Gold Capped Ask an Auctioneer: My first mailbag

Every week, Gold Capped (from Basil "Euripides" Berntsen) aims to educate players about how to make money on the auction house. For the inside line on crafting for disenchanting, transmutation, cross-faction arbitrage and more, check in every Wednesday. Also, feel free to email Basil any comments, questions or hate mail!

I've gotten quite the mail bag of questions emailed to me. I'm going to select a few and answer them approximately whenever I feel like it. Remember when writing your question that if you want to remain anonymous, all you need to do is ask!

The first question comes to us from Mahgo, from Dath'Remar (US):

You're well set for more markets than any one person probably has time for. To start off with, make a point of scheduling your easy money. A few of the professions you've listed have cooldowns that have profitability baked in. Alchemy has epic gem transmutes, tailoring has bag cooldowns and jewelcrafting has the daily token quest that can net you a Dragon's Eye. Arrange your time so that you can do these very profitable activities as often as they're available. It's not scalable, but it's a sure thing.

Secondly, it's good to hear that you're using an addon to help with this. Auctioneering would be a massive pain in the neck if we couldn't automate stuff like buying and selling. You should consider adding Lilsparky's Workshop to your list so you can focus your crafting time on the most profitable markets. I posted a guide in my blacksmithing piece about how to use it. I assume you're looking for niche markets because they're generally more profitable, so skip the "niche" requirement and just go for profitable.

That said, if you're looking for niche markets because you want to avoid the heavy competition, you might want to look into blue quality gems and BoA enchant scrolls.

Cash for an epic flyer

Varkul from Azuremyst writes:

You're where a lot of us started off. I'm glad to hear you say that you're aware of how much (or little) you spend, as this is by far the biggest hurdle for most players. I'm not going to advise that you scrimp, though. You should be able to increase your income enough that you can afford not only your epic flyer, but also the little luxuries that people tend to want.

Start off by reading my casual auctioneering post. Pay particularly close attention to the "materials conversion" section. Basically, buying eternal elementals and selling them in crystallized form (you can right click on, for example, an Eternal Fire to make 10 Crystallized Fires) is slow but steady profits on most realm. There are a couple of different markets that work this way and require no up-front investment in a trade skill. The demand and profits are generated by the fact that some people really only want one or two of them and are willing to pay more so they don't have leftovers.

Also, while you didn't mention your trade skills, if one of your skills happens to be a gathering profession, consider farming out the money you need. Obviously without an epic flyer, doing it in Northrend or Outland would be tedious; however, assuming you have the fast land mount, consider farming in the high-level areas of the old world. Some older farmables will sell for more than their modern counterparts, simply because people need them to level professions.

Item listing totals

Vorin from Kilrogg writes:

I don't think Auctioneer supports that out of the box. As for your second question, however, I'd strongly suggest you take a look at my guide to using the snatch feature.

Well, that's it, folks! This is as much wisdom as I can stuff in under my word limit. Stay tuned for more of the same, and keep sending me questions!

[Image credit: Stephoto]

Maximize your profits with more advice from

Gold Capped, plus the author's Call to Auction podcast. Do you have questions about selling, reselling and building your financial empire on the auction house? Basil is now taking questions for a special series, "Ask an auctioneer"; email basil@wow.com.