Greedy Goblin

Friday, September 18, 2009

Business report



This is my income over 12 days. The net profit is 13.6K/week. The glyph industry is still a huge shot and I don't see why should it ever stop being one (besides heavy competition).

Herb prices are falling like PuGs during Tymphanic Tantrum. I can get goldclover for 40s and adder's tongue for 70s lowering my ink price near 0, since Snowfalls sell for 12G. Sadly I keep accumulating them. I'm constantly crafting offhands, and thinking of starting crafting darkmoon cards if I can't get rid of the damn things.

Besides glyphs I sell low-level inks (thanks Jessica), vellums (thanks enchanters) and simple vendor-sold parchments for 10G (thanks retards).

With the current income level, even with constant paying the 5K/week for raiding, I'd get to goldcap in 2 months, making it possible to not mess with glyphs for another half year and fully succumb to my no-life play style of loging in 15 mins before raid and log off after raid complete.


PS: Matthew sent me a really interesting link.

32 comments:

victor said...

Ever heard of GKP?

Kevin Marquette said...

Selling parchment for 10g puts a smile on my face every time.

Anonymous said...

Oops, Gold Pug got covered before I got chance to finish that post...
/sigh ...

That's going on TW server as well (We Chinese also run Gold-Pug) . One of my objective to get my epic for raid... The gold Pug raise couple of question as well...
Although not as misery as a Roll Pug...

I heard of different approach to deal with them, may be I'll do a follow up post after that...

But in short:
Gold Pug start by TBC on T4 and Sunwell trash mob (or maybe earlier), however never get past to T5 once the skill requirement limit them.
On wotlk, they are in all the pugs, I guess the reason is that nowsaday raid's difficulties to make un-pug-able...

Ralpb said...

Because of your post mentioning that Inscription can be used to make a lot of money, I started to check out my chances in the business.

I started arround with 3000g with my bank char. Since I had a lot of herbs in my bank I milled them all and spend 1000g on glyph books. The first days I had quite some competition and I was undercutting them for 50%. However I got undercut by the people that dominated the market. And now a week later most of the competition left already because they think the prices are too low. Which result in huge profit for me. I've got my gold rising to 3400g and I have arround 300 glyph on the AH which are there to get sold.

So thanks for you great tips!
Ralpbix

chaoskas said...

I have a hard time to sell my glyph although I undercut. After 48 hours most of the glyphs come back because someone posted a dozen for 30% of my price (and afterwards he puts his original price of 300% of mine^^).

But I also discovered the vellum market. Most of the time I am alone in this field and those 10g vellums sell like candy.

One funny thing I discovered on the bag market. We have three or four people trying to corner this market and selling bags for 8ish Gold (where a stack of netherweave is around 4-6g which results in 1-2g Profit). I never undercut them but post my bags for 14-20g. And they sell!
Granted, I could sell much more if I would compete but I think my gold/hour ratio is much better than theirs.

Another market are the epic gems, especially the red ones (bold and fractured are the best cuts by now). Buy them at 150g and sell them at 190g. Never saturate the market because you will attract competition and prices fall like a rock. Especially the green gems sell for more than their cuts...

Ben said...

I started playing the Inscription game for real after being inspired by Gevlon on August 18th, starting with 3975g. With a bit of Darkmoon Faire cards on the side it generates a decent flow of income, even without it I'm making 1.5k-2k a day.

To get my source of cheap herbs I directly contact the chinese farmers who list obvious, inhuman amounts on AH, and they are happy to get rid of their stock for 11-13g for the higher end Northrend herbs.

As of now I have 40k but I'll probably delve into the offhand market and see if I can generate some more. Thanks, Gevlon!

Anonymous said...

Here's a forum post about gold raids.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=7903741719&sid=1&pageNo=1
It's a good system if the leader can be trusted.

Anonymous said...

Out of curiosity, how to deal with lower level inks, just mill shitty herbs, or trade inks of the sea?

Gesh said...

Sorry, what do you mean by parchment? the ones that the inscription supplier standing next to the trainer sells? like resillient parchment?

Gevlon said...

@anon: yes I trade inks for low inks
@Georgi: yes I mean selling the 50s resilient parchment for 10G to M&S

Vlad aerie peak said...

