World of WarCraft: Trading Guide

A Guide to Profiteering in Azeroth

By Ben 'Magic' Brown

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Index

1. Introduction

2. Glossary

3. Frequently Asked Questions
3.1 - Q. How does the auction house (AH) work?
3.2 -
Q. I won an auction! Where's my item?!
Q. I was out-bidded on an auction! Where's my money?!
Q. I cancelled an auction! Where's my item?!
Q. I bidded on an auction but it was cancelled! Where's my money?!
3.3 - Q. How long do mails take to send to other PCs?
3.4 - What's 'COD'?
3.5 - What is "hot linking" and how do I do it?
3.6 - Are the auction houses linked up?
3.7 - How do I change my search settings on an AH?
3.8 - Are bank PCs illegal?
3.9 - What exactly is scamming and is it legal?
3.10 - Is buying gold or items for WOW outside the game illegal?

4. Trading Tips
4.1 - First Things First
4.2 - You Need Money to Make Money
4.3 - Sell Lower than Everyone Else
4.4 - Use Buyouts To Sell
4.5 - Use Buyouts To Buy!
4.6 - Make and Use Contacts
4.7 - Be Subtle
4.8 - Seal The Deal!
4.9 - Be Patient During Slumps
4.10 - Keep Basic Records
4.11 - Time it Right
4.12 - Use Bank PCs
4.13 - Judge Bids
4.14 - There are No Set Prices

5. Sneaky Tricks

6. Conclusion

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1. Introduction

So your character has some coin, perhaps even gold. Maybe you want to raise 90G so you can get a mount or even 900G for an epic one. Maybe you've reached a point where you want to save up to buy some rare or even epic gear through the Auction House (AH). Or maybe you're just bored with grinding for money and instead want to put your business acumen and professions to the test!

I've meet a few people who don't know much about trading beyond farming for some goods and sticking them on the AH. There can be great deal more to it and this is why I'm writing this guide. I believe that I've picked up a fair amount of tips and information in making money in WOW. While I am unable to raid every day in high-end instances, I've been able to raise money to buy an epic mount, plus several pieces of expensive gear. While the tips here don't necessarily require you to play all day, the more time you invest then the more chance you have at making a tidy profit. At minimum, you should have the time to login and check auctions and your 'stock' of goods, while otherwise you'll be farming for goods to put onto the AH.

NOTE: While I hope it doesn't make too much difference, it's important to mention that I'm typically a Horde player - I have dabbled with trading on the Alliance side but this is relatively minor in comparison - so my trading experience comes from playing as that faction. The main difference is the enormous population difference between the Horde and Alliance, so this needs to be taken into account with my tips. It could mean that prices are lower or that you can get more buyers interested in rare items - I really can't fairly say, so just bear this in mind.

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2. Glossary

While the following is not definitive or used on all the realms and by everyone, I do believe that it's general enough to list at least for the purposes of this guide.

~ - The mathematical symbol for 'approximately', e.g. "~1G" could mean 90s or 1.10G depending on the situation.

Mats - Materials. Typically Trade Goods. The resources used to create items.

Goods - Anything that can be sold in general.

PC - Player Character, i.e. another human player.

NPC - Non-Player Character, i.e. a character controlled by the server.

Farm - The process of gathering mats or other goods.

Farmer - Someone who gathers materials. It can also refer to 'Gold Farmer', someone paid (In real-life currency) to make as much gold as they can in WOW so that it can be sold to lazy people, typically by Chinese companies.

G, S and B - Short for each respective coin: Gold, Silver and Bronze. The majority of the time prices are dealt with in G for high-level items.

COD - Cash On Delivery. This involves mailing an item to someone but setting a price that they have to pay to get the item. See the FAQ below for information.

AH - Auction House. The main place to sell goods. They are located in all of the capital cities - speak to a guard to find out where the nearest AH is.

OB - Opening Bid. What the first bid for an item will be.

BO - Buy Out. How much an item can instantly be bought through the AH. This negates the length of the bidding process but BOs are often much more expensive than the OB.

WTS \ WTB - Want To Sell \ Want to Buy. Used in trade channels followed by an item or service.

