Not everyone can afford to pay real money for World of Warcraft gold. Some of us are barely scrapping by to pay for the subscription. So what’s a person to do? There are a couple of different approaches that can be taken to making money. The first way to make cash is by auctioning raw materials. The second lies in auctioning items to adventurers, and the third is buying items and re-selling them for a higher price. These are the tried and true methods of making money the honest way in World of Warcraft.
Auctioning Raw materials for money
The first approach, supplying raw materials, is a good one for the adventurer who wants to make some money when they return from their quests. Most of the raw materials (metals, herbs, leather, and cloth) can be gathered from fallen foes or gathered while moving around. If you want to make money selling raw raw materials, you’ll need to pick up one of the gathering professions. It’s usually beneficial to stick to one gathering profession, as that leaves a slot open for a future crafting profession. Once you have the skill, use it! Use it at every possible opportunity. Skin everything you can, even if it won’t raise the skill. Mine every resource pile, and pick every flower you see. This gives you a large stockpile of resources, which you can take back to the auction house.
In this approach, the target buyers are the crafters. They are the ones who are going to be interested in what you have. Start off by using the browse feature of the auction house to find out the current prices for your types of resources, as well as how many lots are currently for sale. Take light leather as an example you see that there are 20 lots for sale, most of them starting with an opening bid of 10 silver. If all of them have bids, there is likely still a demand for what you have.
Because there is a demand, let your opening bid be slightly higher than current market price. Try to get a feel for what the closing bids are likely to be by looking at the prices of items that have only a short time left to go. However, why stop at what everyone else is making? Be ruthless! Crafters are often impatient and don’t want to wait for the auctions to end, so offer them a buyout price (at twice the final expected bid) to get the item immediately. Then, set the auction length to the maximum, which encourages the impatient ones to use the buyout price. Thusly, if it looks like 10 silver tends to be the final bid, let your opening bid be about 8 silver, and set your buyout price at about 18. Timing is crucial in this. If you start your auction right before peak playing times (late afternoon for your time zone, usually), the auction has all night for people to look over it.
However, don’t forget rule number three: always be patient. If you leather isn’t selling (e.g. No one is bidding on it), don’t try and put yours up for sale at a reduced price. If you have no choice, accept that you’re likely to make little money on the deals.
Auctioning your items to Adventurers for money
The second approach is to supply items to adventurers. Firstoff, decide if you’re going to auction items that you find, or if these are going to be items that you create. If you’re going to take the crafter route, it helps to have the requisite gathering skill, so that you can supply your own materials. This helps you avoid the people who use the approach we just mentioned! Adventurers have a wide range of items from which to choose. Usually they are looking for something specific, a certain type of axe, for instance. In order to make money, you need to be flexible. If you have a variety of items, try and browse for each to get an idea of how much to price them. Always include a buyout price, as every adventurer will be tempted by the option to get it immediately. If you have no idea of how much your specific item is worth, take a look at other items of that type of level. So, you have have a one-handed axe with a minimum level of 9 you want to sell, see what other one-handed, level 9 axes tend to cost. If they tend to start at 8 silver, try an opening bid of 6 silver. This gets the attention of the buyer. Set the auction at 24 hours and offer a 15 silver buyout price; they’ll often take it rather than risk someone coming along and bidding them out. What makes this all the more fun is that by starting with a lower bid that the competition, you’re more likely to get multiple bids, which encourages buyouts. If you’re making the items, consider sticking to green (Good Quality) items, as enchanters will always want green items to break down for parts. If you don’t have Good or Superior items, try re-selling the same goods a bit cheaper later that day. Adding additional features, like applying an armor kit before selling, can also be effective. However, there may come a time when something just doesn’t sell. In this case, vendor it and remember that item as one that doesn’t sell well. Be patient, stay cool, and try again.
Reselling World of Warcraft items for money
Finally, you can try and make money by buying items and re-selling them. Obviously, this is an approach that requires that you have some seed cash on hand. This is best used in conjunction with one of the other approaches, as you are likely to come across good deals while browsing around trying to establish prices. For this approach, Enchanting is a good skill to have, because you can break down the magical items you acquire cheaply into magical reagents that have a higher resale value. Go through each category in the auction house and bid on every green item you can, especially the cheap lower level items. Having a huge number of bids at once is vital, since you should only expect to win about half (at best). However, the ones that come to you can be quickly disenchanted and the components sold for a high price (as always, offer a high buyout!). It’s a good market to look into because there is usually a demand, supply is often low (few people like sacrificing magical items), and stacks of various enchanting components always fetch a good price.
Timing is a bit strange on this approach, as the peak buying times for enchanting components seems to be the weekend. However, always keep an eye on the auctions, and jump on chances. This is because you can sometimes come across major bargains that can be taken advantage of. For instance, you are browsing and see that there are only a few glimmering shards for sale. Each one seems to sell for about 50 silver, though there is a stack of nine that has 50 silver as its buyout price. This is an opportunity. Grab the stack immediately for 50 silver, then turn right around and auction each shard in the stack with an opening bid of 50 and a buyout of 75. This doesn’t happen often, but it has the potential to make you some serious cash, and even if only one or two sell you have completely recouped your investment. Some may come back to you, to be auctioned again another day. Keep them safe and wait for your chance while you attend to the other parts of your budding mercantile empire.
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