Goblin Mindset: Characteristics of starter markets

Obviously starting out is the hardest part of goldmaking. Today I will take a look at what you should look for when trying to find a good way into goldmaking. 

What are you trying to optimize?

Before we can look at which markets are good we have to know what we are trying to achieve. When you are starting out your gold total will be very limited. It will be easy to find materials to buy for any specific market to enter and thus spending yourself down to zero. 
Your goal is to start getting items onto the Auction house and getting sales as quickly as possible. Obviously you want to generate gold so you can spend it on more items to craft, recipes and other things that will accelerate your goldmaking. 

Getting the items on the AH

The first thing you need to figure out is of course if you can craft the item. If you are starting out with a fresh character or in a fresh expansion you will have to get the recipes you want to craft. You may not be able to access recipes due to rep requirements or because you haven’t leveled your profession skill. Long term recipes like this will usually have higher profit margins, but it’s more important to get something out for sale with 20% profit margin than waiting for 30%. 

Examples in BfA include cooking recipes, 8.3 ones in particular, Tome of the Quiet Mind, the enchanting shuffle and other easy to get recipes. 

Sale rate

Getting your gold back quickly is very important, and something I’ve written about extensively. You want something that will sell quickly. This means it will almost always be some form of end-game consumable or other power increasing items. Players buy way more of any items they use up on a daily basis, and this should always be your focus if possible. 

Something you can afford to craft

Obviously you need to stick to cheaper items. If you can’t afford to buy or craft the item you will never obviously be able to sell it either. The items should be cheaper, it also means you can post more different items. You don’t want to post just one item type as that will limit your potential sale rate. If you have more different items you are more likely to get a sale than if you only have one item for sale. 

Example markets in BfA

So let’s take a look at some examples that tick all of these boxes in BfA: 

8.3 cooking recipes

I used these extensively the last time I did the 30 days to a token challenge. By now the profitable is down on a lot of servers, but this one hits all the right boxes. Easy to get, as you can learn all the recipes at skill 1, relatively cheap, and of course it’s consumable. Players don’t use these as much any more though, as many players are now mostly done with visions, but they still represent a great case study for an entry level market. 

Tome of the Quiet Mind

Tome of the Quiet mind is learned at skill 1, and the rank 2 recipe is obtained from skill 50. Being consumable and needed for players looking to eke out every bit of advantage it will always have a pretty strong sale rate. leveling Inscription and crafting this is relatively cheap, so unless you need rank 3 to be profitable it is a great option for getting started.

Prospecting

Prospecting can often be a good market, as it only requires you to have skill 1 in jewelcrafting. It is often a little on the expensive side, as you usually have to move a decent volume, but we’ll see how it looks in Shadowlands. 

Summary

These are not the only markets that fit the bill, there are plenty of others out there. The important thing is that you focus on markets with

  • Low capital requirements
  • Easy to get recipes
  • Items that are useful for max level characters
  • Preferably consumable items

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