BOE - Bind on Equip. The item can be picked up and traded to other players or put on the AH, at least until it is used and actually equipped by a player at which point it can only be sold to an NPC ('Vendored').

BOP - Bind on Pickup. Once it has been picked up, you can't give it to other players thus you can't sell it (Except to NPC vendors). "WTS BOP items!" is an obvious joke.

Rep - Reputation. The relationship a PC has with a faction, which ranges through hated, neutral, friendly, revered and exalted. Increasing rep with a faction (e.g. Thorium Brotherhood and the Argent Dawn) is typically done by performing repeatable hand-in quests or killing certain monsters. High reps grant special benefits. Rep can be important to traders since they can sell the necessary hand-in items.

Vendor - A merchant NPC who buys and sells items to players. If you absolutely can not sell an item and have no space to store it, then vendoring it is a last resort but is naturally for a small price. It's useful to announce that you're 'vendoring' BOE items to a merchant since you will no longer have it in your possession and so people will realise that it's the last time they may be able to buy it from you. (You can always undo an NPC transaction and buy back an item, except until a certain amount of time or if you log out)

Bank PC - Aka mule. A PC created only to store items on. See 4.12 for details.

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3. Frequently Asked Questions

3.1 - How does the auction house (AH) work?

See Blizzard's own page for full details: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/auctionhouses.html

It's easier to just use it yourself, but here is my own summary. In short, you put items on the AH for a deposit, then other players may bid or 'buy out' (BO) based on the price you set.

Each faction (Horde and Alliance) has an auction house system which are all linked together through the major cities. You can access it in these cities by speaking to an Auctioneer NPC in the AH (Speak to a guard to find it if you don't know where it is). You will be presented with a window with three tabs - Browse, Bids and Auctions.

On Browse you can search for goods, filtering by different categories (Weapon, armour, trade goods, etc) and type (Uncommon, rare, epic, etc) as well as by text words and whether your PC can equip it. You can place a bid (An increment on the current price) on an item and when the auction expires you will win it, but only if you're the person with the highest bid. Alternatively, many auctions have a 'buyout' (BO) price which instantly ends the auction and lets you win it. However, the BO's are typically a lot more expensive than the bid.

The Bids tab shows, naturally enough, bids that you currently have on items. It also keeps track of items that you have been out-bidded on and are also still on the AH so you can bid again if you so desire.

You can create auctions on the third tab and see how they are doing. Left click an item in your inventory and put it in the box in the top left. The majority of items will have a recommended opening bid (OB), though I strongly suggest that you search the AH for existing items to compare prices first. Each auction requires a deposit (Which increases in price depending on the duration of the auction that you set) in money which depends on the worth of the item - e.g. a Very Long (24 hours) auction for an arcanite bar or a stack of 20 high-level herbs may cost 30S.

If your auction is successful then you get your deposit back plus the money that was bidded for it, minus a certain percentage reflecting the AH's fee. If you cancel the auction, you lose the entire deposit but you get the item back. You can cancel an auction at any time until it expires, even if someone has a bid on it (They get the money refunded and will presumably grumble to themselves). If no one has bidded when the time runs out, you get the item returned to you but minus the deposit.

You can also set a BO for people to instantly purchase the item and end the duration of the auction - if you don't then the person with the last bid on the auction before it ends wins it. You can set the duration of the auction too, whether 2 hours, 8 hours or 24 hours, but it costs more to have it on longer.

3.2 -
Q. I won an auction! Where's my item?!
Q. I was out-bidded on an auction! Where's my money?!
Q. I cancelled an auction! Where's my item?!
Q. I bidded on an auction but it was cancelled! Where's my money?!

For all of these, check your mailbox.

3.3 - How long do mails take to send to other PCs?

Text and money attachments are instant while any mails with an item attached take one hour until they arrive. If you want to trade items between your PCs quickly then it's far easier to ask a trusted friend or guild member (Or a guild member of a respected guild) to hold on to some items while you logout and log back in as the necessary PC.

3.4 - What's 'COD'?

A fish that goes great with some chips - ahem.

COD is the abbreviation for 'Cash on Delivery' - it's the practise used in real-life where a delivered item must be paid for before it can be received. In WOW, you can send someone an item and specify an amount to be paid, so when the other person receives it they are prompted to send the money before they can get the item. If they don't want it (Which is very unusual as COD's are typically agreed upon before being sent, especially since the sender loses the item until its paid for) then they can send it back.

