One overlooked way to make tons of gold in World of Warcraft is by trading the auction house.
When done right, you can earn more than 1000 gold per hour this way, with very little work.
When done wrong, on the other hand, you can lose just as much.
Here are the most common pitfalls and how to avoid them: 1.
Selling too cheaply.
Underpricing typically happens in one of two ways.
A player may have acquired a rare item but is oblivious to its value to other players.
Never having seen it before, he or she may think it's borderline worthless and list it very cheaply.
This is especially true if there are no other items of that kind up for sale at the AH.
Big mistake! I've made small fortunes swiping up bargains of this kind.
It often happens with blue (rare) quality weapons and armor that have a high value for twinks, sometimes ridiculously high.
Anyhow, the way to avoid this mistake is to look up items on database sites like Allakhazam before you post them.
Just do a search for the item there and you'll find the average auction house price across servers.
That'll give you a good starting point.
The other way to underprice items is harder to catch, and happens to more experienced players.
Prices for an item can vary widely from day to day, week to week and month to month.
From low to high, the variance can be 1000% or more.
Unless you need to sell your inventory to raise cash quick, watch prices for a while, find their high range and sell when they hit it.
2.
Selling too expensively.
Some items have a high deposit fee relative to their selling price.
An example might be high level green weapons and armor.
They might have a deposit fee of three gold, and a sell price of ten.
With auctions like that, if you try to price them too high, you'll just lose the deposit if no one buys them.
It doesn't take many re-listing to end up with a loss.
Either vendor, disenchant or sell those items cheap instead.
3.
Not using the 80/20 rule.
This is probably the biggest mistake.
If you're aware of the 80/20 rule, you know that it states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.
It's true for a number of areas, even World of Warcraft! Look, to make maximum gold in minimum time, you simply MUST focus on high profit items and IGNORE the rest.
Just because there's an opportunity doesn't mean you have to take advantage of it.
Let's say you're looking for great deals on the AH to buy out and re-list at a higher price.
One item may earn you 50 silver, while another will earn you 10 gold, and turning them around takes equal time.
At some point you have to decide if the 50 silver item is worth your time or not, or you'll just murder your earnings per hour.
Typically, the less gold you have to start with, the less you can be content to earn from each item.
But when you have lots of gold, you NEED to start focusing on high-profit items and ignoring the rest, or you'll never earn much gold at the AH.
When I realized this mistake, I stopped spending so much time at the AH by: * Vending items of little value.
It takes too much time to put them up for sale, often repeatedly.
* Selling stuff cheaper, so it didn't expire as many times * Using an alt to trade the AH, and do nothing else.
Going to the AH with your main wastes a lot of time Once you do the above, you'll have a lot more time to level up, quest, raid and PvP.
When done right, you can earn more than 1000 gold per hour this way, with very little work.
When done wrong, on the other hand, you can lose just as much.
Here are the most common pitfalls and how to avoid them: 1.
Selling too cheaply.
Underpricing typically happens in one of two ways.
A player may have acquired a rare item but is oblivious to its value to other players.
Never having seen it before, he or she may think it's borderline worthless and list it very cheaply.
This is especially true if there are no other items of that kind up for sale at the AH.
Big mistake! I've made small fortunes swiping up bargains of this kind.
It often happens with blue (rare) quality weapons and armor that have a high value for twinks, sometimes ridiculously high.
Anyhow, the way to avoid this mistake is to look up items on database sites like Allakhazam before you post them.
Just do a search for the item there and you'll find the average auction house price across servers.
That'll give you a good starting point.
The other way to underprice items is harder to catch, and happens to more experienced players.
Prices for an item can vary widely from day to day, week to week and month to month.
From low to high, the variance can be 1000% or more.
Unless you need to sell your inventory to raise cash quick, watch prices for a while, find their high range and sell when they hit it.
2.
Selling too expensively.
Some items have a high deposit fee relative to their selling price.
An example might be high level green weapons and armor.
They might have a deposit fee of three gold, and a sell price of ten.
With auctions like that, if you try to price them too high, you'll just lose the deposit if no one buys them.
It doesn't take many re-listing to end up with a loss.
Either vendor, disenchant or sell those items cheap instead.
3.
Not using the 80/20 rule.
This is probably the biggest mistake.
If you're aware of the 80/20 rule, you know that it states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.
It's true for a number of areas, even World of Warcraft! Look, to make maximum gold in minimum time, you simply MUST focus on high profit items and IGNORE the rest.
Just because there's an opportunity doesn't mean you have to take advantage of it.
Let's say you're looking for great deals on the AH to buy out and re-list at a higher price.
One item may earn you 50 silver, while another will earn you 10 gold, and turning them around takes equal time.
At some point you have to decide if the 50 silver item is worth your time or not, or you'll just murder your earnings per hour.
Typically, the less gold you have to start with, the less you can be content to earn from each item.
But when you have lots of gold, you NEED to start focusing on high-profit items and ignoring the rest, or you'll never earn much gold at the AH.
When I realized this mistake, I stopped spending so much time at the AH by: * Vending items of little value.
It takes too much time to put them up for sale, often repeatedly.
* Selling stuff cheaper, so it didn't expire as many times * Using an alt to trade the AH, and do nothing else.
Going to the AH with your main wastes a lot of time Once you do the above, you'll have a lot more time to level up, quest, raid and PvP.