5 simple tips to maximize your profit at the Auction House

In my farming posts I often tell you to "sell it at the Auction House", but never really mention HOW! Well, here you have it! The Auction House strategies of the friendly neighborhood druid!

The Auction House is more than a just a fancy vendor. There are ways to make good money there, and ways to not. A lot of the time when visiting the AH, I see people practically wasting their money, throwing it out of the window. This is more often than not due to them being impatient, and also that they think of the AH like a vendor. When the AH in fact is an interface allowing you to communicate with several customers at once.

If you wish to make good money at the AH, you need to think like a customer. What do you want, what do you need, and what do you usually buy yourself? I have broken it down to some simple rules, that usually give you the highest profit:

1. Timing
2. Smart stacking
3. The right amount
4. Correct duration
5. The right price

Timing

This truly is everything. A while back I sold Greater Eternal Essences for 195g each. Which is quite a bit above their usual average value. I was there when people wanted it and the Auction House was almost empty. I profited. 

You need to check the Auction House daily for the items you usually traffic in. 

If you, like me, buy ores and herbs at the AH, make sure you buy it when it is cheap! When ores are close to 20g a stack or lower, I really buy in a good supply. When the ores are at 30g or higher, I simply don't buy them. Which is most of the time. The result is that I get super cheap ores and much higher profit than if I had been buying a minor supply on a daily basis. With good timing also comes the need for good bank space. You'll be needing several private guild banks as well as full character banks on all your alts in order to truly profit from the Auction House. 

Same goes for items you sell. If the AH us especially full of an item, and prices are pushed really down, then you simply don't sell! You sit on your mats and products for weeks if needed. Patience is a virtue, and a quite valuable one at that!

Smart Stacking

When you sell an item, you should always make sure you have the smartest possible stack size.

When it comes to enchanter mats, you might be better off selling full stacks, especially if it's lower level mats, as they are often bought by leveling enchanters. If it's cut gems, one by one is the obvious choice. If it's uncut, it all depends on whether it's something that will be bought by leveling Jewelcrafters, or Jewelcrafters doing their daily quest. You'll have to think about what you post, and who will be buying it.

The Right Amount

So you heard that Jewelcrafting is the number one money maker. You went out and bought 2000 ores, prospected them all, and now you have like 35 Delicate Inferno Rubies finished cut and want to sell them. So you post all 35 at the Auction House. Right? 

WROOOONG!!

You should NEVER under any circumstance post more than 3 or 4. You will always without exception be undercut if your gems remain at the AH for more than a few hours. Only post what you expect will sell fairly fast. Spamming the AH will only make your auctions devaluate themselves, meaning nobody will buy them because somebody undercut you, and that prices will keep dropping because all the morons are undercutting each other with gross amounts of gems. 

Don't be a moron. Don't mindlessly undercut because you were dumb enough to spam the AH in the first place! Be smart! Less is more, even here.

The Right Duration

So you got your stack sizes fixed, you got your amount ready, now all you need to do is to put the auctions up at 48h and wait, right? Once again, wrong!

If you expect something to sell fast, you put it at 12h. This usually includes cloth, gems, food and everything that truly can be considered "consumer products". 

If you came across a valuable recipe or very rare BoE epic, 48h might be the right duration, since these are things not bought by very many, and not very frequently. If your BoE epic is one of those that there at any given time is 10-20 of at the Auction House on the other hand, you don't want it any longer than 12h. After all, everything has a deposit, and more often than not that deposit is a complete waste.


The Right Price
In danger of sounding like a cheesy game show or bad commercial, I'll say it anyway; If the price isn't right, you won't sell anything!

First of all you should have some addon that can track the average prices on your server for whatever products you are trafficking in. Secondly it is important to consider all of the above tips when posting, and a bit more than that too. You simply don't post if the AH is totally flooded with an item, unless it is a consumer product like cloth or food which sells as fast as you can create it, of course. If you do choose to post however, you must be careful not to brainlessly undercut the competition. If there are 100 listings of cloth, and the 2 cheapest are WAY cheaper than the rest, you don't undercut those 2, you undercut the other 98 auctions. Depending on their price of course.

If an item sells faster than people put it up at the AH, then you can safely overprice yourself. You'll sell the item anyway. You'll have to consider every auction, and not simply click the "post" button. The market changes, and you need to watch it.




This concludes my little lesson for today. These simple tips are always valid, and will always help you get the most out of the Auction House.


Cheers!