Setting up a COD mail is easy - simply compose a mail to someone at a mailbox, put an item on as an attachment and check the 'COD' tick-box instead of 'Send Money' and enter the amount for the item before clicking 'send'.

3.5 - What is "hot linking" and how do I do it?

Begin typing in a chat channel then hold down the shift key and left click on the item. If you're in a channel that allows hot linking, it will then appear and other players can click the text to see the properties of the item. If not, only the name will appear and it can not be clicked for information (This is at least useful for saying "I just got the epic sword Ungrixxisla'rnorrzangirabo"' without having to type it all). Naturally, this is very useful when selling goods such as weapons and armour as other players are interested in the stats, while the colours may grab someone's attention.

Of the general chat channels, hot linking is only available in Trade which itself is only available in cities (This is to keep trading together rather than in zones around the world). You can also hot link in the say, guild, party, raid and whisper channels. For this reason, and since the Trade channel covers all of the busy cities busy then it is always best to try to sell your goods in one.

3.6 - Are the auction houses linked up?

As of a recent patch, yes, they are. All major cities now have auctioneers. The neutral (Goblin) AH is also linked up, so it's easier to go to Booty Bay rather than Gadgetzan (Ratchet does not have an auctioneer).

In the Burning Crusade, there are no AH's in Outland, not even in Shattrath. The best course of auction (Ho ho - I mean action) is to set a hearth-point at an inn and then to use the portals in the centre of Shattrath to travel to a city to visit the AH. Once you're finished, hearth back. Alternatively, since hearthing isn't always convenient due to the long cooldown (Except for shamans Astral Recall which is only 15 minutes), if you just want to sell items you've found then mail them to a bank PC and get them to put it on for you. Don't forget to mail them some money to afford the deposit too.

3.7 - How do I change my search settings on an AH?

You can change the category type (rare, epic, etc) in the tab at the top of the window and select or deselect the tick-box for whether your PC can use the items, as well as entering text that is in the name of the item you want. Right clicking a box deselects it - you don't have to close the whole window to reset the selection.

3.8 - Are bank PCs illegal?

No they're not. You can make as many as you like (I'm including this question since I honestly thought they were when I first started playing!).

3.9 - What exactly is scamming and is it legal?

In-game scamming is currently defined by Blizzard as the following:
"A scam in-game is acquiring items or any other property (though all data on the World of Warcraft service is the property of Blizzard Entertainment, we use the term “property” to describe characters, items, and in-game currency) from another player through misinformation, confusion or fraud (Scamming). In short, using any sort of deception to gain at another’s expense."

Anything malicious and deceptive is clearly not legal. See here for more official information at the European WOW site.

3.10 - Is buying gold or items for WOW outside the game illegal?

Yes, it is illegal to use services to buy OR sell gold with real-life currency. The short answer for why is that the in-game economies for the realms affected will get screwed up (Read up on inflation). While Blizzard have not, to my knowledge, been extremely visible and pro-active against the actual websites and companies that offer gold-selling services, they have rigorously been banning gold sellers *AND* gold buyers from WOW in huge amounts at certain intervals.

Blizzard encourages players to report gold sellers, who are known to have PCs annoyingly spam advertisements in cities and even as in-game mail or whispers to players. GM's are sometimes quick to respond.

3.11 - Where is the goblin auction house and what can you tell me about it?

The 'neutral' AH is available through both Booty Bay (There are various auctioneers in town - try outside the "Old Port Authority" building or near the bank at the bottom of the docks) and Gadgetzan (Near the bank at the South entrance), which are both neutral towns in the South of Stranglethorn Vale and in Northern Tanaris respectively.

Be warned that the goblins take a larger cut of the profits than the regular AH! However, the benefit is that both Horde and Alliance can use it - in trading this means you can potentially cross the different economies, like certain items and goods may be considered far cheaper by one faction to another. There are rarely as many goods on the neutral AH as your own faction's - I typically do a blank search (i.e. I don't highlight anything) since there are usually a few pages to check for all of the items and sometimes there are excellent bargains. You can also potentially swap item's between your PC's who are of different factions.

