Here's a tip: Primal Nethers in completed items are worth far more on the AH than the "raw" Nethers are in the trade channel. Leatherworkers in the trade channel often advertise that they're making Nethercobra leg armors "your mats my nether" for 100g or even less. Yet you can probably easily sell this leg armor on the AH for the cost of the non-nether mats plus 200g. This is how I made my epic mount money. I bought the primal airs/cobra scales/knothide leather for Nethercobra armor in advance. Then, whenever I saw someone advertising in /trade about making Nethercobra armor I bought all their nethers, then immediately put the armors on the AH marked up 100-150g higher than what I paid for the mats. I NEVER had an armor fail to sell, and I went through at least 40.

FYI: Some people will get very, VERY pissed at you if they figure out you took all their nethers and then put the finished product on the AH at a huge markup. If you don't want to deal with this, don't do it.

Using an alt quite easily solves that. It's akin to laundering, except there's nothing illegal.

That is the one I use. It also allows me to sell all the gray items to a vendor in a single click. You can also add certain white items to the "treat as gray list" like fish oil and fish scales.

I know Season 4 hasn't been announced yet, and sunwell really won't affect that many people on each server, so I was wondering what everyone thinks will be the next big market explosion (along the lines of season 3's first couple days). I have been stock piling LPS and other enchanting mats along with gems, but I'm curious on whether to just pull the trigger when the market seems good or wait it out for the chance to really make a killing. I suppose S4 will happen eventually, but will there be anything before that? Will WotLK be the next big event and therefore nullify all the stock piled BC mats?

I've earned around 8k gold using this strategy for two months now and so far no tailor or leatherworker became pissed at me for selling the finished product. (and its not like i can keep it a secret when i let them make it 10 pieces at once). I don't really understand why they would get angry at you, surely they use this strategy themselves if they wished.

I am a gem cutter. I usually buy the ore and sell the cut gems. About a week and a half ago the price of adamantite ore went from 22-25gp to 35-40gp literally over night. I have been trying to figure out why ever since. I would have said the miners were tired of seeing their ore sell instantly so they jacked it up. But all the names that were in the Gem/Ore market 2 weeks ago are not in the market now. Could this be competition from a new player in the market? The price of gems has gone up along with the price of the ore. This makes me think there are new cutters buying the expensive ore. Could this be one person trying to control the market?

My theory is that somebody is trying to push all the small timers out of the market. They have either made deals with the original miners to c.o.d. them the ore for cheap and/or are buying all the ore under their price on the AH. At first the gem market dried up. Now its coming back at double the price 2 weeks ago. Obviously this is due to the cutters buying the high priced adamantite ore.

My fear is that if I jump in to this over inflated market I am going to take a nasty loss when it crashes. My safe bet has been to wait it out. When can I be semi-sure the market is stable? Obviously if the price is going up on gems with the ore I am not in a position to take a loss unless the buyers decide enough is enough and stop buying the gems. That's when the market will come down. How do you judge what the buying public is going to do in WoW?

People considering doing this need to remember that the AH takes 5% of the sale. For a 1000g item, that is 50g of your profit that goes to the AH, so factor that into your price and your decision to do this.


It is tough to say exactly, as I do not play on your server, but I can throw some Econ 101 at you to help you figure it out. There are 3 goods involved here, Ore, Uncut gems, and Cut gems, but they are all very related and their Supply/demand curves move together.

1) The Supply curve shifts up/left. This happens when suppliers of a good suddenly find it is more difficult to produce the good, or some suppliers get out of the business. When this happens, Price goes Up and Quantity goes Down as a shortage develops. Something that might cause this right now is college students that spent there December break farming Ore are now back in class and unable to farm as much.

2) The Demand curve shifts up/right. This happens when people that buy a good suddenly need or want more of it. When this happens, Price goes Up and Quantity goes Up as people rush out to produce more of it. Something that might cause this is a lot of guilds getting back into raiding after the December break and farming a lot of new epic gear that requires cut gems.

