WoW Rookie: Auction House basics

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To a new player, navigating the Auction House and the server's trade economy can seem as intimidating as the national debt. What sells? What doesn't? How do you find bargains? How do you know what prices to set for your goods? Is undercutting a wise idea? What's the fastest way to rake in gold – and what's the safest way?

The best guide to the actual mechanics of using the Auction House comes from Blizzard itself. A careful review will give you a firm grasp of the basic parameters for profitable buying or selling. Beyond the basics, what most players want is solid advice on what's worth selling on the AH, how much to charge and how to get the best buys. Let's touch on those areas next.

	Using the unmodified Auction House Using the default Auction House interface, covering the bare-bones basics: purchasing, selling and the all-important concept of determining appropriate stack quantities.
	Working the Auction House Understand Auction House concepts such as the AH deposit and the AH cut; the factors that drive a server's economy; and where to find the information, mods and ideas you need to use the Auction House to play the market with confidence.
	Using the Auction House properly Undercutting, profit margins, market demand, weekly fluctuations and more.
	Buyer beware in the Auction House The Auction House market is all about open trade, so if you buy something for the wrong price, it's all on you.
	What is this worth? Auctioneer has a listening module called AskPrice that allows other players to use a trigger (? is the default, as in "? [Wolfrunner Shoes]") to find out your Auctioneer's price via whisper.
	Diamond in the AH rough Given the price information from Auctioneer, you can hit a button in Bottomscanner, and the addon will scour the Auction House for any items that are priced for less than they're worth.

And finally, if you find yourself enjoying playing the market, you'll want to install an add-on to help manage and crunch the avalanche of numbers.

• Auctioneer The king-daddy of Auction House add-ons, with multiple specialized modules that crunch in even more detail.

• Auction Lite Simple and clean management for buying and selling.
  

WoW Rookie feeds you the basics

to get you off to a good start in the World of Warcraft. Find more tools you can use in the WoW Insider Directory and WoW Insider Leveling Guides.