Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Mysterious Fortune Card Barking Tips

Selling Faster Than Poppers At A Circuit Party!

Mysterious Fortune Cards

As predicted in my original post on Fortune Cards and Fortune Cookies, the Mysterious Fortune Cards have been selling like hotcakes.  These are legit in game gambling introduced into the game by Blizzarrd.  If you are selling these in World of Warcraft, be prepared to field a lot of questions regarding these items.  Also be prepared to deflect any claims of "this is a scam" in trade chat while you are barking.  The key to selling these is proper explanations when needed and using enticing barking pitches. 

I sold hundreds of these last Saturday night.  I chose a Saturday night to give it a shot while I was relisting tons of glyphs anyways.  Saturday late night is a great time to bark for these as a reader comment on the original post recommended late nights when people are already drunk and stoned and more willing to unload their gold.  My strategy was so good that I couldn't keep my stock filled and I would get messages telling me that I'm sold out and please post more! 

I would buy any Cataclysm herbs below 50g a stack, Blackfallow Ink below 250g a stack (for 20), mill my herbs, make all the cards I can, then post them in various size stacks.  Then it was time to start the creative barking and watch them fly off of the auction house.  I really could not craft them fast enough.

Fortune Card Barking

Here a few of the barks I use:

"Are you feeling lucky, punk?  Mysterious Fortune Card just 25g for a chance at 500, 1000, 5000 gold!  Available on the Auction House now!"

"Mysterious Fortune Card - In game LEGAL Gambling created by BLIZZ.  Will you be tonight's first 5k winner?  Only 25g to See If You Are The Big Winner!"

"The AH is fully stocked on Mysterious Fortune Cards.  Your chance at 5000 gold awaits you for just 25g on the AH.  Available in stacks of 5, 10, and 20 for your HIGH ROLLERS."

"The Perfect Christmas Gift for Friends and Guildees.  Mysterious Fortune Card can be mailed to anyone.  Gift the gift we all want this Winter Veil - a chance at 5000 gold!"

"How many 1000 and 5000 gold winners are on the Auction House RIGHT NOW?  Just 25g gets you a chance at the BIG WINNINGS.  Grab a Mysterious Fortune Card before they are all sold out."

And finally before logging off for the night...

"Last Batch of Mysterious Fortune Cards posted.  FINAL BATCH POSTED...LAST CHANCE to win 5000 gold tonight.  When they are GONE they are GONE!  Goodnight and Good Luck!"

So have fun with it and be creative and you will sell out hand over fist like I did.  25g seemed to be an excellent price to both peek curiosity and to drive high numbers of sales in hopes of someone actually winning and linking a nice jackpot in trade chat.  Now that I have players hooked, I may be posting for higher prices on an alt, but continue to bark and sell on my scribe.

Continue on to Part 3 of this series:  Mysterious Fortune Card Bait N Switch Pricing
or
Jump to the Mysterious Fortune Card Barking Part 2 for New Bark Ideas

Who else has been using some creative pitches for barking for these fortune cards?   Leave your Best Barks in the comments.

27 comments:

  1. So you went the low price route. I started this at 150g a piece. Got a huge number of sales in the first 2 hours. Since I have had to bring my price to 75g but when there are a couple people trying to undercut me I will bring prices to 30g (just above cost on my server) and announce that for a limited time the price is at an all time low. I keep this up for about 15min and undercuts give up.

    Also to keep the "whales" (big spenders) interested I will mail them like 10 cards and let them know I plan on selling more later that night.

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  2. Mailing cards to whales is a great idea. I just wish I knew how to post an in game chat link to the top three winning cards.

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  3. /2 [Mysterious Fortune Card] Now on AH ! Each card yields between 10s and 5000g Need an epic flyer? Here is your chance!Now in different stack sizes for high rollers !

