Picture Unrelated (Or Is It?)

There’s something of the hypnotist in marketing, they say you’re selling yourself which in a sense is true. What does that mean? Well, it means it’s all a confidence game, you’re just trying to convince the other person it’s in their best interest to buy from you…

Different Sales Methods
At it’s core, sales fall into two basic categories: passive and active sales. Passive sales are fire and forget situations, an example: making multiples of each glyph in the game, listing these and collecting your gold in 12 hours, then listing again. Active sales as the name implies requires more effort than passive sales, the most common Active sales are people sitting in trade chat spamming

[2. Trade] [Soandso]:[Inscriptions] will undercut AH guaranteed!

Both methods have their merits, and some professions lend themselves more readily to one or the other. Let’s talk a little more about each so you can decide which is best for your needs.

Passive Aggressive or Aggressively Passive?
+ Passive Sales: Fire and Forget, these are the keywords of passive sales. For me, passives are my bread and butter. They tend to be very low on the time investment by nature, and (hopefully) a good return in gold. I primarily use Alchemy and Jewelcrafting for my passive sales, with Alchemy I make Flasks and do daily gem transmutes, sending these off to Khaas for cutting then listing them on the AH. This produces (and cuts) four or more epic gems and has them sitting in the auction house in minutes.

Flasks: If gems are my daily dose of gold, Flasks account for a weekly infusion of quick gold. I have several herbalist farmers in my employ, this keeps me stocked with herbs for both Inscriptions and Alchemy, likewise I look for deals on the AH periodically. I find early mornings are best, in particular on the weekends. Since the drop in Lotus prices by half since the announcement of 3.3.3 changes (allowing players to exchange Frozen Orbs for items like Frost Lotus) I’ve seen a surge in Lichbloom prices up to 30g per stack. However, recently I found multiple stacks for 15g each. Naturally, I snatched these faster than you can say “win”. Now, I do apply the fire and forget philosophy on Flasks, however I only post them on Tuesdays. The reason is, this is when the prices are highest and the flasks move the most. The reason, raids unlock and people need consumables to get things moving.

+ Active Sales: Active sales are not all necessarily spamming trade, the important thing is that you are a proactive in your approach to sales. My glyph market is a perfect example of a change in sales philosophy, for the longest time I did exercise a very laid back fire and forget mentality as relates to Glyphs. However, that time is gone. It just doesn’t work that way on my server anymore. What that means is, that I post fewer glyphs with a higher return and tend these on the AH with a higher frequency.

Hyper Active: Anytime that the trade channel is visible, I’ve got my eye on it. Looking for opportunities, either it’s a deal that I can buy and turn a profit on. OR it’s another opportunity. As stated some time ago, with the introduction of the Looking for Group tool I’ve been able to sell my tanking services to DPS (and even some healers) trying to skip the que times. I’ve reached a point where I no longer have to spam my services, in downtime I actually tend to look for people spamming “WTB Tank” this tends to give me quite a bit of gold actually. Friday I actually found a group (complete with healer) that paid out 100g each… 400g and 12 minutes later, I had a couple of extra badges, it was at that point that I was able spam my Enchanting and Jewelcrafting links while I waited for more groups.

Final Thoughts
Obviously, the best way to make maximum gold involves a combination of both Active and Passive methods. The important thing though is to remain agile, the market does not exist in a vacuum. Prices can change DRAMATICALLY in a matter of hours, so it’s absolutely critical that you are able to change with the market. It’s been my experience that those who can not adapt are doomed to failure.

The Bloodscalp Report
Inscriptions is really dead right now, it’s possible to make money with it. However it does require a much more proactive approach than in previous months. Fire and forget just doesn’t work anymore, there are too many competitors in the market to remain passive. As such I’ve modified my methods, I’m posting fewer different glyphs at a time but more of each, and I’ve set myself a minimum value, ie if it doesn’t sell for 5g+ I don’t bother (as an example). This means there are broad swathes of glyphs I’m not making, however these are listed on the AH generally for 1g or less each, and worse glyphs that don’t sell very quickly, so to me just not worth the effort.

Despite the poor showing from Glyphs, I actually made out decently. I added a fourth Alchemist, and started work on a fifth. Darkmoon Decks for instance brought in a large amount of gold (and continue to do so, as I still have a several in the AH). I invested a lot in decks while the faire was in town and managed to get Khaas exalted with DMF for my Insane in the Membrane achievement.

My Miscellaneous items like Weapon Chains and Shield Spikes aren’t exactly flying off the shelves, but I generally sell a little here and there. Belt Buckles sell really well with a smaller profit margin than the Chains and Spikes, but again they sell REALLY well. The market for cut gems seems to be coming down slightly, but even so they’re still selling well. And since I’m making them with transmutes the profit margin is insane, especially when compared to the time investment. Unfortunately this was a week where I spent most of what I made this week, I spent about 30K but I cleared 10K profit despite this spending. What did I get? Well, lots of materials for one. And I started working on my Elemental Shaman which has of course sucked away some gold.

This week though, I have a plan: to finish skilling up my fifth Alchemist and start another. Likewise, I’m going to finish off professions on my Shaman, Ghroth. Anyhow, that about wraps it up for this week, thanks for reading this late entry.