Monday, February 4, 2008

Armor Kits = Gold For You

In addition to strategy, examples and tool advice, I also want to be able to give you very specific items for your Auction House grocery list. These items are (or have been) on my personal shopping list and are favorites of mine because the bargains occur quite frequently, are a guaranteed sell and the profits are nothing to sneeze at.

I've done this a few times already on food, cloth and spider silk. Adding to this growing smorgasbord of gold making targets are armor kits.

/flashback

I never knew what these things were until I completed one of the quests in Redridge on my first toon (the mage with the twitch). I remember thinking "these things are great...I just hope I can find more quests that have these for rewards." My noobness shined like a beacon back then.

/flashforward

Now it's more like a flashlight.

Armor kits make great targets for your bargain hunting in the World of Warcraft Auction House (AH). Leather workers will churn out a bunch of these as they're leveling up and often post them cheaply. And they usually post bigger stacks than they should - more than 4 for most...the expensive ones should be posted in singles or doubles.

By now, you know that you find a good deal by keeping Auctioneer well fed. That'll give you the scoop on what kinds of profits you can expect to reap.

How well can you do with these things? Good question!

Looking back through all my deals over the last 2 months on just armor kits, here's the breakdown of which armor kits I've bought, the total profit for all my sales and the profit margin on average for each.

(UPDATE: I replaced the original HTML table with what's below. The way it as before looked like gah because, well, Blogger hates me.)

First, the kits I target...

Medium Armor Kit
Heavy Armor Kit
Rugged Armor Kit
Knothide Armor Kit
Heavy Knothide Armor Kit

Next, what I've made recently on them...



Profits Grand Total: 159.43g
Overall Profit Margin: 106%

I usually buy Medium kits in the early stages of building my bankroll and then taper off as I set my profit requirements higher once I crack 100g.

You'll also note that the higher up you go on the scale, starting at the Heavy kits, the profit margins get smaller. My theory is that leather workers have a better sense of what the market rate is for kits the more experience they get. The higher level the kit the more coin they can fetch and the more they cost to make (from what I understand). So they'll squeeze every copper they can out of the auction.

One final tip, when reposting kits, do them in 1's and 2's. While it is possible to use up to four kits on your armor (gloves, chest, bracer, boots), my thoughts are that people don't always want, or have the money, for stacks of 4. And not too many people want to buy these in bulk for the "armor-to-come" in future levels so don't post any stacks over 4.

Good luck and happy hunting.

7 comments:

Pinwiz said...

I have tended to ignore armor kits because I didn't even think about posting them as singles. I'll have to try this.

Do you know of a resource for identifying proper armor and weapons for flipping on the AH? I'm trying to find things that are likely to sell, but the sheer number of options are staggering.

Arne said...

Speaking as a LW, I know that I didn't care so much about selling the lower-level kits for a maximal profit. I'm a spendthrift, I suppose, and didn't level LW until after I hit 70, but I sort of viewed the money and time I spent on the materials as sunk costs, so if I sold the kits for much of anything it was good.

Of course, I also did use my Auctioneer scans to price them close to the rest of the market.

Og said...

Pinwiz - Plenty of people ignore armor kits, but there's a big demand for them. There's no resource out there that has a list of flippable items (as far as I know). It's one of the reasons I started this blog.

Waraden - Great comments. Lots of LW that power level just want to get something for their stacks and are not looking to make a profit. The mats are usually worth more than the finished goods. Some price to the market price and others don't.

Big stacks are a good place to find hidden profits.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your insight, Og. I started flipping some armor kits last night, and have already made back the money I spent, with more auctions still in the AH.

Og said...

Rymes - Woot! Glad to help.

Anonymous said...

Og, this is a great tip. Like the others, I had been ignoring the armor kits, because I didn't think there was anyone out there buying them (lower level ones, at least).

I've been putting some significant effort into flipping for the past 2-3 weeks, and I've done fairly well. I had ~100g seed, and I've been able to make 100-200g each week. Unfortunately, that seems to be just enough to feed my raiding needs for consumables and enchants.

I feel like I'm sitting about as good as I can hope based on the stuff I know to look for right now. Do you have any tips for what to change / look for once you get higher up in cash? I'd be interested in a series on the 100g to Epic Flight. I know it'll take a lot longer, but I bet you've got it in you.

FYI, so far I've been focusing on blue weapons and armor for lvls 10-50, consumables and trade goods.

Og said...

Finwe - Conga rats on your successes so far and thanks for the comment. My recommendation to you would be to just stop raiding completely so that you don't spend that gold.

/listen to sound of crickets
/cast [Break Awkward Silence]

OK, so the point of making this extra coin is to have fun with it. Otherwise what's the point.

Bottom line is you have to spend more to make more on a per-day or per-week basis. So try to put aside some of the extra gold you're making back into the seed fund. Like 25% in your case. You might want to create a mule to make it easier to keep the money separate (you can send some profits back to your main).

You can also try finding bigger bargains by hunting in the AM.

I've been asked about a series that goes beyond the basics more than once. It's in the queue (which is quite large :).

Thanks again and good luck to you!