Phase 3: Profit !

Holmes in a rush

I started my time racing.
Many may not know that, My server (on TW)
have had a different patch schedule than the US and EU

That is we are still not on 3.1 yet.

Normally it’ll be 2 days behind (Our Maintenance day will be on Thursday)
Last week’s 3.1 outage on US server delayed the patch for a week (may be another?)

As many WOW Economy results come out from US,

JMTC and  Warcraft Econ

Things does not go as we predicted.
(I’ll wrote a post on why I was not prepared for 3.1 tomorrow, but it seems outdated for now)
E.g.
Ethereal is not required that much in BS recipes
Raid are having difficult time at Ulduar,
and PUGs seems cannot pass through the barrier anyhow.
Flooding on the market for the gold for dual spec.

All of these, forced me to have a change in plan in my investment.
That’s Liquidize for now, and do stockpiling when 3.1 hits.
And I”ll only had 1/2 days for it. (The earliest I can get in is 7pm)
While trade fast is not my style.
(It induce lose of profits)
The market price change will have devaste impact on my end game stocks.

So wish me luck on that…

Plan

Must do:
Sell half of the bars I got before
Sell ALL meats (Since people will keep farming, and fish will fulfill their needs for raid)
Sell Excess Etheral Earth

May do:
Sell all TitanSteel bars

I’ll mostly sell them thought channel to reduce the trade time….

=====

I failed to sell those [item]Saronite Bar[/item] and [item]TitanSteel Bar/[item]
the buyout price on AH is already 30% off the market price
and I am not ready to say good bye to them in these price,
I’ll pay for the rent in bank for the price to climb back.
(I am considering to think like goods place should count rents,
since it’ll take resource for me to take care of it,
and earn extra space for them, Opportunity cost in some sense)
I had sold the [item]Saronite Bar[/item] by crafting them into arrows.
Although I don’t how long will they keep on buying on that price.
At least it can slowly consume my stockpile.

The Meat sold beautifully however.
Which gain me more cash for the buying berserk next week.

My Precious

There are may items in wow have Social value
e.g. [item]Mekgineer’s Chopper[/item], [item]Reins of the Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth[/item] and Raid Gears.
Some of them are tradable, and then money follows.

There are three types of buyers with a different price range.
Prices vary as time passes.
I’ll list them by the order of the markets.

I buy, because no one owns one.

- The Fashion Leaders

They are focused in competition, and always want to be unique.
They pay steep for the premium to others.

What’s the price of the first Chopper on the server?
How much will one pay (time, effort and gold) to be the <a href=’http://www.wowhead.com/?search=Realm+First!’> Realm First!</a>

That’s the type of player.
When they knew the [item]Darkmoon Card: Greatness[/item] will buff, they’ll get their hand on it at once.
These type of buyers always want to be focus of others,
They Strive to be the top in their “specific area”

e.g.
Top Dpser dealer in raid,
The person with all the mini-pets
The guy with most Achievement points
The list goes on…

You’ll probably have one or two in your guild
and they enjoy anyone ask them about it.
As a matter of fact, they love the difficulties of getting there
as that’ll cut off the followers. (E.g. high price of getting them)

To Profits:

These markets are most profitable,
but shrink very quickly.

You had to be very sensitive to news;
News from PTR on wowhead and wowinsider is a good place monitor.
New Epics, receipts, pets sell great to these player
but the price will drop very soon,
as the rarity of the items decrease very fast.

I buy, because someone owns one.
- The Followers

They are followers of the Leaders,
while they pay second to the leaders,
they are not striving being the top.

They’ll wait when the price stabilize.
What they really want is to keep inline with the leaders.
They want their name mentioned next to the leader on the guild channel.
Here is what they like to hear
” Mr.MaxDPS got the Greatness, wow that’s very dedicate
Oh, Mr.Followers had one too, no doubt they’ll had the top Dps in raid”

To Profits:
While they won’t buy the 1^st -10^th item from you,
they’ll buy from 11^th to 100^th
As their number is large.
They won’t pay for receipts either.
They’ll be the profitable on the long tail with decreasing prices.

I buy, because many own one.
- The Group members

These are people struggle to avoid being out of the group.

If every hunter in your raid is using [item]Nesingwary 4000[/item],
Will you buy one if your others gear already get you to the middle among them?
(One may get a full set of T7 without a decent gun dropping)

Will you buy the red dragon if everyone else is riding one when you raid The Obsidian Sanctum?

They pay much lesser for the goods,
since there is much lesser value except the feeling of being a member in-group.
They won’t brag about having the mount or gear,
but they’ll feel safe when people target them and possibly click the

To Profits:

They are good buyers of left over.
It’s better than a stockpile item when you missed the previous group.
They come in a group too,
since the Leader and followers influence them.
So expect they’ll buy when you lower the price

I buy, because everyone else owns one.
- The Leftovers

They are buying out of fear of alienation.
5000g on epic flying to avoid hearing
“lol, you fly so slow, you noob”
on a naxx wipe run

They are like the group member, but they are out of fear instead of trying to be in group.
They’ll buy when those “mean” people bugged them.

To Profits:
They aren’t willing to buy one unless they “necessarily needs” one

(In fact, they don’t have to, since the goods is by no mean necessary by definition)
They pay the lowest price.
The profit margin is low,
but they’ll keep coming. Slowly.
And most of the market seller will left the market by the time,
since the deal is not heat anymore.

However, if you are okay with the little profits,
you can dominate the market.
If the market do not replace by other goods it’s a good place to stay.
(Greatness will be replaced when a better new moon card is out,
However, White kitties, proto whelp will never be)

Remarks:
Please leave a message if you got any thoughts on that.
I would like to hear more from you guys.
Any suggestions on writing style or topic are appreciated.
Even a drop by of “I like it” is fine
since I had no idea what people will like yet.
Thank you in advance.

I took the advice from Markco as well
(but you can see, I am far from “simple”)
Thanks for that mate

I’ll schedule post on a 2 days cycle now,
you may expect posts  on
Monday, Wednesdy, Friday – Sunday as well
(I’ll add more if I see fit though…)

Thanks for watching

Citation:
The Idea of the type of buyer is from Seth Godin‘s Idea Virus
(I put it into the social value of goods, and how to deal with them though)