From Friday evening to Sunday evening my income skyrockets. I can sell all my stuff easily. And it's not just me, it's for every businessmen. Let's see why?Theoretically it is stupid. The characters live their life at any day and any time of the RL week. The NPC-s don't bother weekdays, you can do daily, instance, farming or any other activity regardless of the day (except PvP weekend but that's money neutral). The characters can perform both producing work (farming, daily quests, dungeons...) and consumption (buying enchants, BoE, consumables...) on any hour and any day of the week.
The difference between weekdays and weekends does not come from the different behavior of a certain player. It comes from the different kind of players playing on these days. Kids and very casual players mostly play on the weekends. They are usually ignorant to the prices and the effective ways of gaining items. They get their money from daily quests or grinding and spend it on anything comes to their mind. So as long as they have money, they spend it. They have the tendency of leveling multiple alts without properly gearing up any, so they are unlimited buyers of low lever blue items, tradeskill materials and bags. Their high level chars spend anything they have on anything purple (or goes to a purple): BoE items, materials for BoE items, gems, enchanting mats.
So don't forget to fill the AH with items on friday early afternoon, or if you play at the nights, do it on Thursday nights and relist what returned on Saturday nights. You can even ignore undercutters, there will be enough buyers for all of you. On last weekend I sold more than a hundred bags.
Also look out for farmable items like cloth, green disenchantables, eternals and such. The kids & casuals fill the AH with them for various prices, so you can stock up for the week.
The typical M&S businesses like eternal/crystallized or buy-low-sell-high tricks does not increase significantly. These extra players are not M&S just play little time and focused to other aspects of the game than raiding or making money.
PS: yes it's a reused post from the times when I had 1/4 of the current visitors. The 3.1 investment post that I've been writing for a week will come tomorrow.
Also look out for farmable items like cloth, green disenchantables, eternals and such. The kids & casuals fill the AH with them for various prices, so you can stock up for the week.
The typical M&S businesses like eternal/crystallized or buy-low-sell-high tricks does not increase significantly. These extra players are not M&S just play little time and focused to other aspects of the game than raiding or making money.
PS: yes it's a reused post from the times when I had 1/4 of the current visitors. The 3.1 investment post that I've been writing for a week will come tomorrow.
14 comments:
Read this before. I like your blog but I don't think it's old enough to re-post old posts - even with small changes.
Stop being a lazy ass and write new posts. Something about preparing for the new patch would be good.
Lately I have been seeing a change in the week v.s. weekend picture. Where before nearly all prices would shoot up in the weekend, the picture is now that some go up, and others go down.
To be more specific, one of my ways to make money was to buy crafting materials early morning during the week, and sell them starting saturday afternoon. This is no longer reliable.
I can see various reasons for this change.
1. A lot more people now know the trick and AH gets flooded in the weekend. This is supported by the fact that the number of auctions during the week (25000 on my server) is much lower than that in the weekend (45000).
2. The supply to demand balance of tradeskills has changed. Leveling crafting has become increasingly easier in terms of the amount of material needed to reach a level suffient for self gearing purposes. On the supply side, farming materials like ore, leather, herbs and eternals has become very easy.
3. The low benefits of tradeskills compared to the relatively easier to achieve and bigger benefits of raiding Naxx makes people loose interest in tradeskills.
An exception to the change in week / weekend balance are herbs which remain in high demand.
Some of this should change with new patterns coming in 3.1. A lot of people will have to skill up from 440-443 sLvl to 450 to use patterns from Ulduar.
Do other see the same pattern of week to weekend trading? What do you think the reasons are, and how to you expect it to change in 3.1?
@Cingy: I have to agree there. I also noticed that some items value goes down during the weekend mainly because the market gets flooded then.
I also noticed that for some items it is best to list them on Monday, before 19.00h. They will sell for higher than normal, which is caused by the fact that everyone throws their stuff on the AH during the weekend, as they know/think that it will sell better then, leaving a void on Monday which I happily fill :).
Things are exactly the opposite on my server. Crafted items: very few listed during the week with median or inflated prices; during the weekend these items flood the AH, and some sellers are posting them close to their cost plus AH fee limit. Also in the last few weeks, I find cheaper mats during the week. At least the ones I'm using: cobalt, saronite (ore and bars) and eternals. During the weekend, more often I cannot touch those, as the price goes high enough above the limit I am willing to buy.
On another note, my items sell better during the week too. Let's say if during the weekend Dream Shards sell for 8-11g a piece, they sell for 13-16g during the week (and the AH is less flooded with them). And for 3 weeks now, I can safely post mats and items for sale on Sunday evening, with higher price then the minimum buyout price. By Tuesday, my price often becomes the minimum buyout price, and my items sell very well.
