Are You Throwing Gold Away?

If you don't take the time to scan the auction house (AH) with Auctioneer on a regular basis you are likely throwing gold off the gryphon. Without a good sampling of what's selling in the AH, it's a good bet you'll end up making at least some of these mistakes:

• Leave behind or destroy valuable loot because it's "worthless
• Sell loot to a vendor that could have fetched 5 times more coin in the AH
• Leave gold on the table by selling an item far below its market price
• Bleed gold and time by repeatedly pricing items in the AH far above the market value

If you don't have the Auctioneer addon for World of Warcraft, get it! If you have it, use it. I know it can be a pain to perform full scans of the AH because it takes time to do. On my realm the scan can run for about 10 minutes. Ugh. However there are ways you can minimize its intrusiveness on play time. Try running it...

• A little before you plan to start playing for the day.
• Whenever you want to take a break.
• As the last thing you kick off after you're done for the day.
• In the mornings when you're getting ready for work or school.

Not sure what scanning the AH house means? When the Auctioneer addon is loaded, in addition to the AH interface you are used to you'll notice two new elements on the first tab: checkboxes next to all the catogories and a "Scan" button on the bottom next to where your gold (or silver or...gasp...copper?) is shown.

The checkboxes tell Auctioneer which categories to scan. It does take a while to do (and there are two really big ones - Armor and Trade Goods), but I recommend checking them all and do a full scan at least once a week. When you start flipping you'll be scanning specific categories more often and full scans will be less important.

After you click the "Scan" button, Auctioneer will tell you the progress it makes and will let you know when it's done. Aside from the time taken away from questing and raiding, it's pretty painless. Now when you hover over an item in WOW, whether it's in your bag, at a vendor or in the AH, Auctioneer will popup a window that shows you what it's seen in the AH in terms of pricing like in the screenshot to the left.

Looks like I'm not going to unload this for 5g :)

With this information easily at your finger tips you are less likely to make mistakes in pricing based on bad (or no) information. Now to really get the most coin for the items you put in the AH this isn't the only thing you'll have to do, but it's a start.