Announcement of a Christmas Experiment

*NOTE This post is not about selling anything on this site. I am not Markco.

I have the next 12 days off, and now that we have entered the Cata routine its time for me to test a few ideas that have been ticking along in the back of my head for the last wee while. I've decided that the break is a good opportunity to test one or two hypotheses to attempt to get some empirical data to work with.

I thought I'd announce in advance the first of these. The question to be test is his

Is it better to be a /trade seller, bark your AH wares or leave your AH wares to be found without advertising?
These are the three main methods for selling items in exchange for gold. Each have their positives and negatives, but is one better than the others?

Firstly lets look at each one a little more closesly.

Trade Seller - this is the person that avoids the AH and advertises their wares through the trade channel. This allows a seller to undercut the AH whilst still making more gold due to circumventing the AH selling fee, and avoiding the risks of the AH listing fees. The negatives are that you have to spend increased time in /trade advertising your goods, have to meet and exchange items and generally have to be a social bunny. Also you are only marketing to those in a major city.

Barker of AH Wares - this is your typical "Buy your xxx - on the AH now!" message that flies through trade. This mostly targets the city dwellers, but your goods are available to those who get to the AH when you are doing somewhere else, or access the AH remotely. Advertising is always good, you may catch the eye of someone doing their SW dailies who might otherwise not check the AH in the immediate future. However advertising does let opponents know you have listed the item and there can immediately undercut you.

AH seller with no advertising - how I usually sell items. Advantages are obvious - no trade whoring required! Sales are only made if people see them on the AH, and the risk of undercuts remain.

I started testing last night - I noticed there were no mysterious fortune cards on the AH, and in the last 20 mins before the emergency shutdown I posted 60 of them at 50g each. I waited 10 minutes. Only one sold.

For the next 5 minutes I advertised that the card were for sale in trade. 6 sold, but I was then undercut by two different sellers.


Now the question has to be would I have sold more than 7 cards before being undercut if I hadn't advertised in trade? 

It was a crap time to test anything, I accept this. But it does seem something that is worth investigating further. I'll try and get some data which can be analysed in the next week or so.