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4.0 Trading Tips

4.1 - First Things First

The first thing our class was asked in the first lesson of our first business class at comprehensive school was to define what the function of a business was.

"To make money, sir." someone in the class said.

"Wrong." replied our teacher, coldly. "Completely wrong."

"Does anyone else know?" he asked.

Silence. Everyone boggled their minds.

"The function of a business is not to make money. It is to make a PROFIT."

It was a very important point. It does sound obvious, but nonetheless it is critical that if you intend to make hundreds or even thousands of gold in World of WarCraft then you need to slow down, take your time and focus on making more than what you invest and not just selling anything at any price. This isn't as hard as it sounds in WOW, but it's still important to be cautious throughout your trading career.

Wait, isn't making money in WOW just vendoring items to an NPC merchant and occasionally selling a BOE in the Trade channel? It can be at a basic level, but it can also be a great deal more. You need to take the time to evaluate goods and to browse the competition on the AH. You need to make higher profits depending on the level of your character (Unless you're happy farming and selling copper bars forever). You need to judge how much something is worth in cash and in the time and difficulty it takes to farm. You need to make sure you're not losing money with your transactions - unless there's absolutely no other option at all.

Much of this will come with your personal experience of the items in the game game and your understanding of a server's economy. The economy (That is, the flucuating consensus of how much various goods are worth) always varies - with Golden Pearls ranging from 3G to 30G or Journeyman Bags from 5G to 25G, you can save a great deal of money and make more profits if you take your time and act carefully.

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4.2 - You Need Money to Make Money

Let me just get this out of the way too - you won't be making hundreds of G straight away if you are just starting. The more money you want to make at one time, the more you need to have prepared to invest. Deposits on the AH can cost a fair amount of cash, so naturally you need some money to establish your trading. The deposit for a single arcanite bar, for example, is 30s, while rare items can cost a few G each per auction - these costs can really add up if you keep trying to sell them unsuccessfully. Knowing when to do so, and when not, is another thing that you can only learn on your own.

So if you need some money then quest and grind or farm and sell low-end mats (Copper and tin bars, thick and medium leather, herbs, etc), ideally as part of your work in levelling up a main PC. Player's that reach 40 will typically try to raise a lot of money for a mount which is 90G.

The majority of grey items can be vendored - some like 'Dried Bat Blood' and 'Vibrant Plumes' can be sold on as they are hand-in's at the Darkmoon Fair. BOPs that you don't need at all should be vendored, while BOE items can be put on the AH or advertised in the Trade channel (e.g. "WTS [Gauntlet of Awesomeness], 2G").

Instances are a good source of BOE items - put them on the AH, leave the suggested OB price and set the BO to approximately four times that price. E.g. a 'Sword of the Bear' drops in an instance and I get it, so I put it on the AH and if 11s is the recommended OB (The price that is suggested when I set up the auction) then I'll set the BO to around 40s. You will be surprised at how often low-level items will be bought - while most new players won't have much money, the majority of players tend to have alternative Player Characters (Alts) who are financed by their main character. 40s will mean a lot to a new WOW player, but to a player who has a level 60 and sells arcane crystals all of the time then it's pocket change and will be spent to make life easier for them as their alt.

And you will profit.

(See 'Sneaky Tricks' for more information on 'Twinks')

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4.3 - Sell Lower than Everyone Else

This is probably the most important point of this entire article.

There is *almost* NO point whatsoever in putting general goods on the AH if someone else has the same but for a lower price. Unless you are the only person selling something, or if their bids are about to expire (Their time is either Medium or Short), then you should not stick to a certain price forever (Indeed, you should ideally raise the price in some scenarios!). It's far better to cut your profits a little - even just a few S - and 'undercut' the prices of the opposing auctions in order to get sales.

Nearly every person browsing the AH wants to buy goods for as cheap as possible - they don't care who you are or any other fact, the almighty price is all that matters. Even cutting your price by 1s less than the competition is good for getting noticed since when people browse for a good then they'll sort by price they will and see yours first, though 15s and 25s will make some people buy yours since it's saving themselves some money, even just a little as they'll want to save as much as they can.

