This is an issue not with the profession, but with the actions of the scribes in the first few weeks of 3.1. It was clear to some that a glyph book that awarded a single *random* glyph was not worth 1,000g or more, yet those prices were commonplace for weeks (and some were paying multiples of that, even). You could get them all now on my server for 50-70g each, which gives the opportunity to make your investment back despite the highly competitive and slow-selling nature of glyphs. Personally I've made a small fortune in the glyph market going back to 3.0, but it didn't involve sinking tens of thousands on glyph mastery books, because the economics just didn't make sense to me.
Point being, this is a market that takes time and patience, and you can't bully your way in with a large investment like some other markets.
This (the part I highlighted in bold) is not always true. I had a turnover of higher than the gold cap gold in the 3 days after the patch. Read my previous posts (there are only a few and they all deal with glyphs) if you want to know how/why. I could charge over 1000g PER glyph if I was the only one with it and it was a MUST have for raiding.
Sometimes it makes sense to be able to corner a market completely and force other people to pay too much to get in on the action.
This (the part I highlighted in bold) is not always true. I had a turnover of higher than the gold cap gold in the 3 days after the patch. Read my previous posts (there are only a few and they all deal with glyphs) if you want to know how/why. I could charge over 1000g PER glyph if I was the only one with it and it was a MUST have for raiding.
Sometimes it makes sense to be able to corner a market completely and force other people to pay too much to get in on the action.
Yes, but that all boiled down to getting lucky on the glyph discovery (and others getting unlucky), which amounts to gambling. There are no good business cases for gambling (FedEx aside =P).
I thought this would be the case as well, but Nightmare Tears only go for 10-15g more than Dragon's Eyes on my server, which is at or a bit under the cost of the 5 Infinite Dust. Add to that the fact that it's a very slow-moving cut, since you can only have 1 and it's only good for a few classes.
Indeed, this depends A LOT on your server.
I transferred recently, on my old server, I managed to keep Tear prices at 500+ g for almost a week. While they were around 400, I transferred to my current server, where tears are barely a profit sometimes.
Though a Nightmare Tear is one of those things you can sell at 400% of the regular prices as long as you have little competition and 'stupid' buyers. (my record is 780g for one tear on patch day, and I actually got 500 for one 2 days ago on my current server)
As with everything, competition and timing is key.
edit: and actually, this topic really shouldn't be about what you do with your dragon's eyes. The comment was about keeping a clear view of cost vs profit. Let's just hope people are smart enough to extrapolate this to profit vs larger profit.
Yes, but that all boiled down to getting lucky on the glyph discovery (and others getting unlucky), which amounts to gambling. There are no good business cases for gambling (FedEx aside =P).
Not at all. I forced the book price to 5k and tried to keep it there. Got all the books. Then raped the market. After that people still expected to get 3-5k per book and would not sell for less. Did I make less than I could have if I had not done this ? I am not sure. Did I make a lot ? Enough for the "Total earned from AH sales" to get to -232k, then back up to positive. Mostly, this was a strategy to burn a lot of the competition when they had to pay lots for books...
So does anyone have any experience with Marketwatcher purging itself? Before I went to bed last night it was working fine, got up today and it had no scan data and no items loaded...
Detailed scan data on 40 items back to May down the drain. >.<
So does anyone have any experience with Marketwatcher purging itself? Before I went to bed last night it was working fine, got up today and it had no scan data and no items loaded...
Detailed scan data on 40 items back to May down the drain. >.<
Always keep a back up of your Interface/WTF directory. Personally, I used a SVN server which I commit updates to every night, but just making a rar/zip file would probably work too. The main incentive for using SVN was that it essentially does incremental backups, and that I can go back to a previous version of my interface (including settings) at any point in time.
An easier alternative is to use CrashPlan and back it up locally (external disc preferably) and to another destination (a friend who uses CrashPlan). It's free to use.
Originally Posted by Wraithlin
Do your hospitals have unusually narrow doorways?
If not how do "lifestyle choices" explain the waiting time statistics?
