Post Delay

Sorry about the recent lack of posts, family emergency. Will be updating all posts shortly.

Personal Touch - Friendly Trial

Personal touch will be more of an informal series meant to give less insight into JC and put a more human touch into the blog. Don't expect amazing tricks to make 10000s of gold here, simply stories and tales meant to amuse.

So one of my friends has been ogling my gold recently, and was having some minor gold issues himself, so I decided I would help him out. We decided he could invest 200g, and we would see how much we could make him in 2 nights. We bought some saronite, prospected, and planned to turn it around for some profit. He managed to get 10 stacks for 150G. We prospected all 10 stacks and he got all of 2 blue quality gems, neither of which being yellow, red, or orange. We were in a tough situation to turn profit at this point. We took his few blue crystals and sold them, and managed to sell a few cut green gems to some outlands people. We were still short about 150g. We used the last 50g to purchase some items for a mill I will be showing shortly, and began to output enchanting mats. We sold those enchanting mats and managed to get back 198G.

This post is just to show everybody that JC is not GUARANTEED to make money, however the chance of getting only 2 rare gems in 10 STACKS of ore is very, very small. We took on this endeaver in grand hopes to turn great gold for him, and came out with the same we put in.

We will most likely attempt a retry at this shortly, with better results hopefully.

On a side personal note, usually my Friday/Saturday posts will be a bit delayed, as I work as a DJ and those days I am generally at work rather than near a CPU. My apologies.

Retail Retention 1 - The Basics

The only part of the entire process of sales that makes money is when the buyer actually pays you for the item. It is the moment we all look forward to. The question becomes here, how do you make those same buyers come back to YOU even when there are others out there that may be cheapest on the AH. The solution to this is fairly simple. In order for people to come back to you, you have to make their experience absolutely wonderful, so good in fact, that they add you to their friends list just to be able to talk to you the next time they need that gem.

The most basic way to do this, is to give a bit extra. Sometimes when people buy from me in person, if I have a ton of extra stock of emeralds or sapphires, which are worth all of 5g on my server) and the person is spending 100g or so, ill give them 1 after the trade for free. I usually cut it if I can into something they might need. If I leave it uncut, after they thank me, I ask that they simply do not use it to undercut me in the AH, and remind them that people have in the past. It usually garners a laugh, and saves me some hassle. More often then not, that extra gem will sit in their bank until that rare time they might want to use it. Every time they see the gem, they are reminded as well :).

Once people start coming back to you regularly, you can begin to actually sell off-AH more than on the AH, further helping your profits by not paying deposits or AH fees. This only allows you to sell gems EVEN LOWER. I have actually undercut myself in trade chat by selling gems under my listed auction price, as when sold in trade, i make more.

Retail Retention is focused on getting buyers to return to you specifically, and building a network of other JC in which you can ask for cuts or gem-swap if your supply overflows (see: my current autumn's glow supply is over 100, while I have less than 10 of all others, yet I keep getting autumns glows!!!!!!!)

All about supply - A gold farmers perspective

I personally do not mine any saronite except when bored. Almost all of my saronite comes from others farming. It is by far better, and cheaper, to acquire a few reliable suppliers to provide a steady stream of ore. I offer the following deal to gain suppliers. I tell them that if we set a price now, I will buy any and all ore they send COD at that price, regardless of AH value. If the AH shows it lower than our agreed upon price, I will buy theirs COD first. If the AH is higher, I expect them to at least send me a majority of their saronite as it is a guaranteed sale.

I look for suppliers at night, when saronite is cheap. Why? because the biggest farmers all farm at night. I have 3 main suppliers on my personal server. The first supplies me with random stack's COD (about 20 or so a day) generally sporadically throughout the day. He sends when he gets them. The second saves his up and does live trades only, doing about another 20 stacks a day. The last is a truly unique story.

