Direct Damage

This could prove to be a bit of a touchy subject, as some people who I associate with in game feel I am a braggart or similarly do "crazy" things on the AH.  This couldn't be further from the truth.  I only tell people about making money to spark interest in hopes I can find just one person willing to learn what I have discovered.


I will likely make some follow-up posts regarding this that are more specific.  As for generalities; I finally broke 100,000g on my AH character about 2 weeks ago.  Most of the income came from flask and frost lotus sales.  The rest came from selling cut gems and some mild speculation.


Before I get into the weeds, I want to give credit where it's due.  Check out Markco's information on his blog and YouTube channel and visit the JMTC Forums, where I am one of the moderators.  Markco and the community members on the forums helped me make the changes I discuss below that eventually led to my moneymaking.


One hundred thousand gold may seem like a lot of money to some, and yet I don't feel I put an exorbitant amount of time or effort into making it.  I just took a step back and had to make a few fundamental changes.


First and foremost, I realized that to make appreciable amounts of money (over 1000g per day), you have to deal in volume.  Believe it or not, this doesn't take a lot of money.  For example, you have 500g to spend.  Netherweave Cloth is selling for 3g per stack, and there are 30 stacks on the AH.  Netherweave Bags are selling for 10g each (one stack of cloth + 1 rune thread makes a bag).  Instead of buying, say, 5 stacks and making bags, buy *all* of the cloth.  You have just made 30 Netherweave Bags for 3g each.  You can now undercut and still make great profit.  It also means that when someone comes along and posts more cloth, but at 8g per stack, you are able to sell your bags at a lower price than someone else coming along after you.


This is greatly simplified -- and I will likely copy pasta a great post from Zamboni with more detail later -- but you get the idea.  If you have the money, buy *all* of the cheap stuff that you can.  It will only make you more money down the line.


Secondly, check the AH regularly.  Scan the AH while you're eating dinner or taking a shower in the morning before work.  Give Auctioneer a chance to work for you by giving you an idea of what the market is doing.  The better you know your market, the better you will be able to gauge when you can pick up mats for cheap and when you can sell your items for the most profit.


This leads to the third major realization:  Leverage your professions as much as possible.  I have a level 51 Hunter who has tailoring just so I can use her to make Netherweave Bags for profit.  Professions are the single best way to make money in the game because they require negligible effort (i.e. making stacks of items), and they process raw materials; which keeps them out of the hands of your competition.


These were pretty much the major philosophical hurdles I had to jump to get myself to the next level.  I didn't want to do a slew of dailies anymore, so this is what I had to do to make money to finance my in-game efforts.