Other than items you're not especially bothered about, whenever you go to sell an item you should search the AH for existing ones before you put it on. It takes a few seconds to search for Kingsblood, Copper Bars or even rare items (Learn to use keywords to save time - e.g. "Kings" for "Kingsblood, "copp" for everything copper-related, "arcan" to find arcanite bars and arcane crystals, etc). If you desperately want to make a sale, then you need to really undercut the competition. If you find that someone is selling 20x Kingsblood for 3G, put some on for 2.50G. Wham - the next person to see that will see it for 50S cheaper and is much more likely to bid for it since they think that they're saving money. The goal is simply to undercut prices to ensure that you get a sale. This is especially important for rare (blue) and epic (purple) items as punters will be paying a great deal more money, but at the same time you want to gain as large a sum as possible.

I did say 'almost' before as exceptions exist - you may want to sell goods quickly in the Trade chat channel for more or less than what the AH has available. It may be more because people avoid the whole AH and get the goods virtually instantly, plus they beat other customers who are after the same items. Be warned that some people base the AH prices as the current average price of an item no matter what, so you may get some flack for doing so.
Additionally, you may get people who are clueless about the average price of an item and set it at a very low price (Though you can take advantage of this though - see point 5). Again, conversely, some people will want to buy items for cheaper than the AH which is fair enough if they're buying it in bulk off you. You may want to sell for less than the AH in some cases, then, because you don't want people to go to you instead.

As mentioned earlier, if the competition is all on a Medium or Short time then starting a 24 Hour auction at a higher cost to theirs is logical - as when they disappear then your auction will be the only one left and seen by potential customers. It's the same for when they have one trade good over several of yours - if someone buys theirs then yours are the only ones left.

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4.4 - Use Buyouts To Sell

You should always, always, always, always, always, ALWAYS put a buyout on an item. Well, very nearly always.

There are few circumstances where you shouldn't assign a buyout price - this is usually when you want to see how much something will sell for, like rare items. However, to the bidders this can make getting an item take ages and a lot of people really don't want to wait (Especially non-casual players), so maybe they'll buy an item off someone else. A BO means that there is a set maximum price to an auction - you will be very surprised at how desperate someone will be for something so setting a high BO can get you a sweet profit. The downside is that if you set it too low then you may very well worry that you could have gotten more profits out of the item.

This is another balance to reach - don't go too far with ridiculous prices, but feel free to set them up for a fair amount. Generally I add about 50% to 125% of the OB to the BO, e.g. a 1G OB would get a 2.50G BO, or for 20 Copper bars I may have 20s OB with a 50s BO, but this depends on the other prices.

Don't be too cautious in using BO's - most of the time people will pay 40s for 20 copper bars because they're paying for the TIME it takes to harvest and smelt them. They don't want to scan across a zone, find the copper nodes, mine them, then repeat until they get to 20 pieces of ore, then return to a town and smelt them into bars. When there are no copper bars left, then some players will pay far higher costs since they can't afford the time but they can afford 1G per 20 copper bars.

The drinks are on this trader tonight!

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4.5 - Use Buyouts To Buy!

Not everyone is well-versed in AH prices and naive people - especially lower level players who are new to the game - will put items on for very cheap prices ... so consider taking full advantage. This should not be considered malicious - they get their money and you can flog the goods on. They've put 20 copper bars with a 10s buyout? Buy it out and put it back on for 25s with a 50s buyout. Some new herbalist has put 20 Kingsblood on for 1.50G with no BO? Put a bid on and if you get it then put it back on for 1.99G - that's almost 50 free silver and you didn't even have to walk outside the city!

If you believe that you can sell an item for more than what it costs then give it a try. This is great for mats, such as copper bars and herbs, since they have very small deposits and are used in large quantities by many players (i.e. they have a constant and large demand) and are thus a smaller financial risk.

It even works for uncommon and higher items, though again you'll need money up front and an understanding of the prices on your server. My favourite personal moment of this was buying out a Green Tower (An epic L36 shield) from the neutral auction house for 55G. I returned to Orgrimmar and put it on for 55G with a buyout of 101G. Someone bought it out the next day - that was the easiest 46 gold I've ever made! It's not always so easy though, like the time I had an Assasination Blade (A sword ideal for rogues approaching L60) that I spent ages trying to sell and I also spent money putting it on the AH several times to no avail. In the end I gave up and simply donated it to a friend's rogue PC.