3) A Upward Market Correction. This happens when an established price or price trend turns out to be unrealistic and unsustainable despite what people expect. This can cause some sudden and dramatic price changes like you are seeing that then stabilizes shortly thereafter. For example, Ore traded at 22-25g, jumped to 35-40g, and then might drop back down to 25-28g over the next 2-3 weeks where it will settle into its new long-term range higher than the one before. These dramatic and delayed reactions are caused by inventories being slowly depleted over time and then when the inventories are gone, the price spikes.

So, some questions to help you figure out which of these things is going on:
1) Which price went up first? The price of Gems or the price of Ore?
If the price of Gems went up first, that means that Demand shifted up, people started needing more gems and the JC's reacted by increasing their prices, and then were willing to pay more for the ore to create these gems.
If the price of Ore went up first, that means that Supply shifted up/left, the price of Ore went up, the JC's quit buying it at the higher price, and that caused a shortage of gems that then resulted in higher prices for gems.
2) Were there a lot of gems on the AH during this transition?
If there were 10-20 gems of every cut available and the price of gems was still going up, this is a sure sign of Demand going up/right. People were buying the gems up faster than miners/JCs could provide more.
If the number dwindled over a few days from normal levels down to nothing as the price moved up, it could be anything.
If all the gems suddenly disappeared, then it was likely a market correction as everyone's stockpiles suddenly sold out.

Some other things that might be going on, someone can be trying to play this market, however it is a big and expensive market to try to move on your own, and would likely require well over 10kG to do for a full week and a half.

As for what you should do, there are a few options:
1) Wait it out. Sell off your inventory and sit on the sideline for another week or so and then get back in when you feel comfortable. This is the safest path but yields no profit.
2) Keep crafting, but hold no inventory. Buy only a small amount of ore, prospect it, cut every gem and sell it right away. This exposes you to some risk as you have some inventory sitting on the AH waiting to sell, but allows you to make some money while the other JC's might be freaked out sitting on the sideline.
3) Keep going at full speed. Buy a bunch of ore, build up your inventory, and sell, sell, sell. This has the most risk as a price drop would leave you losing a lot of value in your inventory, but it could also net you big profits while other JC's are hiding.

edit: spelling

I just assumed people were doing the "your mats, my nether" trades rather than crafting and auctioning because it converts a nether into cash with no other investment in buying or farming mats, and no risk of producing an item which doesn't sell, or doesn't sell for as much as you hoped.

You've obviously made a bunch of cash getting people to craft with their nethers and then selling the finished product, but you've had to make an investment and take a risk to make that money.

Some people are irrational. I see people looking for an enchant and ask what they're tipping. When they say "5g" and I say "No thanks" many of them get extremely angry. What's their problem? It's literally not worth my time.

I haven't check the whole of this thread but I can just add my two cents, this was quite a while back though.

Skettis, Farming trees: (I'm Davve^^)

[14:51] <Davve^^> okey, close to 1h of grinding
[14:51] <Davve^^> not realy 1h, about 50 min
[14:53] <Davve^^> 81 mote of life, 36 ancient lichen, 20 terocone, 19 dreaming glory, 42 felweed, 18 mana thistle 2 greens

[14:57] <Davve^^> let's estimate, 8x primal life = ~80g , lichen = 20g, terocone= 30g, glory 15g, felweed 20g, manathistle 15g, greens ~4 =~= 184g

Another time @ Skettis, still farming trees.

