Inspired by some of the comments I received from yesterday's post on my failures in the WoW Auction House (AH), this post shines some additional perspective on my wins and losses in the AH.
Yesterday I mentioned my overall rate of failed vs. successful auctions. Those are average numbers. Averages smooths out all the rough spots. That means that on some days I feel like I'm King of the World. On others I feel like I'm King of the Chumps.
Looking back at the last 17 days, here's how my successes compared to my failures:
It's pretty obvious which days were the really, really good days and which had me guessing if I had any cheese left at all. This is normal. The AH is volatile.
But it's predictable over time...and that's the real secret.
Bottom line - you are going to have Good Days, Bad Days and days that make the bad days look like Freakin Awesome Days. But as long as you are sticking to the fundamentals, you'll keep growing your pile of gold through them all (even when it doesn't feel like it).
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Expired Auctions Are OK
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18 comments:
Have you ever noticed any trends regarding weekends and weekdays?
In my experience many mats get saturated on the weekends and the prices get driven down. But come Tuesday/Wednesday things start to dry up and prices rise again. Which is why I tend to buy-up on the weekend then hold off on auctions until mid-week.
Interesting you posted this. I was getting frustrated this week with several rare items that just weren't moving. I was near my 100g reserve that I like to keep on hand. Low and behold I logged in this morning and most of the items sold! 300 more gold to bargain shop over the weekend!
Just need to keep telling myself patience, patience, patience...
To the previous comments, I agree.
Lately, the auction house on Farstriders has been stifled, most likely due to the Lunar Festival, and the Darkmoon Faire in town.
I also have noticed that auctions are lower on weekends, especially sundays, due to over-saturation of the markets. Wednesday or Friday morning seems to be the best day to sell-out, as people are preparing for weekend raiding, or otherwise longer game-play.
Thanks again Og, for keeping us traders running! If you ever are on Farstriders, look up "The Refugees" guild, which directly benefits from these wonderous posts of yours!
One exception to the rule that auctions are depressed on weekends seems to be gems. The gem market is pretty volatile on Azgalor anyway, but it seems like some weekends all the gems will get snapped up, and if you keep an eye on the market you can find good opportunities to sell. I would guess it's because a lot of people raid on weekends, and need new gems to fill out their new equipment.
How do you gather such info? Is it part of Auctioneer or is it another mod that tracks your sales in such a manner? Using your tips and strategies I've started a bank alt with 30 gold and worked up to nearly 300 gold in about a week. Would like to have a more visual representation (like you have) of how I'm doing.
Roberth of Silver Hand server
Great information Og, I've been reading your blog for the last couple weeks and have managed to turn 50g into approximately 1200g (not including items still on the AH) just following your posts.
I too, was wondering how you turned your information into graphs and charts.
Bought 2 Assassination Blades for 25 gold apiece the other night. Put them on the AH for 99 gold buyout, no nibbles. No worries. Relisted them both for 89 gold, sold both and netted 78 gold each. :D Previously before reading your blog I would've been too scared to try this routinue and would've just stayed with selling greens/blues that I found during my adventures. Now, 1 week later starting my 30 gold experiment I'm up to over 775 gold with 300-400 more in auctions. :D
thats for this blog topic OG. im the one who asked the question but for some reason it didnt sign me in.
i was really worried because i was having a 40%-60% expired auction rate. then after this blog topic i reliezed i had anywhere from 300 to 600 auctions going at a time. althou id be pleased if they all sold its just not logical to think they would. so anytime i can sell half i know im making money and chances are the other half will end up selling to.
plus i just sold my first big item netting a 110g profit on one blue. so right now my confidence is soaring.
Bought Hurricane for 75 gold, resold it for 125 gold (Auc said that was about the max I could get). Buyer then relisted it for 164. :) If he sells it, more power to him, at least I made my 50 gold there.
On topic, my failure rate is rather high, but when I factor in gold value of failed auctions its rather low. Some of my expensive blues sell pretty well, my inexpensive herbs tend to get kicked back to me. I keep relisting though, figuring that I'm 1) helping the economy by keeping product on the AH and 2) I'll make my deposit money back when I do sell them. The blues/purples are where my money makers truly are, but I can't forget my roots.