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4.6 - Make and Use Contacts

Like real businesses, people tend to like it when they feel special due to someone informing them of a deal (That is, when the deal is genuine - which is obviously different to irritating "cold callers" on the telephone!), so make use of the Friends list on the Social tab.

This is, of course, presuming that you have used it to store friends over your adventuring career. There are quite a few times where I've gotten some on-going trade or I've been able to sell something through a quick whisper to someone. "Hey X. Do you know anyone that needs some arcanite bars?" or "Hi. Do you need some Kingsblood for Thorium Brotherhood rep?". Whispers are free after all and, provided you're not a nuisance, I believe that most people don't mind.

Some people also target certain classes to sell specific items to - someone whispered me (A shaman in his mid-50's) with a deal for some Blue Dragonscale Armour for example. The best armour a Shaman can get is mail and blue dragonscale has intellect statistics so it was likely I would be interested, therefore the seller didn't need to waste any time on the AH. Given the range of equipment people have, it's possible that the seller also saw me in Orgrimmar (Or did a /who command) and inspected me to see if the armour would be a decent upgrade. It worked as well since I bought it. :)

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4.7 - Be Subtle

Have you ever wondered why shops bother selling things for 99p instead of just £1? This seems to be related to the subconsciousness and how quickly people view prices - "It's not 1 pound, it's 99 pence!".

I believe this works in WOW just as well - some people will view things by gold first and silver second (while bronze can be ignored entirely), which is especially helped by the coloured icons. You can use this to your advantage - in effect, set the silver amount of a BO to something you would like, such as a simple 95s or 75s. When someone scans that price, they won't see a gold coin icon and may find it cheaper than similar goods.

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4.8 - Seal The Deal!

If you use the trade channel to advertise goods then you will probably come across bartering - the practise of haggling and trying to lower (Or raise!) the price of an item or transaction. Don't fanny around with tiny amounts of silver - make your price changes *significant* then as soon as you get to a range you want then accept it.

(Trade)
[Guy 1] WTS 1 x Arcanite bar, 28G.
(The rest of the conversation takes place in whispers)
[Guy 2] I'd like to buy that arcanite bar.
[Guy 1] 28G is the price.
[Guy 2] How about 23G?
[Guy 1] No, but I could go down to 26.
[Guy 2] I can only afford 24.50G. Final offer.
[Guy 1] Ok, fine.
(At this point the people typically form a party so they can find each other quickly. A shortcut to this is "/invite (Name)". If you're in another city, either have one person travel to the other or use a mailbox to COD it.)

In this example, under a minute of conversing has saved Guy 2 a small sum 3.50G. It may not seem like much, but every little bit counts and people are often willing to haggle to sell the item and move on.

The 'final offer' part is important since it *forces* Guy 1 to make a decision - does he take the money or carry on trying to sell the arcanite bar (and spend more time doing so rather than something else)? Naturally, saying 'final offer' really should be so, unless Guy 2 says "Ok, I can't believe this but I'll pay 25.50G for it." which then makes Guy 1 think he's really turned the tables on him and squeezed more money out of him. At least Guy 2 has now saved 2G.

You will meet people who stubbornly stick to a price, though in some cases this is simply fair enough. If you can't deal with them then either make a transaction with them or just move on. If you're uncertain, then it's probably not worth the risk.

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4.9 - Be Patient During Slumps

One of the amazing parts of trading in WOW is when there are rises and falls in the economy, which can be both a curse and a blessing. If you have enough time then you can make tidy profits as a result ... or you can find yourself losing a lot of money or just being forced to wait until prices rise again.

Prices marginally change all of the time but sometimes - and I'm not really sure why traders would really want things to be cheaper - they will spectacularly drop or rise. Once around eight people are selling a certain mat for 5G instead of 10, other AH users will have no choice but to follow them if they want to sell their goods even if it reduces their profit margin.

What I advise you to do is to be patient and avoid losing money over it and then resume a decent price after it's over, while taking advantage where you can. It's simply making the best of the situation and maximising your profits - seriously!

