Today I present to you a guest post by a new writer,
Addaron of Zul'jin. Addaron has some great ideas for more guest posts so be sure to look out for more posts by him soon. Anyone is welcome to submit a guest post to see your ideas go live on the blog here at
Cold's Gold Factory. You don't have to be a blogger (Addaron isn't). Maybe you are thinking of becoming a blogger and want to give it a try. Guest posting is a good way to get your feet wet. Then I will link to your site should you happen to start a blog at a later date. We are also looking for
writers for Goldgrub's Goblin Academy, if you are interested in writing about gold making or leveling tips, check it out. And on with the guest post...
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| "Who Hit Me With That Mr. T Mohawk Grenade?" |
Supplying Your Raiders
On every server one of the dominant market forces are the raiding guilds. For the purpose of this article,
a raider is anyone who raids every week, regardless of how or with who, or to what result. The key concept behind supplying raiders are consumables. Depending on the guild they are in, their consumables can vary a lot. As an example, my guild is fairly socialist, in that we supply feasts, flasks, repairs, gems, and enchants to our raiders, with most other guilds providing similar levels of support. This means potions and specific buff foods (some dual wielders eat hit food, some tanks eat dodge food) is what the major responsibility of most raiders are and my sales log backs up that theory.
Potions
The easiest way to tap into the raider market is with potions. Since raids are serious business, only cataclysm potions are ever bought in any volume, so having a 500+ skill potion master is an excellent starting point.
Buff Potions (Tol'vir, Volcano, Golembood) sell well and and in reasonable volumes. Mainly to guilds who are on a lot of progression kills. Casual farm content raiders rarely use them, due to the price. The exception I notice is Baradin Hold, to inflate DPS Epeens.
Restoration Potions (Mythical Mana, Mythical Healing, Concentration) Sell in even higher volumes, but tend to be more expensive to make. As with anything make sure you keep an eye on your costs, since the mythical potions take 3 herbs. The concentration potions(which as a Hard Mode raid healer I use exclusively) seem to be the slowest selling of the lot, and often have the fiercest competition. This might just be my server though.
Armor Potions are a trap, It took me months to sell the first 2 stacks I made, and I am sure I lost more on deposits that I made when they finally sold. Don't brew, buy or speculate on these potions. Only VERY hardcore tanks ever use these, even then they tend to set up private supply deals within their guild.
Buff Foods
It's a fair assumption that every single raid will have a feast dropped, making all the foods that compete with the +60 food a bit of a write off, and the +90 foods marginal at best. In my experience the only three foods that are reliably profitable on raid day are the + 90 hit(grilled Dragon), +90 dodge (Mushroom Sauce Mudfish), and the +90 spirit (Delicious Sagefish Tail). These foods are again, mainly bought by serious progression raiders, and often in medium high volume. The prices here are very volatile. Some weeks being a quarter the price of others. While there is money to be made, feel free to stay out of it if it is below your material cost, since it will likely bounce right back. As a side note, if you are already in the fortune card market, consider keeping a few stacks of fortune cookies on the AH too, since they are the preferred food for people that change roles often.
When And How
You may have noticed that their is a bit of a divide between the habits of progression raiders and weekend raiders. This is no inference of skill, just play style. Some terrible players raid 4 nights a week with full consumables, and some top tier world first guilds raid regular modes on their alts with nothing but feasts. Since the raid schedule resets on Tuesday, expect to sell mainly to progression raiders (Lots of buff potions and specific foods) Tuesday to Thursday, and the much more wide open market of weekend raiders (Flasks, some of all potions, all foods, gems, enchants) Friday -Sunday. One final note, expect to make about 60% of your weekly consumable sales in about 5 hours on Tuesday. This is the best time to be an aggressive AH camper.
Posting Politely
A mark of knowing your market is keeping your margins rich by not over posting. I tend to try to keep 8 stacks of 5 potions up during peak hours. Some types a bit less and for whatever reason MUCH more Tol'vir potions, depending on expected sales. The other thing to avoid is posting the wrong sized auctions. For potions 2-10 per auction, and for foods 10-20 is reasonable. One at a time is spammy, and gets ignored a lot, and stacks of 20 potions are always at the bottom of the list and look more expensive at 100-350 gold for a stack, so only tend to be bought if they are noticeably below market price.
Pricing to win
Since you are selling to raiders, typically they should have 5k-100k+ gold on hand and are in something of a hurry, the absolute price of what you post is irrelevant, so long as it is the lowest. Undercutting by a single copper is always the right answer with raid consumables. I assume it varies with server, but in my experience a fall back price of 15g/potion (75G for five) sells well when I have a monopoly, but higher and you see a lot of “LF Alchemist'' in trade chat.
In closing, people who are Raiders are mainly people who play a lot and will sometimes act like Farmers, Twinks, PvPers, or Questers, but the scope of this post is to position yourself to sell to people who raid with consumables. Gem and enchant selling is also pretty heavily influenced by raiders, but that tends to be a whole different industry, with different cycles and behaviours. Selling buff potions is how I got into recreational gold making, and if you are shiny new to it, I would recommend focusing on just a few potions / foods and get to know your markets. Expand from there.
