Auction House Management | Multiple Income Threads

Which Way To Go First?

Multiple Income Threads

Diversify.  You've heard it time and time again from every WoW gold blogger in the World of Warcraft blogosphere.  In order to have more options to make gold, you need to have multiple alts and multiple profession coverage.  Having more options helps weather against declining or unprofitable markets.  Being diverse allows you to jump in markets as they are selling at acceptable rates or jump out when the selling price is unacceptable.  Having multiple characters that you use daily can get to be a major task and even worse if you are not organized or planing effectively.

An email we received at Auction House Junkies had the following question included.

"Managing multiple threads of income and what your typical log-on sessions are like, in regard to managing your AH stuff. I know you shuffle ore and such with your JC. What other markets do you bounce around to when those particular markets just aren't working that day?"

Character: Athanas (pronounced Athen-us)

Server: Kul Tiras

A Typical Auctioneering Day

Here is my basic schedule of how I approach the auction house with my alts.  Just to clarify, I do not have a specific character that is just a banking or auctioning toon.  All of my characters make items and list them themselves on the auction house.  I don't send everything to one character and have that character do all of the posting and money collecting.  Each of my characters works together to craft items and mail materials back and forth (if not in the main guild bank).  They all have a ton of gold and buy their own materials.  So here is what my typical auction house daily routine is like.

Auction House Routine

1. Always first thing I do is Check the Jewelcrafting Daily Quest.
2. Complete the JC daily and save the JC token (I'm stockpiling in hopes of epic gem patterns being purchased with the current JC tokens).
3. If the JC daily requires gems, I list the raw gems for the JC daily on the AH is stacks of 3 and as singles.
4. Collect previous day's gold, unsold blue rings, gems, etc from mail and repost.
5. Check market rate of Mysterious Fortune Cards and post some if price is acceptable.
6. Do a full scan for Auctioneer to learn current market values.
7. Do a vendor scan search for mispriced items to buy out and vendor for easy gold.
8. Check snatch list.
9. Log off Jewelcrafter and Log in Alchemist.
10. Alchemist does either the Living Elements transmute or the Truegold transmute.  I always want to have at least 1 Truegold pre-crafted so I can use my Free Truegold Procs Tactic anytime I see someone buying a Truegold cooldown in trade chat.
11. Check Volatiles Market and post any that are in short supply or in a price spike.
12. Post some Mysterious Fortune Cards at prices both above and below the MFC prices of my Jewelcrafter.  This creates an illusion of undercutting competition (but the competition is actually an alt).
13. Send trade chat a couple of Mysterious Fortune Card Barks.
14. Collect previous day's gold, unsold items and repost.
15. Check stock of vendor recipes and repost up to 3 of each.  My Alchemist is also my flipper of all the vendor cooking recipes that I flip.  Restock my Clam Bar Recipes and Sporeling Snack Recipes 5 each. Check for Glowcaps and Spores.
16. Bark MFCs.
17. Check Arcanite Bar market and restock as necessary.
18. Log off and Log in Mage.
19. Mage is a tailor and makes NW Bags mainly.  She is also on the lookout for certain Vanilla WoW crafting items.  She is also my alt that does the companion pet flipping and ports around and restocks recipes and pets in all continents of World of Warcraft.
20. Collect previous day's gold and unsold items then relist.
21. Log out and Log in Blacksmith.
22. Blacksmith collects previous day's gold and unsold items.
23. Crafts and reposts as needed enchanting rods and materials.
24. Searches for Dense Stones for the Darkmoon Faire.
25. Crafts Dense Grinding Stones and mails to my main for storage.
26. Log off and Log in Enchanter / Tailor.
27. Collect previous day's gold and unsold items.
28. Craft to refill stock, then restock auction house.
29. Disenchant any items recieved from other characters sent to be disenchanted.
30. Restock enchanting materials, Rich Purple Silk Shirts, etc.  This alt is also my blues poster.  She does all the disenchanting, storing, and selling of all enchanting related items, but also does the flipping of all BoE blue weapons and armor found by all of my characters.
31. Log off and log in my heavy hitter, my Scribe.
32. Scribe collects massive golds from the previous day.
33. Collect unsold glyphs, Darkmoon Decks and Cards, and Mysterious Fortune Cards.
34. Post MFCs on the auction house staggered in between the other 2 alts that are also selling the MFCs to appear as if there are now 3 of us at war undercutting.
35. Let the barking begin.  I will stay on my scribe manually barking as often as I can varying my barks the whole time.  I bark while scanning, I bark while crafting, I bark while searching, I bark while making deals from trade chat.  I bark while posting glyphs.  You get the picture.  Bonus when someone in trade chat yells your name and says "you're already being undercut on the auction house".  Yup, looks like my alt is making some sales too.  Keep barking.
36. Do a full scan and then relist glyphs.  Keep barking.
37. Craft restock as needed.  Keep barking.
38. Send one last bark before I Log off and Log in my main to run a daily heroic.

Wait!  What about all the Obsidium Shuffling?  Well, I shuffle my ores while I am either watching sports on tv or am recording Auction House Junkies with Wes from Capped by Cata.  As far as searches for items and materials, etc.  I do those general things while I am crafting since we are now able to craft with the auction house window open.  And if I'm on my jewelcrafter, then I will also do some prospecting while I am in the auction house browsing and looking for deals and steals.

So Athanas, there you go.  There's a look into the core of a typical auctioneering play session of mine.  I say "core" because I obviously deviate based on price fluctuations, market trends, hot items, patch notes, in game holidays, etc. but that is the "core" of where I usually start looking for ways to make gold.  Hope it triggers some ideas for you.

Image Credit:  http://www.markmallett.com/