Today I will dive into some axioms or ideas that underpin successful gold making. I already did a post on common misconceptions of gold making and today’s post will essential be the opposite of that one. This is not an exhaustive list, but it will give you some idea of what you should focus on to reach the next level.
More is more
I’ve already covered this idea in an entire post of it’s own. WoW is a game of activity and all else being equal, spending more time will make you more gold. For a great example of how you can spend your time doing profitable stuff take a look at this post on the woweconomy subreddit. This guy managed 10 million in sales the last month, which is really impressive. Frequent undercutting featured prominently as one of his tactics, as well as farming his own transmog.
Personally I try to increase my activity by running shopping and post scans more regularly across all of my realms.
Learn by doing
Most gold making techniques are very simple. Buy something cheap and sell it for more gold. There are no huge secret markets that will make you rich. You get rich by consistently doing stuff that makes you money.
Gold making is very much not an area for theory crafting. The best way to learn is by actively trying stuff out. Analysis is only really useful once you have started applying the basics.
Diversify your operation
If you want long term success you need to be active in ore than one market. You can diversify by being active in the same market across multiple realms or you can enter new markets on your current realm. You always want to increase the value of the stock you post on the auction house to increase your total sales.
As time goes by you should experiment with increasing your operation gradually until you either hit the point of really diminishing returns or you hit your ceiling in terms of time available to play.
Flipping beats crafting beats farming
The most efficient way to make gold in the game by far is to flip items. This is incredibly time efficient and the potential profits are huge. Crafting is the second best main method as it has very nice asynchronous payoffs. You can spend 3 hours crafting and you will gradually sell the stuff off over several days or weeks. I have covered this idea in depth before.
Remember that it’s a game
World of Warcraft is just a game. While gold making can save you real life money you should try to avoid taking your gold too seriously. Don’t be afraid of risking your gold. It will serve you well if you can avoid becoming too emotionally involved in your own gold making operation. As any gameplay activity it should primarily be fun.
Items are only profitable if they sell
Profit margin is a great measure of how well you are doing, but it is not the be all end all. Your total profits will be impacted both by your profit margins and the amount of w get on a daily basis. Having a lower profit margin, but more sales will often be a great trade-off and you should not be afraid of using larger undercuts.
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