I remember when my server had a 'slump' in arcanite bars - they generally sell for around 25G but were down to an amazing 20G. Arcane Crystals (1 Crystal + 1 Thorium bar = Arcanite, via an alchemists transmutation) were typically 18G as well ... how on earth were people making a profit? I presumed that only people harvesting the crystals (Which would only cost them time to mine the thorium veins) were doing so and they were happy making whatever profit they were getting, plus the security in the definite sales. On the other hand, traders should take full advantage of rises in the prices of goods which you have. With the arcanite bar slump, I naturally bought a few cheap bars for 20G, then later put them back on for an OB of 25G afterwards and they sold.

Then there was the time when the 1.11 patch was released, which saw arcane crystal prices sky-rocket since they were required as mats for a quest to access the Naxxaramas dungeon (The major 40-man raid instance) which curious people wanted to access like kids at the new fairground in town. I sold one for 55G to a friend (And at first he thought that was expensive) and put two separate ones on the AH with an 80G BO. Both sold by the end of the day. However, patches obviously only come out once and so such opportunities are limited. With the Burning Crusade expansion looming (Three months away at time of writing), there are all sorts of theories as to what will happen with the goods on the market.

The difficulty with this (Buying cheap and selling high) is that it takes time and regular logging-in to check. I (sadly, I know) check the auctions in the morning while I have breakfast as it only takes a few minutes of browsing the AH and my mail to check for changes and set auctions up.

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4.10 - Keep Basic Records

While a whole Access database of every transaction may be excessive, some form of basic records will help you keep track of your business. I keep a pen and notepaper near my desk which I use it to make notes on trading and other times I do a quick notepad document. If I get X trade good for Y price then I'll write it down, at least as a reminder so I know how much to feasibly sell them for.

All you do is write down contacts ("Bob, wants as much Kingsblood as possible."), since you don't particularly need them clogging up your Friends list, and calculate how much you can sell things for and how much of a profit you'll make.

"12 bits of thorium ore at for 1.20G, *X guild member* smelts them for me.
4 x arcane crystals for 18.41G each.

Sold for a BO of 28G = 9.59G profit."

This way if someone makes me an offer then I can work out how much of a profit I make without guessing and relying on my memory. Someone offers 25G? I can quickly work out that this is still a profit of 4.59G which isn't too bad while anything less is probably a waste of my time.

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4.11 - Time it Right

Firstly, know when the busy times on your servers will be. For example, I avoid putting up a 24 hour auction around a Wednesday since there will be a disruption due to the server maintenance - the downtime effectively cuts off the AH time I'm paying for! Sometimes the maintenance is just a few hours, but sometimes it's extended, plus it cuts me out of the loop when I try to check my auctions in the morning. Likewise, however, more players will be checking the auction house on a Friday, weekends and during holiday periods - if you ever intend to save money by doing a "Long" time then the start of an evening on these days is ideal.

Secondly, keep yourself informed on what will become supply and demand. When the 1.10 patch came out, stonescale eels and stonescale oil prices went through the roof since it was a component of one of the 0.5 tier armour sets. In the future, however, there's no telling when or what patches will be released or what their effects on prices will be. This is very tricky and it's actually probably worth sticking to 'safe' trading instead.

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4.12 - Use Bank PCs

Bank PCs are PCs used by the same player to store excess items on, especially using the PCs bank space. Obviously only transferable items (i.e. BOE and mats) can be sent and BOPs will be left on the main PC.

They are very easy to set up - you simply create a new PC on the same server as the main PC(s) you wish to send items from. Naturally, the regular WOW naming conventions apply but some people create silly names for their bank (e.g. (PCName)bank, packmule, Delboy, etc). Login as the new PC and immediately head to the nearest capital city - it only takes a few minutes and you should not run into any hostile mobs if you stick to the roads. Once you get to the city, sell or destroy your starting items to empty your bag space then go to the bank and mailbox area.

That's as simple as it can be. From that point on you mail items to the bank PC then login to it and, ideally, organise sent items in your backpack and bank space. Whenever you need them, mail them back - though this takes an hour so if you're in a hurry then ask a guildy or trusted friend to hold onto the items while you change PC's.