[03:06] <Davve^^> there we go again
[03:06] <Davve^^> 1h of farming
[03:07] <Davve^^> 10x, primal life, 1x black lotus, 22x ancient lichen, 45x dreaming glory, 44xmana thistle, 45x felweed 14x terocone 1xgreen

iirc that was about 240g on AH at that time. (this was at 03 AM so I where quite alone and got most of them)

Yep, I do that all the time. Another question I ask is if they have all the mats and if they have them in their inventory. Too often I've agreed to do an enchant only to have the person say something like "hold on, I need to get 1 more LPS, blah blah blah". The moment they say that, any real profit from the transaction just went out the window. I would have been better off herbing or doing a daily. The biggest offenders tend to be twinks. But I also enjoy the enchants with no level requirements that are rare (20 spell school damage to gloves, 15 AGI to 1her, 25 AGI to 1her, etc) and people can't comprehend I'll ask for more than 5g to make it worth my while.

You missed the part about how difficult some enchanting recipes are to get. It's not as simple as just "pressing a button" in many cases.

This is what I use to one button prospect. As said below you, turn auto-looting on to wrap it up.

Edit: Also, be sure not to have any mismatched Adamantite Ore in your bags (i.e. any not in stacks of 5) or macro can error.

I don't think that I missed the part about how hard it is to get recipies for enchants. I have a 375 enchanter with quite a few of the endgame enchants, but I still don't feel compelled to resort to being an asshole to people. Maybe I'm just more forgiving than others who play this game.

I understand how it's hard to raise some tradeskills, but the ridiculious amount of money that Mining, JC, Enchanting, Alchemy can make doesn't give you the right of way to be a jackass to people.

Taking Enchanting for example, any 5 man instance that you run, there will most likely be items sharded into Large Prismatic Shards, which I see selling on AH currently for 30-35g every day. To say that it's so hard to get enchanting capped and to make an effort getting tradeskill recipies is absurd. Almost every other tradeskill requires a lot of work, or some luck with drops, but Enchanters are generally the only people who go out of their way to play the part of someone who has it incredibly rough.

I have no sympathy for the people who want to act like they deserve so much, considering I'm in just about the same place as most of them and don't see any need to act like I deserve more than anyone else.

I understand this arguement completely. As a 375 JC, I often respond to people asking for cuts. When you cut 3-5 blue quality gems for someone and they tip you 5g for it all, it's really a waste.

The last cut I bought, Teardrop Living Ruby, cost me 770g. To make my money back I will need to cut 154 of these gems at 5g a pop.

The whole "you only click a button" arguement is stupid and my reply is usually something like, "I had to click a lot of buttons over a lot of time to get the gold to get the cuts/designs to click this button once for you now. If you don't like that, find another JC." I often have people come back 10-15mins later, saying 5g was the best price they got.

5g per blue quality cut doesn't seem over the top to me.
Nor would paying 50g for a Mongoose or Executioner enchant.

For common cuts (as I expect with common enchants), I would happily just take tips - because if I try to set a price to charge, they will find someone else.

Though, JC's are a bit luckier than enchanters, in that we can cut and auction our goods for gold. Enchanters can only work of their 'serivce' fee.

I can't agree with the name calling of someone just because they won't do an enchant for 5g-tip. Before I was an enchanter I would pay MINIMUM 10g for even a vendor bought recipe with my mats, no crafting profession enchanting included is free to level.

Now that I am an enchanter, if it's someone I don't know and its less than 10g it really isn't worth the 30seconds to click, after usually being insulted I just hit the macro letting them know they are free to level enchanting themselves or continue to spam trade for another hour just to find someone else and save themselves the 10g.

Edit: Same goes for a blacksmith/leatherworker/gem cutter, I'll pay 10g even if they advertise "for free" or "for tips".

Two things. First, if you set a fee ahead of time, then that's your business. People know ahead of time what you expect and what you want for it. Same as any other profession can charge anything they like for their products. If you're asking people what they're planning on tipping you, and then disparaging them after because it's not worth your o-so-valuable time, then you're being an asshole.

Second, the cost analysis only works under the false assumption that everyone who asks you will buy from you whether you charge a lot or a little. Either that, or the somewhat suspect "slippery slope" argument, where word will get out of your generosity to one person and you'll never be able to charge any sort of premium again. Basically you have a one-time sunk cost into something that will immediately turn into straight profit. Turning away potential customers actually makes that enchant less valuable overall.