The last supplier is a Chinese gold farmer. They live in china, work for a boss who supplies the account, 12 hours a day, farming gold. This person chooses to farm saronite for 12 hours a day, and I manage to buy ALL of it (at 15g a stack mind you) The farmer gets what they want (gold fast and easy), and I get cheap saronite. The unique thing about this person is that they speak very good English and we had a very lengthy conversation tonight about how their industry really works, and the financials of it. He is 23, lives in a city in eastern China, and this is his only job. He lives within his work, and is given shelter and food for free. He is paid based on gold earned at a rate of about 7$ per 1100g. He earns about 150$ a month. 800-1000 Chinese Yuan. As a comparison, my current rent costs me about 4300 yuan a month, for rent alone. This may seem extremely low, and it is, HOWEVER, the cost of living in china is much lower as well. Average rent for a chinese apartment encompassing 40 squares (square meters) is 400-600 yuan. This person told me that the account was sold to the company, and he plays on it until it is closed, once closed, the boss assigns him a new account. We talked about the fact that he disliked the job and would love to "work free" (be his own boss), either in WOW economy or something else. After a 2 hour conversation and 10 more stacks of ore, our conversation reached an end.

My point I am trying to make is simple. It is important to know who your suppliers are, and why they supply you. The person that sends me single stacks is trying to get his flyer, chances are, once he has it, the supplies will fall off dramatically. The person who saves his stacks doesnt really farm alot, but enjoys the spare cash. The gold farmer needs this gold to live, his supply will be neverending (until banned) and cheap. By simply talking to him, I have gained a much deeper understanding, and felt that my experience should be shared. I have also formed a bond that will help solidify the business relationship with this supplier, making it even less likely he will go sell to somebody else for 1g more instead of me. The supplier is the key to your business.

Next week with All about supply, I plan to go over how to find cheap saronite on a single purchase basis, and begin to go over how to gather a supplier for long term money-making.

NOTE: This blog will follow a weekly schedule

Mondays Readers Write
- A day devoted to YOU! Review of comments and notes

Tuesdays Fast Cash
- tips for making gold by using the mill to target a specific item

Wednesdays All About Supply
- an analysis into the supply factor of the market

Thursdays Retail Retention
- Tips on getting customers to return, regardless of price

Fridays Personal Touch
- Personal stories of success and failure, and lessons from them

Saturdays Demand This
- A breakdown of demand and how to predict changes in it

Sundays Straight Sales
- Sales tips to help increase your selling ability

Fast Cash Lesson 1 - The Basic Mill

Many out there are looking to make gold very quickly, with minimal overhead cost, and no risk. It is never possible to make gold to this perfect situation. Anything quick and with low cost does entail risk. Having a good strategy and following specific routes helps minimize this risk. In this post, you will read about the basic mill of jewelcrafting. There are many basic mills, and only 1 will be explained in this post. Others will follow. As always, make sure to review your auction house to see exactly how profitable this mill will be.

Basic Mill for Dream Shards

By making 1 Jade Dagger Pendant, you are guaranteed a disenchant of 1 dream shard. On a general AH, these pendants cost about 10g in mats to make, and shards go for around 20g. This is a profit of 10g PER ITEM. In addition, Dream shards generally sell very quickly on the AH, and offer little risk as there is no deposit on making the auctions. The basic formula behind this mill is the following:

IF 2(dark jade) + 2(huge citrine) + 1(eternal earth) < 1(dream shard)*.9 YOU WILL PROFIT

it doesnt get much simpler than that, simply toss in some numbers and see. the reason the dream shards are multiplied by .9 at the end is to accomadate for the cost of using the AH. if you sell all of them in trade chat, you generally will be able to adjust that number closer to 1. Remember, be careful not to make too many of these, and keep your inventory rolling at all times. Make and sell quickly, sitting on stock just is lost opportunity cost.

Questions? Comments? feel free to comment!

Servers and Their Role on the JC Profession

I personally play on the Ursin server, whos economy is neither good nor bad. Each server will vary based on the location of the server, times that are key, and cashflow. A more populous server will experience higher turnover rates of items, however, will be harder to control the market flow. A less populous server will be much easier to control, but will be harder to sell large amounts of items.

