Most Surprising Market During Cataclysm: Nightmare's Tears

Most Surprising Niche Market During Cataclysm

For the May 2012 gold blogging carnival topic, I asked:
This is my entry into the carnival answering that same question.  You can find all of the Gold Blogger's Carnival topics and entries on Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals page.  Anyone is welcome to participate and contribute an entry for the monthly topics. 

"What Was A Niche Market That You Were Suprised To Find Or That You Did Better Than Expected In During Cataclysm?"

Nightmare's Tears Still Sell In Cataclysm

Of all of the niche markets that I've dealt in during the Cataclsym expansion, none other was more surprising to me than the Nightmare's Tears niche market.  Why was this market so surprising to me?  The Nightmare's Tear is an almost completed outdate item and during Cataclysm, it should only have been used by non-Cata Twinks and leveling characters who can't use the Cataclysm level gems (due to item level requirements).

The Nightmare's Tear is a prismatic gem that provides +10 to each stat and was orginally introduced during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.  Back during Wrath, this gem was in everyone's gear and was limited to 1 equipped per character.  Due to player ignorance and / or stupidity it continued to see much use throughout Cataclysm, even though using any Cataclysm level gem appropriate to your character's spec was a better option.  The demand had to be related to players not understanding how the prismatic gem and prismatic slots worked.  Players incorrectly believed that a prismatic socket had to have a prismatic gem slotted into it, when in fact, a prismatic gem can hold any color gem.  I further tested this hypothesis, by double checking the armory pages of characters that had purchased one of my Nightmare's Tears.  I almost always found that Nightmare's Tear in a prismatic slot of the buying max level character.

Originally I tested this market out with a few of the remaining Dragon's Eyes I had left over from Wrath of the Lich King.  The Nightmare's Tears I posted all sold out rapidly as no one else was selling them.  I instantly thought it couldn't have been a fluke and looked on the armory to see what these prismatic gems were being used for.  Once I realized that players were looking for the Nightmare's Tear gem for their prismatic sockets, I started to churn out as many as I could.  The removal of the Icy Prism cooldown, made it much easier to gamble with Frozen Orbs and the Icy Prisms to acquire multiple Dragon's Eyes to turn into the Nightmare's Tears.

The demand was so high after Patch 4.2 and 4.3 that I had exhausted all of my reserve Frozen Orbs & Dragon's Tears and had to turn to buying Dragon's Tears on the auction house, in addition to returning back to the Dalaran Jewelcrafting daily quests.  I was even buying out low and mid priced Nightmare's Tears (once others caught on) in order to meet the demand and keep the prices high.  I was able to get an easy 700-750 gold for a single Nightmare's Tear and was selling 2-4 a day for months.  After drying up the Frozen Orb and Dragon's Eye supply markets on my server, I got tired of running the JC Dailies and threw in the towel as the copycats had finally caught on after a couple months of holding the market to myself. 

Did I make a lot of gold off of the ignorance of other players?  Yes, but at the same time, I was just providing goods in a market that most assumed was dead.  The lack of competition and increased demand for those goods led to the increased prices.  Without the demand for them, I never would have been able to continously sell those old prismatic gems for such a great price.  So remember that just because an item shouldn't be selling, doesn't mean that it won't.  Provide what people are looking to buy and you may just find a niche market with great demand and low competition, even if it is selling nearly obsolete items to ignorant players using them incorrectly. 

What suprise markets did you guys find during the Cataclysm expansion?


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