If a jewelcrafter wants to sell his gems, or an alchemist wants to sell his flasks, they must make some sort of initial investment into the mats. Once they have those mats, they have only one chance to sell their product, so it's in their best interest to get the best return possible for said product. Cutting a gem, or doing an enchant, has only the basic assumption that demand will exist for the service. There is no risk involved with any particular enchant or cut. In fact, you'd prolly maximize your return by lowering your fee and maximizing the quantity.

First point - Agree. I have a set price of 5g. If people offer more, bonus! If it's less, I don't work for you. But I try not to be an 'asshole' about it. In fact, I have even referred people to other JC's, only to have them come back to me anyway.

Second point - With what I said above 154 cuts at 5g each, to make back the investment. If I drop to 2g a cut (for example) I need to cut 385 to break even. Whilst this might work for really high demand items, it's gonna take a while for me to cut even the 154 cuts at 5g to break even, without going lower.
Though, that said, can I expect to turn a profit from just performing cuts? Probably not. I much prefer to sell my own gems on the AH. The 5g here and there from performing cuts is really a bonus.

All in all though, I agree, you can politely decline to work for someone, there isn't a need to be rude about it.

I've had an enchanter for a long time, and the only times I felt like I had to charge were for enchants that were expensive to buy (i.e. Crusader) or you had to grind for (hello +15 Agility). Anything else is fair game for whatever people want to tip.

(Just saying +15 Agility brings me back Furbolg nightmares...)

You might have a point if you actually would be doing that with your spare time. But most 'mandatory fee' enchanter tend to sit in town, spam their macro, and do some AH browsing.

Personally, I don't mind tipping big on enchants that actually take time to farm. But if you want 50g for that 20 spellpower glove enchant, you can go shove it.

I've had a lot of luck lately with random fluctuations in the gem market. For example, both Royal Nightseye and Runed Living Ruby sold for 20g+ above the uncut gem price. It only lasted for 3-4 days, but I guess it was a combination of high demand for those gems, plus other JCs taking a few days to notice the price increase, and those that did notice the increase didn't undercut each other too much. Pulled in ~300g over those 3-4 days simply by buying out uncut gems, cutting them, and relisting them. Easy money

Other big money earners seem to be JC patterns and rare Darkmoon cards (5-8, ace). Both can usually be picked up cheaper than market value from people wanting a quick sale in the trade channel. I usually have better luck with JC patterns as they are in moderate demand, and the market isn't saturated, but if you are careful you can net a nice profit from both.

Can we please not derail a thread about making gold with people who get offended over the very idea of people trying to make gold with enchanting? This thread is full of discussions about how to manipulate prices, capture arbitrage opportunities, corner markets, form cartels, convert raw commodities into finished products efficiently, and otherwise have fun with the WoW economy while maximizing your gold/hour. Then suddenly we get to enchants, and someone starts ranting about how it's immoral to pay someone 10g to click a button. Please tell me you realize how retarded this makes you sound.

(The very worst thing you can say about people who demand a minimum tip of 5g (or 10g, or 50g) is that it might not be the most effective way for them to maximize their gold income. And it's by no means obvious that is isn't. An hour of spamming trade might net you...one enchant every ten minutes? At 5g each, that's 30g. True, you can browse the AH while doing so, but you've probably spent ~15 minutes just running around, meeting people, telling them the mat list (twice), waiting while they get the last shard, etc. An hour of farming might net you 150g easily. Can you really net enough from 45m of AH browsing in between dealing with confused twinks to make up the 120g difference? Probably not; AH browsing suffers from high diminishing returns. And if you are feeling too lazy to farm, doing fewer enchants for twice the fee nets you a similar total amount of gold (depends on elasticity of demand) and more uninterrupted time to talk on /g. Not obviously crazy.)