Take Tella for example - currently sat with 451K and increasing this by 40k a week.
I don’t know whether I'm just crap at making gold compared to all these other players - or whether I am just not as committed, but I certainly am not at or near gold cap yet... even after several months of running the glyph market amongst my many other ventures.
Last night I did a rough back of hand calculations of what I have in gold reserves:
The glyph girls have 49k in their guild bank - and are making 500-1000 gold a day selling glyphs at the moment.
Breevok (who sells a lot of my regular items such as mongoose, crusader and greater stat scrolls, my lich bloom, arctic fur, titanium bars, adamantite powder, netherweave bags, vellums etc) has 20k.
I have around another 20-30k in gold on my mains and other alts (including the horde toon).
All up that's like 100,000 gold. Not even halfway to cap. And I've been at it for months!
Now I'll admit I've spent quite a bit recently - such as buying my partner a hog for christmas (13.5k), and I tend to fund a reasonable amount of the mats for the guild flask supplies etc.
Inventory wise there are no pressures. I have 15-20k worth of Darkmoon Decks to be sold over the next couple of weeks. I've 500 Inks of the Sea, 60 stacks of Icethorn to be milled. There are 50 stacks of Heavy Borean Leather and 100 stacks of Saronite Ore left from my pre 3.3 purchases. I've materials to make another 300+ netherweave bags.
But even if I converted this all into arctic fur (50x35g) and Titanium bars (125x15g) sold it all I'd only get an additional 3,500 gold. Add the Darkmoon cards and bags and that’s 25,000 max.
So I sit and ponder what’s going wrong.
I've come up with a number of possible reasons:
1. Commitment - perhaps I really am not trying as hard as I should be. I suppose I could be scanning the AH 5 times a day (currently doing two or three times), posting glyphs twice a day (currently once) etc. etc.
2. Profit margin - I'm fairly picky about my profit margin.
Although I could easily put together a Nobles deck for 400g a card (costing 3200g a deck) I pick my snatch price at 300g a card. That means 100% profit when I sell the Greatness card.
Likewise if I buy Icethorn at 15g a stack I will get 6x IotS and 1x Snowfall Ink. Selling the Snowfall will cover the costs of the herbs, so a vellum or glyph merely costs the price of the parchment (so max 40s). However I will not sell a vellum or glyph for under 3g50s.
I could also be buying all borean leather under 12g a stack rather than 10g.This would mean arctic fur would cost 36g each and selling these for 40g would be 4g profit. I like to stick to 10g a unit profit.
Most of my thresholds are quite high as well - for example I won't sell a mongoose enchant for less than 500g, even though it only costs me 300g to buy all the mats at market price.
3. I spend too much - I don't tend to think to deeply about my spending.
I make the majority of my purchases using the snatch function of auctioneer - and so will occasionally spend 1000g on a stack of Frost Lotus and just give it over to my partner for flasks. I find it difficult to track this spending - as its made with the same character who buys items for DEing, who snatches mats to make item for resale’s, who buys low to sell normal etc. Therefore that toon spends a lot of gold which isn’t necessarily returned from the AH via sales (due to Breevok being send items for selling). This means I honestly don't have a exactly knowledge of what I am spending on stuff which will never return the cost price let along make profit.
4. My server is just a wee bit odd - actually I think my server is rather sensible but I'll try and explain.
When 3.3 hit the price of Borean Leather was an average of 12g a stack. I purchased everything for 10g and under. When 3.3 hit I could convert three stacks into one arctic fur.
The night before 3.3 arctic fur was 70g.
These figures were comparable with other servers. And what happened on many servers was the price of leather went up whilst arctic fur went down. A status quo was reached around the 45-50g mark.
On my server, leather didn’t move, and arctic fur dropped to 35g.
Now this seems sensible to me - the supply of leather didn’t change - skinners still skinned, and with most recipes requiring only a few arctic furs - there was no great sink of leather into furs. What was pre 3.3 turned into infinite dusts (which was no longer profitable) was turned into fur. Thus fur dropped and leather supply and price remained static.
Likewise saronite prices haven’t moved - sure bars can now be turned into titanium - but are no longer being turned into arrows or bullets. The result - saronite remains static and titanium bars dropped in price.
Glyphs are 3-5g a pop on average - and even with undercutters there are still 10-15 playing the market - none of us are going anywhere because it’s just a part of our money making portfolio.
Cut gems sell for 20g more than uncut - but with listing fees so high - there is a risk to negate all profit if your cut gem doesn’t sell. And who buys cut gems anyway? Every guild has multiple JCers etc.
5. People exaggerate - this is possibly the most controversial of all of my thoughts – but hey someone has to say it. Everyone pushes the boundary of the truth a little – so I take a lot of what I read with a pinch of salt – gleaning ideas from people rather than believing every last word.
I am not saying all wow-economy posters are liars - far from it. But I am saying I think there are a few who are full of it.
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In Conclusion
To those of you out there wishing to get to gold cap – I would urge you not to give up if you aren’t making 20-30k a week in profit. I think some people get profit and turnover confused. You might get 20k arrive in your mailbox from the AH a week but if you spent 15k to get there you are fooling yourself if you think you’ll be at gold cap in a couple of months.
Keep plugging away at it - every copper count - don't stop doing the basics because you are making gold on a new venture.
When I hit gold cap I will celebrate - and this blog will be the first to know - but I have given up on the idea it will be this month.
4 comments:
I have similar problems in tracking my gold too as I buy/sell on various characters.
re point 4: I also have hit an impass on generating gold, as at the moment I'm generating stock, particularily due to random craziness on the Eternal's markets.
Gems seem to be starting to come down a bit so I'm wary of wading in too deep. Even selling low on a number of gems (Reckless Ametrine) they're still coming back to me.
On my server, there seems to be a psycological limit between 185g and 200g for buying a cut gem or passing on it. If there's not 30g profit in it I don't take the risk. Maybe I'm too risk adverse too.
I sold over 70k worth of cut gems in the three weeks after the patch. I wouldn't underestimate that market.
Even rare gems sell really well.
Gratz on the 100k, I hit the 100k mark too :)
Aaaah as but Bella and I agree - the triumph emblem affect has just occured - people are now downgrading and the market is coming awashed with epic gems. We've prices dropped by 50g for uncuts over a matter of a couple of days. Interesting times indeed
That's a very convincing breakdown of the prices for arctic fur, titanium and such. Similar things have been happening on my server's pricing on those as well. It's making me wonder though: where is all the gold going? Think about how much used to be tied up in saronite, titanium, borean leather, arctic, frostweave, etc. For the entire server.
Repairs have increased and the AH 5% cut helps keep things down, but it's still not adding up. Clearly there's also a lot of traffic in the epic gem market for everyone's shiny new T9 gear, but those heroics are introducing a LOT of raw gold (both in drops and quest completion) and potential gold from vendored items into the economy. Yet we haven't seen much inflation so far. Curious.
Is it only a matter of time before we see prices rocket upwards or are the repairs, AH cut, and gem/enchant sinks enough to maintain only slight inflation we've seen so far?
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