Choking Your WoW Auction House Competition

Competition Got You In A Choke Hold?

Warcraft Auction House Competition

So you have been plugging along making nice profits in the World of Warcraft auction house selling profession crafted goods.  Then one day some other player comes along and starts to undercut your auction house listings.  You think to yourself, "Damnit!  Where did this new competitor come from?"  An undercutting war may start, which forces the prices down further and further, and this new competitor is eating into your previously more profitable market.  Or worse yet, every time you list or relist your acutions there is an auctio house camper that is constantly undercutting you.  Now you scream to yourself, "When will these damn school kids be back to school!"  Argh!  Not for another 3 months! 

Yes, it's that dreaded time of year, where competition is going to give you a headache.  If you can't compete with the unlimited playtime of the school kids that are out for summer break, then you need to look into new ways to protect your market.  It isn't time to roll over and give up your market.  It's time to choke your competition out of your markets!

Tips For Choking Competition Out Of Your Niche Market

Limiting Crafting Materials - Most crafting auctioneers tend to purchase their materials from the auction house as opposed to farming their own raw materials.  Most of your niche market craftables have 1 or 2 items required in the crafting recipe that are either more rare or less abundant on the aution house.  By simple buying all of those materials that show up on the auction house you are limiting your competitions ability to purchase from the auction house.  If you deny them the hard to get resources, then they won't have a complete materials set to craft and compete within your market.  You may be buying these materials already for you own crafting, but make sure to buy them all out also.

Here are a few examples of niche market items and what materials you can buy up to deny your competition. 

• Tranquil Mechanical Yeti - Globe of Water & Elemental Earth
• Lil Smoky - Core of Earth
• Deviate Scale Belt - Perfect Deviate Scales
• Barbaric Bracers - Large Fangs & Heavy Hides
• Spidersilk Boots - Spider's Silk 

Protecting Your Rare Patterns - If you are in a niche market that requires learning the recipe from a rare pattern, then you should also be on the lookout for when that same pattern comes up for sale on the auction house.  If you are watching the auction house, be sure to snatch up other copies that appear of the same rare pattern for your market.  If you find another pattern, you can either transfer it cross faction to keep the pattern away from your same faction competition or you can re-list it and price it so expensive that only a completionist collector would buy it. 

As many of you great readers already know, I am the sole provider of Rich Purple Silk Shirts on my server's auction house.  This is a great niche market because the pattern is super rare and the material cost is very low compared to the final sale prices of my Rich Purple Silk Shirts.  Even though I already have this pattern, I am constantly searching for it on the auction house.  Why?  You got it!  If no one else can buy the pattern, then they can't compete with me.  Keeping those rare patterns away from other players is a great way to limit your auction house competition. 


Craft It Cheaper - Some auctioneers make the mistake of buying pre-crafted intermediate items off of the auction house in addition to raw materials.  Why?  Not everyone has access to all of the professions.  When an item requires multiple professions to craft a final product, some players are stuck buying those crafted materials on the auction house.  You want to always break down every component of the required materials because often times you can craft it way cheaper yourself.  Always see if you can get a cheaper route to the same end product.  Maybe it is cheaper to buy ores and smelt yourself.  Maybe it is cheaper to buy the ores already smelted.  Don't forget to look at all your options to cut costs where possible.
 
Example:  The engineering crafted Pet Bombling takes Fused Wiring to craft.  If you don't have a jewelcrafter, then you are stuck buying the completed Fused Wiring off the auction house as opposed to making them yourself.  If you have the jewlcrafter, then you can make your Pet Bomblings for much cheaper.
 
Anyone else have any good tips for limiting your competition?