    /2 Please Gamble Responsibly -http:/www.gamblersanonymous.org.uk

    Also if you link the 5k cards sales go crazy

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  4. I'm surprised you're going for such a low price. Of course, everything varies by server, but even with massive competition I'm able to consistently sell cards for 100g each. Usually I just have to bark a few times to have the competition bought out before posting mine. :)

    Usually what I do to bark for them is spend about 15 minutes barking visibly, every 3 minutes putting up something. Then after a while I have some of my accomplices (Most of the smart card sellers on my server are working together to bark for one another even when we don't have cards up to keep prices high.) say something in trade about how they'd "wasted all their gold" on cards before I came, but they got a 5k card the first card they bought from Faid! Then they link the 5k card and my sales just explode. :D

    I live about 2.5 hours from Vegas and I've seen how superstitious gamblers are. If you've ever watched one of the serious gamblers (I mean the little old lady that spends 10 hours a day at the casino, not the high rollers) they will ONLY play their one "lucky" slot machine. I like to make sure people know I'm their lucky slot machine.

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  5. I've raised my prices now as will be detailed in a new post soon about the art of Bait N Switch. :) hehehe. This is the set-up post for that article coming soon.

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  6. This is all simultaneously horrific and awesome.

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  7. Hello, First of all id like to say, Thank you, This making fortune cards has made buying my herbs off the AH profitable, what ive been doing is buying any herbs up to 180G a stack, Selling Fortune cards for 35G each, this makes me break near to even, and with any inferno inks i make from the herbs get turned into Darkmoon cards, which are selling for between 2k and 9k each on my server, with a 5k investment in herbs i can usually get 2 darkmoon cards, therefor profiting anywhere between 4 and 15k for my initial 5k investment. With your permition i would like to Re-Write your barks on my blog, aswell as link my blog with yours, Thank you and i look forward to hearing some more from you.

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  8. sounds good

    Just make sure to give credit and use proper anchor text when linking my articles. (See Linking Policy tab above for pointers)

    And please send me a link to the post once it goes live so i can come and comment.

    Also check out my new blog for bloggers: http://bloggingvitals.blogspot.com

    Feel free to subscribe or come leave comments etc.

    Thanks

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  9. Not letting me login to post so posting like this, Post is up, http://harvest-the-feather.blogspot.com/

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  10. Thanks for the post - I've been selling these for a while now.

    In all honesty, I'd alter your trade advertisements considerably. Some suggestions -

    - Don't include the price you're selling them at! People wont bother if they think it's too expensive, but if they're on the fence about whether to buy one or not, by the time they've gone to the auction house and checked them out, they're likely to buy one seeing as they're there, regardless of price.

    - Include a link to the 5000g card which you can get off Wowhead as a script! That dispells a lot of hate mail.

    - As far as I'm aware they can't be giftwrapped. I tried last night. :(

    - Don't tell people that it's your last post on the AH, just post a load and do your usual bark. If you have competitors then they're going to swoop right in with undercuts the second you log off if you tell them you're doing so.

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  11. @ Anon...

    Excellent comments! I myself have altered my bark to not include the price as it can fluctuate greatly depending on the amount of cards already listed on the Auction House.

    I have been using the link to the 5k card also for added sales. I do like to use a mix of all the different barks to keep it mixed up and looking less like a spammed macro.

    Setting up a macro for you main barks is great time efficiency as well. Just tap your macro periodically while posting glyphs, runescrolls, or other inscription sellers.

    Be sure to check out the next article in this series on Fortune Card Bait N Switch Pricing.

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  12. Great post! Thanks to you Cold I started selling these and using barking techniques, which I never used before. I'm making money like a bandit!

    I'm using barks very similar to yours and right after barking I start selling a lot.

    I had to search on how to link an item on a macro and found this:
    http://www.mmowned.com/forums/world-of-warcraft/general/ui-macros-talent-specs/238813-how-link-any-item-macro.html

    Took me a few tries but I got it working. After linking the actual 5K Fortune Card on the macro the AH emptied and someone whispered me saying "Great marketing. I went to buy some and they were all gone!"

