Playing the AH?

[:1]I understand the principal of "Playing the Auction House", but I can't for the life of me put it into practice effectively. I'm really not sure how to go about it properly.

I understand the basic concept, ie; "Find an item listed at a low price that could be sold for a much higher one, buy it and then re-list it at the inflated price and reap the profit." I've tried to do this, and I managed to do it to some extent with 29 twink items for a while. The problem I found with this was I needed a lot of gold to sustain it. I've seen claims online that you can start playing the auction house when you have "as little as 10g". How does this work? I use Auctioneer for the ease of posting mass items on the AH, and when it scans auctions, it says there are 24,000 to 25,000 auctions. How do you play that? I get confused and end up wasting money. Can anybody help?|||Quote:








Can anybody help?




Find items that have at least two auctions....One auction is at price X, and the other is somewhat below X.

Buy the lower one, and place it back on the AH at a price that is just below X.

You need to make sure that the items sell reasonably well, and that you will make a profit that accounts for the AH commissions.|||Playing AH is not for everybody.

It needs:

1. lots of expertise - you must know what sells, for what price, when, in what amount - that knowledge is always changing.

2. lots of gold - you will need some gold to be able to keep your prices - that depends on local market and competition a lot.

3. lots of time - you need to control the AH all the time.|||Quote:








Playing AH is not for everybody.

It needs:

1. lots of expertise - you must know what sells, for what price, when, in what amount - that knowledge is always changing.

2. lots of gold - you will need some gold to be able to keep your prices - that depends on local market and competition a lot.

3. lots of time - you need to control the AH all the time.




I disagree with most of this.

You can indeed start with 10g, and buy less costly things that sell well to start.

Also, you don't need to control much...you just need to have ONE item at a decent price, according to recent sales.|||Quote:








I understand the principal of "Playing the Auction House", but I can't for the life of me put it into practice effectively. I'm really not sure how to go about it properly.

I understand the basic concept, ie; "Find an item listed at a low price that could be sold for a much higher one, buy it and then re-list it at the inflated price and reap the profit." I've tried to do this, and I managed to do it to some extent with 29 twink items for a while. The problem I found with this was I needed a lot of gold to sustain it. I've seen claims online that you can start playing the auction house when you have "as little as 10g". How does this work? I use Auctioneer for the ease of posting mass items on the AH, and when it scans auctions, it says there are 24,000 to 25,000 auctions. How do you play that? I get confused and end up wasting money. Can anybody help?




Well, scan - that is tell it to scan, don't rely on the continual scanning as that seems to be less precise. A full scan may take as much as 15 minutes but it's worth it. Learn to look at how many of these items are for sale and what they're selling for. Be suspicious of seemingly expensive items (identical items) that are offered for 25% or less of real value. It may mean that no one is buying these things, so you won't make any money. If you find something that seems really low priced, check to see if there are any more on sale at the same time. It may be in there at a blue price, but if there are ten on at the green price, you're not going to be able to make money. If there are no more, then highlight the item and look at its history. Auctioneer should tell you average prices, what's sold most recently for what, if there is a lot of competition, and what the lowest recent sell price is. If it looks good, if it is (as I've sometimes found) a fairly rare item worth 500 gold on sale for 25, it's worth chancing buying it and reselling. You're not going to lose much if you have to put it on for that again. But you can't get rich unless your AH is active and busy. The one on my realm is very poor - turnover is almost zilch, so it's not a way to make much.|||Quote:








I disagree with most of this.

You can indeed start with 10g, and buy less costly things that sell well to start.

Also, you don't need to control much...you just need to have ONE item at a decent price, according to recent sales.




I would agree with you if you want to make just some extra money, but if you want to really PLAY AH then you really need all that i mentioned.

Besides, nowadays there are much more people trying to play AH than it used to be few years ago, so it's much harder now to compete, and you need to really know what you are doing to be successfull.

I ll repeat myself: Playing AH is not for everybody...|||Quote:








I would agree with you if you want to make just some extra money, but if you want to really PLAY AH then you really need all that i mentioned.