Titanium Ore is currently selling for 600-700g on my server (great for me, as I had been saving about 40 stacks since before 3.1 was announced). The thing is, I can't figure out why. Epic gems are selling for about 150g tops, with most being closer to 100g. Rare gems are selling for 20g tops.
What on earth is making Titanium Ore so valuable, when prospecting yields at best a LOSS of 300-400g, and I can't imagine the powder is THAT valuable to people.
What on earth is making Titanium Ore so valuable, when prospecting yields at best a LOSS of 300-400g, and I can't imagine the powder is THAT valuable to people.
Titanium Dust and people being impatient completists is the only thing I can figure.
On my server its running about 300g a stack which is still high but if you utilize all the prospected materials you can probably squeeze a profit.
Titanium powder is seemingly rare on my server. On the odd chance that I'm able snatch up some titanium ore relatively cheap, I'm able to sell dust for ~350g per stack of 10. The competition is non-existant. I suppose people still want designs as quickly as they can grab them.
Anyone with PTR experience on the actual drop rates of cosmics and dusts? Abyss are still 30ish on my server, with cosmics at half that, so the outs of it would have to be generous to make any stacking worth it.
Glyphs will sell whether they cost 80g or 5g, the demand is just pretty low since most people don't swap specs that often with dual spec. I've sold a arcane blast glyphs for 160g each just because there weren't any up, when people are willing to pay any price for something it's not smart to undercut by huge amounts.
The reason why glyphs don't sell quickly is not because the price is high but because the demand is low.
You can't claim that the laws of supply and demand don't apply in less liquid markets like glyphs. If you post a glyph for 80g, on average, you will sell less of them than if you posted it at 30g, even if you are the only person with the recipe. The question is what price will give you the highest profit considering that a lower margin will sell more volume.
You can't claim that the laws of supply and demand don't apply in less liquid markets like glyphs.
Beelz simply has a much different interpretation of exactly where the Demand curve lays. Not a lot of people want an AB glyph, but when they do, they want it right-friggin-now and cost-be-damned.
I agree with Beelz in that people simply are not very price-sensitve when it comes to Major Glyphs. No one delays a glyph purchase due to price. When no one else is posting your glyphs, you effectively have a monopoly and can set whatever price you want.
Beelz simply has a much different interpretation of exactly where the Demand curve lays. Not a lot of people want an AB glyph, but when they do, they want it right-friggin-now and cost-be-damned.
I agree with Beelz in that people simply are not very price-sensitve when it comes to Major Glyphs. No one delays a glyph purchase due to price. When no one else is posting your glyphs, you effectively have a monopoly and can set whatever price you want.
6 months ago, when I was a hardcore raider, I might have agreed with you. But after quitting, then returning as a casual player with casual guildies/friends, I have to respectfully disagree. There is a large group of players for which an 80g glyph will seem vastly overpriced, and since they are not raiding, and in a lot of cases not even 80, they will wait on that purchase.
6 months ago, when I was a hardcore raider, I might have agreed with you. But after quitting, then returning as a casual player with casual guildies/friends, I have to respectfully disagree. There is a large group of players for which an 80g glyph will seem vastly overpriced, and since they are not raiding, and in a lot of cases not even 80, they will wait on that purchase.
That, has nothing to do with his point.
You might not spend the 80g, but the hardcore raider who is in need NOW NOW NOW would. And that is who he is catering too, not people like you.
Originally Posted by arison
Everyone should start from the same place and rise based on their abilities, desires, and schedule. No one plays MMOs to *be* powerful, they play MMOs to *become* powerful. It's the journey, stupid. The rarer loot is, the more cherished it is when you get it, but only so long as there is a reasonable expectation to get it. The rarer loot is, the better it feels when you kill a boss or when $AWESOME_TRINKET drops.
6 months ago, when I was a hardcore raider, I might have agreed with you. But after quitting, then returning as a casual player with casual guildies/friends, I have to respectfully disagree. There is a large group of players for which an 80g glyph will seem vastly overpriced, and since they are not raiding, and in a lot of cases not even 80, they will wait on that purchase.
