I can try to farm.  Onyxia doesn't really drop anything else that's noteworthy unless you're after a BOP transmog piece, an enchanter after Abyss Crystals, OR you're after the Ashen Sack of Gems.  This bag of gems contains the same amount of gems on both the 10 and 25 versions of the raid. For the quickest travel time to Onyxia's Lair, get a mage to port you to Theramore if you're Alliance, or if you're Horde, hop on your mount and start flying there!!  Alternatively for Alliance, you can take the portal to the Caverns of Time in Tanaris and fly from there.  This will require you to port from Shrine of Seven Stars to Dalaran or use your version of the Kirin Tor rings to port from wherever you're currently standing.

Selling the Gems

You can choose to cut the gems into popular cuts or you can choose to sell them raw.  However, there's more profit to be had from selling the cut gems on most servers.  You can do the Jewelcrafting daily found in Dalaran to accumulate Dalaran Jewelcrafter's Token, the currency for the epic gem cuts.  I have found that King's Amber and Cardinal Ruby sell the best for me.  Phat Lewts of PhatLewtsGold.net has done a TON of posts on the Wrath Epic Gem Market.  I highly reccommend reading through his blog posts listed below if you plan on grabbing this market by the horns.  I'm just selling them because I pick them up while doing something else that I consider productive.  Actually, I'm off to take 3 more toons through it!! Wish me luck :)

Phat Lewts' Posts on Wrath of the Lich King Epic Gems

JC, Mining, and Making Wrath Gold!
Long Live the Lich King!
Wrath Gems Still Profitable?