You can invest money and buy bags for your bank PC as well as bank space, though I only suggest up to the 10G slot unless you have vast amounts of money and need the space - but you could simply get another bank PC for free! If your bank PC ever gets full then you can make another one. Some people, and guilds too, dedicate each to certain goods.

I use some bank PC's purely for trading masses of certain items, in which case I always keep about 2G on them for auction deposits. Whenever they make big sales then I mail the money to my main PC.

Don't forget that you have a limit of 10 PC's per server and, if I recall correctly, 50 PC's in grand total per account.

And one little time saving tip - add your PC's names to each other's Friends list, since when you're writing a mail recepient the name will auto-appear. This is very useful if you have long names or ones with unusual symbols in.

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4.13 - Judge Bids

This can be hard to explain, but here goes: you can tell if an auction has an existing bid - and thus see if someone else is interested in the item - by the increments people use per bid. If you see an epic item at 100G then it most likely does not have any bids on it. If it's 103.50s and if you bid, it goes up to 103.75s then it almost definitely has a bid on. If you bid on it and the price *doesn't* change then you know you have the first and only bid. So if you see several auctions for mats at 50s at Medium or Short time then you can probably get away with bidding on them without worrying about someone else beating you by bidding back.

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4.14 - There are No Set Prices

Given the heated arguments that occasionally blight the Trade channel and certain forum threads, it's important to note something about 'the right price' for an item - there really is no such thing!

While there may be average prices and a consensus on how much an item should sell for, no one has the right to say so absolutely. Prices change depending on all manner of reasons and, ultimately, an item or good is worth whatever people are willing to pay.

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5. Sneaky Tricks

Never forget - it's not personal. It's just business. You don't need to be a stealthed Tauren rogue to make use of these dubious tactics ...

- Buy out the goods of competitors (People selling the same goods as you) on the AH and then put your own goods on, ideally at a higher price, then later those goods you bought. This removes them from the sight of the public but is obviously costly - it should only really be done provided that you can make a profit re-selling them, though you may have to keep them in stock for a while.

- Certain items and recipes (Plans, patterns, etc, for crafting goods) can be bought from vendors throughout the world and then sold on an AH for a fair profit, as not everyone knows where they are and how much they cost. This is especially useful for ones in limited supply, as some vendors only have 1 of a recipe which 'respawns' in their inventory.

As for what recipes and where they are, that's one secret I'm keeping! (In all fairness, this is not something I constantly do - I typically buy some of the recipes, only ones that I know are useful to most players, if I'm passing through a zone.)

- Some EVIL traders put, say, trade goods on the AH with an unusually low OB, but set the BO to an extremely high price such as 99G, presumably hoping that hasty or tired players with enough money will think 99G is 99S and buy it. This is generally frowned upon but is technically legitimate as far as I'm aware and I doubt that GM's will act on it. Some players have normal auctions but 'hide' expensive buyouts as well - so a player may be buying out 25s stacks of linen cloth and then misses one that costs 99G. Ouch!

I guess that some players try to catch these traders out and simply put a normal bid on to get the items cheaply, but whenever I've bidded on these auctions I find that the auction gets cancelled. Presumably the seller knows when the auction will end and cancels it before putting them back on. It would be interesting to see their success rate.

An example of the above.

- This isn't terribly sneaky, but if you have a good understanding of prices then you can do a blank search on Trade Goods or Reagants (REGARDLESS of whether you need or can use them), then filter by Time. Find some cheap goods and buy them before they expire, then put them back on the AH for a higher price to cover your deposit and enough to hopefully make a tidy profit.

- There is a big market for 'twink' items. 'Twinks' are alternative Player Characters which are funded by a player's main character. Some people get them to L19 and use them in low-level PVP in the Warsong Gulch battleground and buy the best equipment available. Since nearly every pre-50 instance can be soloed, some farmers attempt to get as many BOE items as possible (Especially certain blues) and stick them on the AH for inflated prices that a regular player could not afford but that which 'rich' players can.

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6. Conclusion

I sincerely hope that these tips help you make some healthy profits in WOW, which you can then use to have some fun - whether better epic gear or a new mount or whatever you want to do. There's little point in just building up money if you never plan to use it. For instance, I once went raised money so that I could get Exalted with Thunder Bluff and got an epic kodo mount. :)

- Ben 'Magic' Brown