If you are on a low population realm, expect low risk, low profit, and high personal control
If you are on a high population realm, expect high risk, high profit, and low personal control
Ursin is medium-high population.
Remember: this is not the population of the server, but rather the population of your faction!!

Servers have key times, best times to buy certain items, best times to sell others, and even best days to do things. This is true of all servers. A large amount of these times revolve around raiding times, and more importantly, leisure time. When your server has the most people online, its time to sell. When few people are online and nobody is doing anything, you should hold your goods.

Tuesdays - Learn to love them, probably 50-60% of your income will happen on Tuesdays. this does not generally include patch days to my personal extent, as I find wednesdays after tend to be a bit better. I think alot of people may avoid playing patch day due to the server issues, and when fixed up on Wednesday, all play.

Different servers also have different prices on items. NOT EVERYTHING IN THIS BLOG WILL WORK ON YOUR SERVER! I will generally post mathematics, formula's, or the prices of the items on an average server as a reference point. Do your own thought to decide if a certain tactic or mill is worth doing.

Lastly, on control: Some servers have individuals that control a specific market. This is good and bad. I tend to feel a degree of control from individuals is good. Assume saronite ore, one person has all of their stacks listed at 25g per stack, buying out anything under them and reposting. This is good for the seller of saronite, as they are almost guaranteed a sale if they post on the AH, and generally will sell fast in trade chat. They sell their saronite wanting fast cash, and they get it easily. Buyers of saronite generally are looking to either buy a small amount, in which case they will get from either this person (at an expected rate) or from an individual if one can be found. They know what they are paying and it is fairly static. Buyers also can be looking to buy bulk amounts, calculating that they can do --something-- with that much saronite, to make MORE than 25g per stack. They have the ability to buy any number of stacks easily, without having to recalculate each different gold value. I feel a degree of control is good on the market, but too much can be detrimental. It also entails a very high risk on the part of the monopolist. I personally do not recommend attempting to control a portion of the market for long periods of time. There are occasions where I will attempt to control single items or groupings of items for a day or two at a time, never more. Ultimately, this blog will not entail mass control.

Introduction - The cash cow that is Jewelcrafting

Welcome readers, jewelcrafters, and WoW players; This blog is focused entirely on making the absolute most money out of your professions, specifically JC. To start out, posts are scheduled about once a day, and will generally happen in the evening to early morning hours. Jewelcrafting, as many know, is probably one of the most expensive professions to lvl (see: thorium), but is by far the most profitable. A skilled salesman and player will be able to earn upwards of THOUSANDS of gold per DAY doing nothing more than prospecting, selling, and the like.

A few acronym's for the uninformed:
JC - Jewelcrafting or jewelcrafter
WoW - World Of Warcraft
BC - Burning Crusade
WOTLK or WLK - Wrath of the lich king

I will add more acronyms here as needed. I also generally use the term MILLING to describe any process that when repeated, yields multiplied results, generally favorable. This is a term used heavily in Magic: The gathering, and tends to describe the process working similar to a windmill, with no end being necessary, and constantly producing.

Feel free to comment as desired, but please keep all comments clean, friendly, and in the good spirit of the blog. Ranting on in comments is discouraged. Any personal attacks on readers or authors will be deleted and IPbanned, no warnings. Lets keep this a friendly blog.

On a closing note, I would like to personally thank a few people and sites for helping this blog get off the ground and providing me inspiration and desire to start up such a large endeavor. I would like to thank justmytwocopper.blogspot.com for his general knowledge and the proof that a blog about wow economics can be written unbiased and kept organized, with a good reader base. I would like to thank all of the Ursin server for being one of the best servers to run mill's on for profit, as its economy is fairly middleground. I would lastly like to thank my girlfriend for finally convincing me to start this blog, may it only turn out as great as our relationship.