I've been cutting my glyph business down. I only list them friday evening now. Best money - time investment ratio.
Although I think it's just because there are more players online in the weekend.
It may be old but it is still useful information.
We actually just concluded an indepth technical analysis of the day-of-week phenomenon over at http://wowenomics.wordpress.com/
where we tested 5 common items every day at the same time for two weeks and proved that certain days were best for selling (and surprisingly, also buying). Check it out here if interested: http://wowenomics.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/northrend-economic-assessment-part-one/
Part two of the same assesment was also posted just yesterday.
Love your stuff Gev... keep up the good work.
Not a great place to post this but what the heck.
A few posts ago you talked about Ink of the Sea and Snowfall Ink. I whined that it could not be done on my server. So instead of being a cotton headed ninny muggins I tried it out. Minimal work and 200 gold in only two days of trying it out. Yeah it works. Good job, Gevlon.
I wouldn't say the eternal/crystallized market is a M+S market, its happens to be one of mine and I rule it with an iron grip, this depends on server trends, on weekends i buy my stock cheap, on weekdays I sell these for up to 3 times as much due to the supply being dead, I just find some markets have way too much supply to make a good profit compared to a weekday for example arcane dust over a weekend sells for 1.06g each, on a weekday i sell it for 2.69g it's down to trend.
Mabye I haven't been reading this blog long enough but since I have I haven't seen any posts about locating a good market,Since i'm relitively new to the money making I'm curious as to your methods.
Gevlon:
You were very accurate in mentioning that some things are best sold on the weekend: BoE items, crafting materials, Darkmoon cards, etc.
However, there's a flip side to this--the weeday raider business. Here, your customers aren't casuals, they're hardcore players who have to buy the same things every week. They are the ultimate repeat customers.
Sell raid consumables--flasks, fish, potions--Tuesday thru Friday. Also, start your auctions at the typical raid time for your server so they will be the lowest priced ones when people are looking--since my guild raids at 6 server, I put my auctions in minutes before I raid. My raid time is a little early on the server, and I find that the bulk of my flasks sell between 7 and 9 server. I can sell a few flasks on the weekend but it's always less volume and less profit, even though the sell price for a single item tends to be higher. I usually end up with one or two bouncing back to me. Tuesday and Thursday night is where I make my best money. There's not a huge margin, but I can sell 10 flasks of three of the types and maybe one of the less-desired category.
As for when to buy, I buy my herbs on weekdays as well. Somehow the prices are inflated on the weekend. I think it's because inscribers buy up the cheap ones to make Darkmoon cards. I always have better luck buying Frost lotus and Fire leaf on Monday and Tuesday.
The long and short of it is--you need to know your market on your server. That's why I don't work on selling everything--just flasks and occasionally potions. It doesn't take a ton of my time and it brings in a decent income.
Even though this may be a repost, it is a valid post nonetheless. The Goblin is correct in regards to selling and the weekends.
While I never really talk much about my own business ventures, what I will say is that on Friday, I list all my inventory and always make a great profit from it.
So Goblin, regardless of reposts or no reposts, the articles like this are the ones that are great because it is a basic prinicple which remains true in the game.
That's interesting. And interesting that so many people agree. I mostly do my buying on weekends and my selling during the week because prices drop on the weekends. But I am not a serious businessman, just selling a few glyphs, frostweave bags, and cut gems most days.
I would say sales for item-based consumables jumps incredibly tuesday nights, at least on my server. Raids reset and people need to get their gear enchanted/socketed. As such I hang around the auction house between 10-12 server time. I pretty much run out of my stock of eternal belt buckles, titanium weapon chains, greater cosmics, and infinite dusts all in the span of two hours. AND I get on my enchanter and chant up pieces of gear with dusts that were just purchased from me... for a tip of course.
Wish my alchemist was making flasks already...
I think achievements have made life more interesting for the businespeople - not us doing them, but us benefitting from others doing them.
Why? For example, players are going back and running instances they missed on the level up to get the achievements. Often running them solo or in pairs (especially Outland instances). Result? Lots of Netherweave and/ or greens on AH for prices below what I have seen for ages. During the week on my server Netherweave can sell for up to 5g a stack: on the weekend it is nothing to get 30 stacks for less than 2g 40s. That makes bag making more profitable than it has been since I first started doing it seriously: I'm clearing up to 6g per bag, selling easily 90 bags a week. While it is not now my main earner, this was a business that got me started. So thank you Blizzard for achievements!
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