I set out to change the way I post glyphs. I moved away from QA2 and started using Auctioneer batch posting. I moved from several listings a day to once every 48 hours. With auctioneer I set my price to market price with 60 silver undercut and posted 4 at a time. I basically used the exact settings of another blogger that promotes this method. I ran this method for 2 weeks. The first weeks data was discarded because I know this is long term strategy and wanted the numbers to even out.
The second week of using auctioneer gave me 3,000G in sales. I know many people would be lucky to get that much in sales a week. But when I look back at previous results, my sales are way down. At the same time, the time I spent on glyphs was minimal. In that respect the gold per hour was much greater. I had weeks where I was making more than 3,000 in sales a day easily. More recently before I started this test I was still pulling in just over 1,000g a day. The effect this had on me was unexpected.
I had a few other markets I worked lightly where I did this same thing too. My results in those markets were much better than I previously had. Working the AH was one of the few things I was doing in wow. I would log into my main for raids but with new content so close our drive to raid current content has slowed down. So I am raiding less. Using Auctioneer, I am posting and walking away from the computer more. With 48 hour auctions, I was not even logging in on days where I had no raids or auctions to be posted. My wow time cut way back. I wanted to have a 3rd week of data but ended up missing a few postings here and there from not logging into wow.
With me not camping the AH as much, several markets shifted on me. For a long time I suspected that I maintained the price of herbs on the server. This proved to be true when I was not there to buy out all the low priced herbs every 4-5 hours. Checking every 48 hours I saw tons of herbs at dirt cheap prices. I had held them up high going on 3 months and now when I look in on them they are so cheap that I almost can’t resist buying out everything. But with me not selling as much, I don’t think I should stock up on so many. (I’m already way over stocked).
I see that I am slowing down with wow. Not playing as much. I am just not as involved in the game as I was before. I am practiclay taking a break from wow. Although my breaks from wow never last long. With that I return to my family as we make prepare for the holiday infront of us. I wish you all a good week. Happy Thanksgiving.
Are you really so disappointed that markets are shifting without you, though? All the free time you’ve gained can surely be better spent in RL than in WoW. So isn’t it worth it to let the markets adjust on their own while you still make acceptable gold in WoW and have acceptable time in RL?
Comment by Xaxziminrax the Second — November 26, 2009 @ 5:26 am
I did shift all my time to other things. All of it was just as productive as playing wow though. And I still make more than acceptable amounts of gold. It does not take much gold to cover raiding 2 or 3 nights a week.
My issue with markets shifting is a minor one. When a price is stable for so long I just know the value of everything related to it. I also know at what price to instantly buy at. When things shift I have to go back to the math behind them and decide is this a new market price or just a short term thing. It also changes the profit I can make on things I stocked up on. I just have to think a little more about things before using my gut feelings.
Comment by Kevmar — November 26, 2009 @ 9:46 am
If you don’t mind, what’s the advantage of using Auctioneer to post every 48 hours
instead of doing that with QA2?
You’d still be doing the same, which is undercut the next person by the same amount.
I know that Auctioneer ignores outliers, but as far as I know, you modified your own QA to
ignore the under threshold glyphs and undercut the next profitable one.
Comment by debussy — November 26, 2009 @ 3:08 pm
I’m not going to call it advantage but a different style. Not only does Auctioneer ignore outliers, it limits the fluxuation of market price. With 48 hours you are looking for a price that will sell in 48 hours. Once you get glyphs to hold at a true market value, Auctineer will be able to find that value. QA allows the market to float up and down at will.
This is why I see Auctioneer as a long term strat. You have to let it drive the prices down far enough that the QA players move out and allow it to move prices back up. This can take a lot of time. In theory the moving prices back up is the point where Auctioneer’s market price is the better method. It keeps you in control of the market without making it tempting for competition to move in. I cannot comment on that because I never made it that far.
Comment by Kevmar — November 26, 2009 @ 8:56 pm
I’m interested to see how the experiment goes long term. One thing I like about Auctioneer is that I can say – queue 6 of glyph X, but only 2 of Glyph Y.
Other than that, I doubt that for something like glyphs Auctioneer would work very well. Glyphs are incredibly cheap to make, sometimes the cost of making a glyph is close to 0g. This makes undercutting very inviting to the competition.
I’m currently doing something else — being extremely aggressive with my undercutting. I post glyphs at 25g, but if someone undercuts me, the price immediately drops to 3g. If I get undercut at 3g I don’t care, because I don’t have to craft. If they leave, my glyphs go back to 25g. I am going to see how well these settings work at pushing the other guys out.
Leaving Inscription would never be an option for me. I have 13000 inks and the stash is growing. Even if I do decide to leave, I’d have to dispose of all that ink, which could take a long time.
Buying me out is not an option for my competition. They’ll run out of bag space before I run out of glyphs. So I think that eventually I’ll drive my competition out, even the well established glyph makers will go.
Comment by debussy — November 26, 2009 @ 11:00 pm
Sorry if it’s obvious, but is there a way to have kevtoolqueue use market price instead of min. buyout?
Comment by Peekay — November 27, 2009 @ 9:25 pm
No built in way. But I make just one call to auctioneer to get the min buyout. You could prabbably go change that to one that asks for market price. Im not sure what call that is so good luck.
Comment by Kevmar — November 28, 2009 @ 10:14 am
How many glyphs do you put up on AH during a single session?
48hr auction time lets you post three times in a week. I’m wondering how many glyphs you post in order to make 3k gold in a week.
thanks
Comment by Frostshock — December 11, 2009 @ 9:49 am