In fact, I'm doing a bit of an experiment - last week I started with 30 gold and built up to nearly 800 gold with mostly dabbling in the commodities market. I only started doing blues/purples toward the end of the week. This week I'm going back into the commodities and see how well I do by "controlling" one aspect of the market, say metals or cloth. I'll buy up all the items I can that Auc shows me making some kind of profit (even if it's a copper) and then relisting it in such a way that I'm still low man, but pushing the high end envelope. I'm interested in seeing how well I do there.
If that doesn't work then I'll just refocus my efforts into the high end blue/purple market again. Fewer auctions to track, greater risk, greater reward. :
Roberth, Silver Hand
Roguedubb - Good observation. I tend to see the same things. Been asked this a number of times recently so it's probably a good time to turn this into a post...
Anonymous #1 - Patience is the key. Sometimes you'll feel like the master of the AH and other times you'll feel like it's whipping boy. Do the right things, stay the course and good things will happen.
Maebius - Great comment and thanks for the props. The weekends see more supply so your posts will see more competition. It's easy to get the jitters and want to unload below what you expected, but patience will get you the price you're looking for.
I'll be sure to pop in and say "Howdy" if I'm ever on Farstriders.
Charles - I've seen gems go either way on weekends. Those JC who are leveling up will dump them on the AH at bargain prices, but they also dry up pretty quickly.
Anonymous #2 (Roberth) - I wish there was a tool to create these visuals. I've created some (rather unpretty) code that rips through my Auctioneer and BeanCounter files and puts them into a CSV file. I pull that file into Excel and use my spreadsheet powers to generate the graphs you see.
Coto - Thanks and gratz! See my comment to Anonymous #2 on how I work my magic. It's kinda like when you go to a restaurant and really enjoy a meal - you probably don't want to know exactly how it was prepared.
Tom - Awesome. Those are nice daggers and very much in demand - good thing you road it out.
Little Boy Blue - The more auctions you have the more you can expect auctions to expire. One comment - with that many auctions you might want to take a step back and see if you can fine tune your inventory. My guess is you are spending a lot of time just managing you auctions which is OK if you're really enjoying it. But if you wish you spent less time in the AH you should look at BeanCounter to see which items are more trouble than they're worth.
Tom (Roberth) - You'll have to let us know how that experiment goes. Glad to hear you're keeping the prices fair because I'm not a fan of gougers (and I'd argue that I make a boatload more by being fair than by making it painful on people to buy from me).
It's good to keep mixing commodities with rares/epics. The later is where you'll make the big money from on a per-item basis, and it's good selling the others to keep the flow of gold coming in.
Great comments.
your right haveing that many auctions is time consuming. what makes it worse is i am doing it on 4 toons on 4 diffrent servers lol. 3 of the servers are ones i have a friend playing on so i do it to help give them some money. plus i kinda enjoy it, its like a mni game inside of wow.
i am starting to play around with blues now thou to help increase the profit and make it less time consuming but thats a learning process all by itself.
LBB - As long as you are enjoying it that's all that matters!
On Earthen Ring I noted that Sunday and Monday nights are the windfall night in commodities.
My focus is to have a sizable amount listed at any time. I am focusing on herbs and metals as my two main areas. I was excited the other day because I am bringing in 200 gold a day on herbs and metals which is enough to ensure that i can buy out all blue and green items and post for re-sale. This allows me a conistent presence on the market.
I don't know what my total net worth is since most of my wealth is not in gold, but actually in the commodities on the AH floor.
This appraoch has stablized my net returns so that I am almost guarnteed between 180 and 210 gold per day and on Sunday and Monday I am selling so much that I can earn 1000 gold.
I buy everyhting that will ensure I can gain 10% gross -AH post fees. (5% profit and 5% taxs AH fees) This means I have a little math to do, but I can mentally do this simple math to tell if to buy or not. Normally 94% is the cut off.
I also feel setting the cut off ay 94% means that when I re-post at 100%-110% there are two or three auctions cheaper then mine.
I lost out on leather and it was a problem because I invested 25 gold into light leather and had 1500 units. The price dropped and I lost money on mnay of the stacks.
I am thinking this is because the production of the product (light leather) is so high.
You have a very nice blog, mate. I miss my WoW days a lot...
I also created a blog on World of Warcraft tips and secrets based on my experience:
http://www.bestwowblog.blogspot.com
and a t-shirt and souvenirs shop with cool WoW designs:
http://www.cafepress.com/bestwowshop
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