Wait for what exactly? If you're the only person posting that glyph, there's no incentive to lower the price (maybe if you see that you've reposted many many times with no competition and it still hasn't sold, but I'm not finding that to happen, even with glyphs that I'd think no one would ever use). So they have two things they could wait for: 1) until they decide to buy it despite the price or 2) wait until they don't want it anymore. In case 1 you make the gold anyway, it's just delayed. In case 2, they probably decided to buy a different glyph, which either you are selling for profit or it is being sold by someone else at a loss, because the only glyphs you're not selling are the ones that don't make any gold (or you haven't learned yet, but I'm going with the assumption you know all of them).
You might not spend the 80g, but the hardcore raider who is in need NOW NOW NOW would. And that is who he is catering too, not people like you.
It's quite relevant. The discussion, tracing back to Beelz' post, is one concerning overall glyph demand. It's not clear whether Beelz' point is the same as Doktre's, but reading Doktre's post in context of the discussion it's fairly obvious why someone would bring up the casual market. It may be hyperbolic, but his point ignores a significant portion of the market when he says "no one" waits to buy glyphs.
Originally Posted by barrettj
Wait for what exactly? If you're the only person posting that glyph, there's no incentive to lower the price (maybe if you see that you've reposted many many times with no competition and it still hasn't sold, but I'm not finding that to happen, even with glyphs that I'd think no one would ever use). So they have two things they could wait for: 1) until they decide to buy it despite the price or 2) wait until they don't want it anymore. In case 1 you make the gold anyway, it's just delayed. In case 2, they probably decided to buy a different glyph, which either you are selling for profit or it is being sold by someone else at a loss, because the only glyphs you're not selling are the ones that don't make any gold (or you haven't learned yet, but I'm going with the assumption you know all of them).
A better price or incentive. You may not have a reason to lower the price, but they don't have a reason to believe that you will always be the only one with that glyph, or even that the glyph in question is necessary for their play. In many cases they'll purchase the glyph if it's cheap, but if it isn't they'll just wait until a scribe they know logs on. Unless either the price changes, or something increases their incentive to buy it (a new patch, for example) they can wait in perpetuity.
Last edited by Montegomery : 08/26/09 at 8:38 PM.
What I lack in intelligence I make up for in verbosity.
You might not spend the 80g, but the hardcore raider who is in need NOW NOW NOW would. And that is who he is catering too, not people like you.
If he is trying to make as much money as possible (the purpose of this thread), he will find the equilibrium price and cater to both, thus maximizing overall profit. It seems rather counterproductive to me to ignore such a large segment of the market. We can argue the slope of the demand curve all day, but my post was suggesting that his view of demand is erroneous, and I think it will help other Scribes make their own determinations of where the demand curve lay.
Darian covered everything else in response to your and barrett's posts.
You can't claim that the laws of supply and demand don't apply in less liquid markets like glyphs. If you post a glyph for 80g, on average, you will sell less of them than if you posted it at 30g, even if you are the only person with the recipe. The question is what price will give you the highest profit considering that a lower margin will sell more volume.
I don't see any claim that the laws of supply and demand didn't apply to the glyph market. All he was saying was that glyph demand is low. I've tried posting lots of the same glyph in the 5-10 gold range versus 20-30 gold. There wasn't some big latent demand that cropped up. There was an increase but it didn't counterbalance the loss of profit margin. People don't buy more than 3 glyphs at a time, and that's 3 different glyphs too.
The glyph market has several features that distinguish it from say the titanium market
1) Extremely low production costs. It’s generally about 2.5 gold for one glyph on my server
2) Low auction fees. 45 coppers for 1 glyph. Contrast that to 1 gold for a titanium bar.
3) Low steady, somewhat unpredictable demand for a given glyph. But predictable sales overall if you post many different glyphs.
4) High profit margins. 2.5 gold per glyph to make while selling them for 15-30 gold. I've tried setting ones at 40-80 gold when I have the only ones but those usually are undercut or sell less often.
5) The necessity for undercuts
The biggest contrast in my experience between the glyph market and the titanium ore/bar or flask markets is that if I get undercut I usually don't sell very much. In order to get about 1K in sales, of 40-50 glyphs at 20-30 gold each, I need to log on at least 2-3 times a day to undercut. On the other hand I can post ores/flasks in the middle of pack and expect to get some sales without the necessity of undercuts. So what that says to me is low demand.
