Meet Helcsi. She is my girlfriend's lvl 13 character. While mainly a banker, she sometimes goes out do some quests, slowly getting levels.Her business is JC. How can a lvl 13 make money from her slvl111 JC? By selling low level rings and necklaces. In the lvl 1-19 range there are 5 necklaces (+3 vanity). 2 of them coming from WSG medals (actually 1 since they are faction specific), 3 come from JC. So low level characters and beginner twinks can only use low level JC necklaces. In case of rings there are more options, but still, JC items are the most available. Ergo: they sell. 5-10G profit can be made on each and they sell in surprisingly high quantity.
My girlfriend has a talent finding such strange niches and sell items that no one thinks of or cares to sell. You can also find such items, craft them and sell them.
The best things about niche markets is that no one cares for them. You mostly run without any competition. So you can list lot of items at once without fear for undercutting. The main problem is the typically low profit margin. You won't make hundredths with one of such items.
If you find a niche, go for it. It's all yours.
16 comments:
* 2of them coming from WSG medals *
Actually, just one, as those are faction-specific.
C'mon guys give me something to read at work :P
From the article's name, I was expecting some other examples of such niches. Or at least some good comments and analysis. Either most of us got lazy and bored lately , or market niches are best kept secret ?
Niche markets usually have a hidden gotcha behind them - if not, they wouldn't stay a niche market but become mainstream.
For example, the market for Elemental Seaforium Charges, an ingredient used to make the engineering flying mount, but one of the very very few engi recipes requiring a reputation grind to get the schematic. They do sell, and they sell for a lot more than the mats. The gotcha? the market volume is extremely small - on a medium sized realm, expect to sell about one set (of 4) per week. If there is more than one person trying to sell them, the price will quickly drop to the level where it is no longer interesting to sell them, usually causing at least one of the vendors (or all of them) to step out of the market.
Don't expect many actual valuable niche markets to be reported in this thread, Archangel :)
I have found transmuting Arcanite Bars to be a profitable (not calculating any transmutation master procs, those are a nice bonus) niche on my realm.
Finding enough Arcane Crystals might be the biggest challenge.
I have found Sun scopes, made with fairly high level engineering, to be a good niche market on my server. They are much cheaper to make then Heartseeker scopes, and sell for more as the heartseekers scopes are the best thing to use to level engineering for a stretch.
They cost me about 25-30 gold to make, and I sell them for 40-50 gold each.
I am hoping for a big across-the-board increase in tradeskill recipes with the next patch so hopefully there will be some wotlk niche items, also. So far wotlk crafting is pretty B-O-R-I-N-G because everybody can get the same recipes. The best present Santa could bring would be the return to BOE world-drop epic patterns but it seems they want to do away with that. *sigh*
I remember having made a good amount of money selling Bronze Bars. That buyed my first mount. Ahh the memories...
I've found in every MMO I've played the level 1-20 any added stat item - gear, food, scrolls/pots/enchants or the mats to level in that range sells well. Not huge $$ for each, but steady income! I've done the low level rings, etc.
Why?
More people run alts that never get to end game but will 'try' a new class that will only level to 10, 20 or 30. Or they ding around with them, but they'll pay to gear them or level their professions.
Think of the bag sales! Same goes for anything else as well. Pet foods for raiders, anything with a cooldown, all cloth, low level 'green' gear with a cheap enchant, especially bracers/cloaks (even white/greys) I've found sell well.
Way back in BC on my first toon, I found my niche in selling elixirs of shadow power. These were part of the quest line for warlocks to get their epic mounts.
I saw locks were pretty much willing to shell out a good amount of gold for these potions. So i started selling them for ~18g ea. until two other goblins found my market and undercut me by a great deal. I tried corresponding with them to suggest we keep our prices the same since they sold quite well regardless. But they declined, and I left the niche I had established.
The prices on your server are always so interesting to me. Those rings/necklaces, for example, sell for, AT MOST, 2g on my server.
9-10g profit? Jesus.
@Archangel: sorry but most people will not give up their niches.
@spacedrabbit: yes, if others find your niche, it's no longer your niche. That's why people keep it secret.
@Mark: it's obvious. There are many-many fields and I do only what are profitable. There are surely many items that has high profit rate on your server and low on mine. However you can't read about them here, since I cannot do them.
Just something I found rather intresting, even tho it's very off topic.
Acording to warcraftrealms.com your server (Arathor EU) has a total character count of 23,072.
But the funny thing is that of those thousands and thousands of characters, 17,126 of them is alliance.
Just thought it was rather wierd.
Ha, Gevlon would be dating a girl who has bank.
I never really thought about how big profit margins at really low level items are. I'm always dumbfounded by the people who find niches such as this.
Here's the thing about niches: they tend to be very small. If there is high throughput, they get noticed! Why? Because at least the buyers notice them...
I have needed an item to (say) lvl JC and I looked at the high AH price and thought "maybe I should go farm this instead."
If a niche is small, then you need a bunch of them, and you'll probably have competition eventually.
If competition is high and margins are low, you have to ask yourself why you're in the market. I play 5 AHs on 5 servers where I have 5k or more gold. I calculate the gold/hr my limited time is worth, and FORCE myself to vendor things that are selling for too little (ex, Iridescent Pearls) even though it goes against my instinct to try for a profit.
Niches are only attractive if they can beat that gold/hr threshold I've set for myself.
the problem with the niche's I can think of is that it relys on people knowing some quest requirements beforehand, ( or having an alt parked at an AH eg
Eg - the previous example the seaforium charge in northrend, the Mithral casing, rethbane ore, quest items that can be pre purchased, like some of the westfall/redridge cooking quests - you may not make a killing, but as people level there will always be demand. Its a matter of letting people know that something is availble to buy though,be it, and for a couple of gold far easier, then farming/chasing down yourself. People will pay for convience. I'm making a killing from relics at the moment, I get to farm cloth and get decent greens to DE at the same time People are paying for quick rep. Just like I ended up doing when I got bored of the dailys.
Niches are great for getting started in trading, but as many others have pointed out, niches are hardly enough for established traders with a comfortable amount of market capital.
Some try to compensate by serving multiple niches at the same time, but that can leave them somewhat vulnerable to upstarts, who can devote their full attention to one product while you have to divide yours over many. Some give up on niche markets altogether and move to mass market, where they can use more of their market capital. 15% profit off 10000g is better than 500% profit off 50g.
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