    NOTE: I actually buy any herb below 100g, since I get at LEAST 4 inks out of that, and selling the card at 30g makes me 120g(114g after 5%), and any inferno inks I get are basically free. I'm still not 525 so I need all the free inferno inks I can find :) I will raises the price in a few days, waiting for more people to get hooked as in your next post "Bait and Switch"

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  13. Wow, 50g for a stack of Cata herbs? The very cheapest on my server (cinderbloom) run 140g a stack, but everything else is usually over 200g. And the cards have been at 16-18g for days now. It is more profitable for me to sell the ink than the herbs. I need to transfer servers...

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  14. April, hold your stock of cards and do some price neutral barking in the late hours. Once your competition sells you can post yours at 50g. Naturally you want to lay low and watch for a prime opportunity to do this, once you are posting at 50g the other Scribes are likely to raise their prices too. be sure you buy mats and Blackfallow ink that is profitable before you start barking as when you do, those items sell and you'll see people whipping up cards and ink all over the city.

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  15. I tend to buy Twilight Jasmine which recently has been about 170g a stack. The Inferno ink that I make from the milling I sell and in fact covers the cost of the herbs plus a little more, then in effect all the card money is profit.

    I have been selling 100+ a day at 32-38g each which is rather nice pocket change

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  16. I <3 U guys. I thought only idiots would buy Mysterious Fortune Cards, I never thought there was a market for them but OMG, I'm making gold hand over fist. Must be lots of stay at home Mums n Kids on the Horde side too.

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  17. Are you guys serious lol? i am beeing forced to sell them for 15g each and 1500g for 100

    On ghostlands hord

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  18. here's what i do when i bark. i say somethink like: WTS mysterious fortune card! chance at winning 5k! If you flip a 5K card ill match it. If you get 3 ill give u any deck of your choice. seems to work great. since im adding this incentive its a good excuse for me posting above the ah price. even doubling it. ive made tens of thousands in mere hours of barking.

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  19. I've now made over 100,000g in just a couple of weeks following Cold's strategy. I'm stunned at the speed of this.

    A line that really works for me is "Girlfriend Left You, Or Just Can't Find One? Drown Your Sorrows, Friend, In Mysterious Fortune Cards! More Predictable Than Women and a Chance At In-Game Gold!"

    -Keel

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  20. I send Fortune Cookie to my good clients with a "Yet even in raid can you gamble, good luck" message.

    And I also bark "3,7,13,21 stack size, wich one will be your lucky number ?"

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  21. great tips! been using these tips for 2 days now on different nights... sold around 350 cards for anywhere between 15-19.75 g... bank! :) especially since certain hers are only 20g a stack now on my server :)

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  22. Awesome compilation!! Thanks alot. Has been alot of fun trying stuff out and people on my realm have reacted in all kinds of ways. The one 5k winner won when buying 200 cards and after flipping the 3rd. After that it was all minor 'wins'.

    Gonna switch things up with try some new ideas when i have more active play time, but MFC's really got me using Trade for real which is good.

    Trading Inferno's to Blackfallow hasn't worked at all, which i began today, but i think it will work wonders during the weekend. Trade is very random and i should time my barks altho i came to the conclusion that just barking consistently will yield some good results in the long run as well.. in theory.

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  23. is this a pattern u get when u get to 525 or is it a randome drop in wow?
    also is there any tips on lvling inscription fast????

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  24. Mysterious Fortune Card Recipes is available at Inscription Skill 450. It's one of the first recipes you get as a Cata scribe.

    I like to level cheaply, so i get most of my points from the daily research since most of the glyphs you learn from the trainer sell for nothing anyways as everyone knows them and uses them to power level.

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  25. the MFC markets seem dead anymore. I see too many people posting at too low pricing for it seem worthwhile. That and all the crap you get after trying to bark them for sales.

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  26. It's still alive and kickin on many servers. I'm seeing a nice return flipping underpriced MFCs as well.

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  27. This is completely legit...I posted around 250 cards, barked for 10 minutes and nearly all of my stock sold. 1.5g a piece for whiptail, and a tasty 18g per card sold. Easy triple profits. Thanks Cold!

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