Though I’m using the example of World of Warcraft, these techniques may apply to any auction house where the latest postings appear on the last page, or where there are many categories to search through, which is pretty much all of them. It’s a given that you’re wanting to look for a good deal. The easiest way to make money in the AH is to buy something that’s selling for lower than average, and sell it for… now that’s the question. Some people like to post insanely high prices on said items, while others, like me, tend to want to get rid of my inventory more quickly to reduce competition and move on.

In no particular order, here are some of the techniques I use while looking for deals on the auction house:

• Search for the highest priced items in your price range: you’re just getting started? Not a problem. Have 5g to your name? No biggie. You’ll want to search for items that usually sell for more than 5g, sometimes much more, but are currently selling for 3g-5g so that you essentially put back up for say 10g or more, and instantly double your gold. Now this can be tough to the beginner so that’s why many of the tips I’ve already talked about can be useful. See the earlier posts.
• Narrow your search: it takes a long time to sift through a search of all weapons for example, or all armor or recipes. Instead, concentrate your search one by one in those areas you know have the highest prices that are typically within your price range. It’s very easy to scan one category and look for a price that seems unusually low, than it is to scan multiple categories back and forth.
• Start by looking for items with the highest rarity: In World of Warcraft, since before long I always have a lot of money, I usually start by searching for epic items, since I can afford a good epic item that’s value priced. A list of all the purple items comes up and I quickly scan to see if there are any deals. In the beginning, when starting a new character, I’ll stick to rares and then head down to green items. Sometimes the rarity values alone aren’t the entire story, and this you’ll just learn by experience. For example, some green magic recipes are often more valuable than blue recipes in other professions due to the rarity of drop.
• Don’t go for high priced items with little profit margin: I’ve fallen for this mistake a few times. You buy a high priced item with the intent of only making 10g to 50g profit. This is not wise. The AH constantly fluctuates with whoever happens to be looking at the moment. Though in general the average prices are pretty accurate, you’ll always have times where a person who wants something now will pay an extraordinary amount for an item that just isn’t worth it, and then an item that seems like a great value isn’t selling at all. Don’t risk it. Stick to high profit margin items only, unless you sell in bulk and are comfortable with that. For the casual AH’er this is not really an option. You’ll be micromanaging too much. That includes me I prefer to make a lot of money using smart searching and high profit, than a lot of money by finding lots of little deals with a lot of time invested. This is of course a great topic for a pro and con article.
• Corner the market on fairly uncommon items only: If you’re looking to “corner the market” on something, like I did once with green rings with pretty nice stats, make sure there aren’t others who can come in on a regular basis and undercut you. This can mean buying up way too much inventory, and it taking a long time for your items to sell, at little profit margin. It’s a time waster.
• Great deals won’t last long: There are others who will recognize it, and that’s why when you learn to be a fast searcher and narrow your searches, you’ll find them more quickly. The more you look, the greater your chances of finding a deal that was just put up, but don’t be disappointed when you look and there just seems to be nothing. Come back in a bit and everything might have changed.
• Search for items with useful stats only: This is almost so obvious to the seasoned auctioneer that I forgot about adding it. Lots of items have stats that just aren’t useful for pure classes. The ones which sell best are the ones that pure classes can use, such as Mages, Priests, Warriors, Rogues. Not paladins, shamans, druids to some extent. These classes don’t rely so much on just one type of gear unless they are specialized, but everyone is different and it reflects in how fast pure class items sell over hybrid. Useful stats might be stamina + intellect for mages, or agility + stamina + atk power for rogues. A priest does not need that +5 strength in addition to the fairly useful +intellect and spirit. Therefore the item will be valued less because the +5 strength comes at the cost of something else that could be better.
• Weapons are almost always more valuable than armor: at least until the very late game where people will be looking for rare crafted armor or specific gear. This does not mean to stop searching for armor. Even armor has great deals with fairly high cost items. But in general, a good weapon will sell faster than a good piece of armor. For several reasons. What’s the first thing you usually look at when examining someone’s inventory? Nearly always, it’s their weapon.

Stay tuned for Part II

Tags: auction house, searching