Profitable (and not-so-profitable) Markets

Profitable (and not-so-profitable) Markets

Gem Market

For the past few weeks the gem market has been one of the strongest markets. The PvP gems have seen the greatest increase in value with the introduction of the Crafted Dreadful Gladiator gear. Red, Blue, and Yellow gems are strong sellers, however, the overabundance of competition keep these gems selling below the 50 gold threshold. The mixed-stat purple, orange, and green gems are the most profitable selling gems. I find that these gems can sell for over 500 gold each on Tuesday nights if I get lucky. Unfortunately I am not as lucky as I would like to be. I have a persistent competitor in the gem market who has a price ceiling of 150 gold per gem. No matter what the current price is for gems he will list several at 150 gold each. My attempts to buy out his auctions to reset the market have failed as he seems to have an endless supply of gems. Unfortunately he/she tends to check for undercuts approximately ever 30-45 minutes so even trying to undercut doesn’t work for long. I have driven the price of some of the gems below 10 gold each in an attempt to find his price floor but he doesn’t appear to have one. He seems willing to sell his gems at a loss just to keep his at the cheapest. I attempted to buy out his stock doing this but I only succeeded at obtaining a large stockpile of gems with him continuing to restock without hesitation. At this point I am forced to wait him out of the market. Eventually he will get tired and leave. I will remain. Until then I will have to accept low profits and the ability to control the market for the few hours that he isn’t on.

Enchant Market

Like the gem market I have seen strong sales in the enchant market. Also like the gem market I have seen the profits from the enchant market shrink from competition. Currently I am concentrating on the weapon enchants as well as the bracer enchants that require Sha Crystals to make. I can usually pull a profit of 100-200 gold from each enchant. Not very profitable but the other enchants tend to sell below mat costs due to a great many unwise sellers in the market.

Crafted Dreadful Gladiator Armor

At first I attempted to control all aspects of this market. However I underestimated the stupidity of my fellow crafters and sellers on my server. At this time I have almost completely abandoned the cloth market. The plate market is “iffy” with people selling some items below crafting costs. I am finding the leather crafted gear to be very profitable. I am buying the cloth gear to disenchant to resupply my enchant mats.

Miscellaneous

Other items currently selling well are leg enchants, shoulder enchants, belt buckles. The rare blue ilvl 416 gear is still selling well to people beginning to level their 85 alts. Transmog items continue to sell at a steady pace.

While I had hoped to make some gold selling battle pets I have been disappointed. The prices for level 25 rare pets have dropped from 15k to about 4k in the last two weeks with most not selling. I have found that mid-level pets do sell but only if they have been upgraded to rare and priced cheap. The best sellers are level 10, 15 and 20. These sell for 200g for the level 10, 400g for the level 15 and 600g for the level 20. There might be a disparity between different servers but mine has been very disappointing. This is a new market and I'm hoping it will stabilize in the future and we will be able to make a decent profit from it. Until then I will continue to monitor it.

While we have always had competition in our markets I have never seen so many people with seemingly no idea as to what they are doing. Many markets have people selling items for a loss. Other markets have had their profits driven down to almost nothing. All these people seem blissfully unaware of what they are doing. It tends to be exceedingly frustrating for those of us who have been around for a long time. It can be very difficult seeing our markets ruined by those that have no clue. I am not concerned for the long-term. I have been playing since BC and making gold off the AH since Wrath. I have seen many people come and go in this game and on the auction house. I know that I will outlast these people too. However I am concerned for the short-term. Being an AH goblin I have learned the “cycles” that the game and the auction house goes through. This is supposed to be the time when the AH is supposed to be on the “up-swing” with profits at their highest. However this is not the case. If things do not improve soon I shudder to think what the AH will look like in the summer when school is out and the AH is on the “down-swing” with decreased profits. Oh well, I'm off to the AH now to see if I can squeeze a couple of more coppers out of it.

Thanks,

Jafo