luxury-goods
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Gold Capped: The art of negotiating for luxury goods
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Fox Van Allen and Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Feed Fox's ego by emailing him, tweeting him at @foxvanallen, or sacrificing your first-born to him. And be sure to catch the return of Basil and Fox's podcast, Call to Auction! As someone who greatly enjoys getting presents, I love Christmas. But the truth is that I love the day after Christmas just as much. On Dec. 26, all the stores know you're loaded up with cash and gift cards from your relatives. It's the one day of the year where I get to shop for luxuries as if they're everyday purchases. The urge is there in World of Warcraft, too. I've worked so hard all year long to make money. You have too. But you can't just sit on those millions forever. Money in WoW is a tool -- it's pointless if you don't spend at least a little bit (or, in the case of today's column, spend a lot of it just to prove you can). I'm not just talking Mechano-hogs and Vials of the Sands here, expensive though those purchases may be. I'm talking about the true World of Warcraft luxuries -- your Magic Rooster Eggs and Swift Spectral Tigers, things only a true Auction House maven will ever own. When an item is being sold in absolute minimal quantity, it's simply impossible for markets to do what they do best. You can't get the opinions of hundreds of sellers, cross-matched against the opinions of hundreds of buyers, to get one reliable, stable market price. You get the opinion of one seller (if you're lucky) cross-matched against your own senses. If you think this is a simple market to play in, you're wrong. It's the elite level, like a game of Jeopardy! where all three contestants are Watson supercomputers. And because it's the elite level, tactics can get (and are almost expected to get) real dirty, real fast.