The best part about glyphs is the profit margin and the steadiness of income. While you can't predict if a certain glyph will sell on a given day; you know that posting enough different glyphs you guarantee some sales. The more active you are the more you make. And that is the downside, you need to be actively undercutting, have a large glyph library, and the enough resources to make dozens or hundreds of glyphs.
Different servers are going to have a different optimum price points. For it's been in the 20-30 gold range with no or low competition.
Unrelated from all this glyph discussion; has anyone with a PTR char had the chance to get some numbers on that new shatter spell? Would be very interesting to see how the market reacts to it.
The glyph market has several features that distinguish it from say the titanium market
There's a few crucial ones you didn't mention.
6. Lack of transparency. Glyphs are produced from inks which are produced from pigments which are milled from herbs. At some point, most people fall off track. It's relatively difficult to backtrack a glyph into it's original costs, in comparison to a titanium bar which is obviously a sum of titanium ore, or a runed scarlet ruby which is produced from a scarlet ruby. How many of you non-scribes can say, from the top of your heads, what herbs a glyph of mana gem needs? Low transparency on the production means less information on the customer, and more effort in obtaining this information, then obtaining herbs, asking for them to be milled into a random score of pigments, then inks, then some glyphs. This means, many will simply skip the headache and buy glyphs.
7. High entry fee. While a lot of glyphs are vendor bound recipes, a lot of the really interesting glyphs occur from a random incident of a glyph mastery book or a research. Just about any alchemist that has leveled his profession can produce a bunch of best-seller frost wyrm flasks and pile them on auction house. Jewelcrafting recipes, even, are predetermined in the way that you pick what you buy, even so the entry is slightly more expensive due to the progressive costs (either takes dailies, or considerable investment in titanium ore/damaged necklaces). Glyphs are the most extreme of high entry costs. If you're lucky, sure, the first 15 glyph mastery books will give you best sellers. If you implement some presumption of expected outcomes, you're looking at a high costs for obtaining a catalogue: the cost was even higher when they were fresh.
As a rule of thumb, the more complex and harder to obtain products you can put on the market, the higher premium you can charge. Mostly, because people will either not realize or be bothered to find out what the actual costs are, or even so, aren't prepared to go through the nominal complexity of the process. Secondly, the obvious that if you're one of the two people on server with a recipe a hundred people appreciate high, you can demand premiums again.
has anyone with a PTR char had the chance to get some numbers on that new shatter spell? Would be very interesting to see how the market reacts to it.
A better question would be: Does anyone know if the recipe is in the game yet? The spell is, but data-mined spells don't automatically create to a way to learn them. I've checked the obvious places (trainers, vendors), and have not yet found the recipe. The internet collectively seems similarly clueless - enthusiastically theorizing on the economic impact, without apparently knowing where the spell comes from.
I believe the question is more about the exact nature of the Glyph Demand Curve. While a casual may indeed balk at an 80g glyph investment, given the scenario that there is but one seller setting the market price via a de facto monopoly, I still think there will be (albeit just a few) ready, willing, and able buyers during the brief window of opportunity where you are the only seller, to justify a price spike.
As a rule of thumb, the more complex and harder to obtain products you can put on the market, the higher premium you can charge. Mostly, because people will either not realize or be bothered to find out what the actual costs are, or even so, aren't prepared to go through the nominal complexity of the process. Secondly, the obvious that if you're one of the two people on server with a recipe a hundred people appreciate high, you can demand premiums again.
That's absolutely true. I would also add relatively high volatility to the prices. One day a glyph could be selling for 30 gold and the next 4-5 gold, dependent on competition. As more people enter the market, with glyph books selling for around 50-100 gold, I think the prices will tend to stabilize more. I'm now seeing 4-5 extra sellers compared to a month ago. And the numbers are slowly increasing.
In terms of demand you also have to balance the likelihood that someone will just turn to a guildie for a glyph. Price of glyph now versus hassle of getting one from a guildie or friend.
08/21/09, 3:08 PM
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