You are defining "paying the AH" differently than I....You are defining it as "you have lots of gold...make much more!"

I define it as "make consistent improvements to the amount of gold you have, regardless of the amount"

Your definition excludes a great many people...Mine includes everyone who wants to make money.

As an aside, I gave up playing the AH long ago, because it simply isn't necessary...Just by doing normal other things, I've managed to pay for three epic flying mounts, etc., and continue to make more gold everyday....|||Quote:








Well, scan - that is tell it to scan, don't rely on the continual scanning as that seems to be less precise. A full scan may take as much as 15 minutes but it's worth it. Learn to look at how many of these items are for sale and what they're selling for. Be suspicious of seemingly expensive items (identical items) that are offered for 25% or less of real value. It may mean that no one is buying these things, so you won't make any money. If you find something that seems really low priced, check to see if there are any more on sale at the same time. It may be in there at a blue price, but if there are ten on at the green price, you're not going to be able to make money. If there are no more, then highlight the item and look at its history. Auctioneer should tell you average prices, what's sold most recently for what, if there is a lot of competition, and what the lowest recent sell price is. If it looks good, if it is (as I've sometimes found) a fairly rare item worth 500 gold on sale for 25, it's worth chancing buying it and reselling. You're not going to lose much if you have to put it on for that again. But you can't get rich unless your AH is active and busy. The one on my realm is very poor - turnover is almost zilch, so it's not a way to make much.




I scan every day, just about. I've just started a full time job irl, so I can't spend tons of time on the AH. I can access it a few times a day, which should be enough. Thanks for all of your advice, I can see how that would work. I'll spend some time just browsing the AH and seeing what I can come up with. I'm not really looking to corner any markets just yet, but I would like to be able to buy things at a low price and sell them higher. I get a lot of enchanting mats from tailoring / greens (I DE all of my boe greens, the mats sell for more than I'd make from the vendor) and sometimes I have ridiculous amounts. When I do that, I might attempt to corner the market of whatever mats I have.

Thanks for your advise, I'm glad you provided some helpful info. And, our AH is very active. I'm on Arthas, which is one of the original realms. Like I said, when I scan there's somewhere between 24,000 and 25,000 auctions every time.

Thanks again ;)|||A few questions... What are you after? What level are you? what are your professions?

If you're, say, 44 and have 15g to your name, that's one thing. If you're 80 with 4000g, that's another.

Similarly, if you're after making lots of gold, you need to start with a fair amount. Increasing 10g by 20% is meh... but increasing 1000g by 20% is 200g... not bad.

If you're 80, think about just doing dailies... I logged in, did a couple while seeing if anyone needed some help and picked up 25 or 30g.

If you're sub-80, get a gathering profession. Sell the stuff you gather on the AH. This isn't really playing the AH in the sense you mean, but it's a great way to make money.

Finally, don't get obsessed by gold. By all means, amass it if that's your thing, but watch that you don't spend lots of time amassing gold and then figure out that you don't really need that much.|||Sorry, I posted my levels/professions in another thread and then didn't think to put the info in this thread.


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So, I have just bought wrath of the lich king, and am about to level my 70s to 80. I have three 70s, one of which is now almost 72. Either way, I've been working on my tradeskilling; leveling the professions I've neglected. I have a 70 Shaman that is a 375 Enchanter/270 odd Scribe, a 70 Rogue who is 375 Herb/Alch and a Mage that is 375 tailoring and 260 engineering. By the time I get to 80, all of these will be 450, obviously.




I've been playing WoW for about 4 years and I have always had gold flow issues. Doing dailies at 70 and now 80 is a great way to make money, but the beauty of tradeskilling/playing the AH is that you don't have to be at the computer to make money. Like I said in my first post, I've just started a full time job irl. I don't really want to spend lots of my time doing dailies when I do get to get on the computer. While I'll definitely do this, I want to maximise the amount of gold I get and I enjoy doing it in many diverse ways.

I have a bit of gold but it keeps fluctuating because I keep spending it all on powerleveling my tradeskills.

I hope that is enough info for you.