Lich King Auction House – Market Stabalizing
Dec 2nd, 2008 by tyson
On the main server I’m experimenting with, the market is finally starting to react with fairly predictable results. The most interesting is that while I had a slow period for about a week where I was always at +1k-2k gold net profit and had more inventory in the auction house, suddenly I find myself in the +3k-4k net profit with still another 2-3k gold in inventory. Soon I’ll be sitting at around 8k gold in the bank when I started with just 2k a few weeks ago.
Some observations about the Lich King AH:
- More epics: Mid level 70 epic items have started to appear, even if just crafted – not a lot but a few
- Duplicate epics: People enjoying raising their crafting skills are trying out the market, resulting in mostly crafted epics being sold. This supply is lowering the demand and price of nearly the entire epic market. Why? The price of nearly-as-good crafted gear sets a baseline and one can only sell a naturally found epic so much higher before it becomes absurd and unlikely to sell. There’s an exception to everything though and I’m sure there will be some epics that sell way better than others due to supply and stats – remember “Blinkstrike” when it first started appearing in Burning Crusade?
- Crafted blues are taking over: From level 70 through 80, by far the highest volume of goods are crafted blues. In fact it’s so different from when Burning Crusade came out and almost all items then were found off mobs. Now you’ll essentially have to wade through pages of blue crafted gear to find those unique items. They’re not too hard to spot though and you always have allakhazam or wowhead.
- New Epic market still not viable: Prices are generally too high / risky with the crafted gear pulling the epic market down. However, this makes deals stand out and if you’re fortunate enough to find one (and you should always check since it’s so quick and easy now), you can profit. I made a 600g profit off the Putrescent Bands I bought for 999g. Originally put them back up for 1999g, but after relisting, found a competitor. Naturally I had to undercut, and did so by only about 70g. Mine sold however and the other did not. Always be aware of competitors to your listed items and if needed, cancel yours and relist… it’s worth it. Just remember that if you have to go too low, just cancel and wait for theirs to sell, then relist back at a decent profit.
- All the old tricks still work: Everything that I went over in the podcasts and in the earlier posts is still applicable in this market with this exception. Armor is now just as big a seller as weapons in general at the rare and epic levels. When you’re leveling your character and pre-BC, armor used to play second fiddle – except for the set pieces which at the time was a huge profit niche. Now however, it’s worth exploring as people have more money and are looking for those incremental upgrades.