But sometimes its worth to scan AH for cheap northrend herbs, (these are usually 1/2 of northrend herbs and still give the needed ink) same goes with any other herb in large quantity which is cheaper than northrend ones, excluding the very basic peacebloom etc.

basicly what i do is buy northrend herbs for <10g and outland ones for <8

Ephemeron said...

Gevlon, what would be the optimal AH strategy for situations when herb prices soar (we're talking goldclover for 1.2g), and yet one's competition keeps selling glyphs at low prices (thanks to seemingly endless supplies of stocked up glyphs/inks from better times)?

Gevlon said...

@Ephemeron: trying out other profession?

Fricassee said...

Besides glyphs I sell low-level inks (thanks Jessica), vellums (thanks enchanters) and simple vendor-sold parchments for 10G (thanks retards).

Priceless.

jdhorner said...

i've read so many of your posts over the past few days, and still feel like i don't "get" how you do what you do. :/

i do know that it feels like tailoring and enchanting make no money anymore, at least with the way i look at thing, but i'm sure i'm just M&S.

i just get so excited knowing that i have 1000 gold, and could turn it into so much more, but can't quite wrap my head around how.

Josh
(a.k.a. In Awe)

Anonymous said...

First off I love your blog, a lot of good reading to be had.

Secondly I think I finally have the motivation I need to level my professions....

Cipri said...

Gevlon, I've been using your strategies for a while now and I was surprised to see that you're selling low level ink
Wouldn't that cut into your glyph sales as M&S can buy mats instead of your finished product with higher profit margins for you?

Tegoelf said...

Cipri,

I doubt it would cut too deeply into his glyph business, and would probably be offset by the amount he can make for selling them. First, you have to consider that there are always going to be people that don't want to buy the product off the AH, but get it made by a guildmate or friend, thinking its cheaper. Second there are probably lazy and/or stupid scribes out there willing to buy the inks instead of milling their own. This is mostly speculative on my part, i do not have a scribe, but some of the engineering mats i sell, sell for almost more than the finished product. Also it is based on things gelvon has said in the past about the nature of people, which is really the entire concept of how he makes the gold he does.

Ditto said...

@jdhorner -- Not sure how things are on your server, however on mine, as enchanter, I'm able to buy the Mats for Blade ward and Blood draining for about 1/3 the price of the enchant. Additionally, 8 and 10 stats both sell quite well, along with 23 haste, and a number of other enchants.

A while back I put together a spread sheet to track the cost of mats for an enchant, along with the current profit for selling each one. This was before Gevlon posted about his addons (<3 LilSparkysWorkshop). I definately recommend picking that one up. Then just find the enchants that actually make money, and sell them a couple at a time.

While I may not be ballin at the level Gevlon is, I'm still making about 2k / week with just enchanting.

I can't really comment on tailoring, however, since I haven't started leveling that one yet. It is next, however, as I want the cloak enchant for my druid :)

Stokpile said...

i've been doing well for myself as a scribe, but lately have 2 others in competition. and both are morons, they camp the AH and sell glyphs for sometimes less than a single gold. why? because their herbs are 'free' because they farm them themselves.

and yes i've been undercutting hard, but they're convinced that if they sell a glyph for 50 silver, they're making profit so this approach does nothing in this situation. because of this, my daily profit has gone from 3k to sometimes as low as 800g.

thoughts?

Backthief said...

You are money maker no question about it Gev, but you should think "out the box", or "out of the inscription", sometimes. Have you tried work with food consumables? Try Firecracker Salmon, Spicy Blue Nettlefish and Poached Northern Sculpin for a chance.

You sell each stack (20) for 80g-120g (depends on competition). If you buy all mats from AH, you will have a 100%-200% profit (20g for 20 spices, 20g per stack of fish), or fish them and go nuts on the porcentages.
On Tuesday (raids reset), you can sell dozens of stacks.

all WoTLK (but spirit) food consumables sell very well on AH, i just mentioned those 3 types because those fish you can easily find on AH for very good prices.

Backthief said...

And on the "Velluns (Thanks enchanter)", we enchanters say Velluns (Thanks inscriptioners).

lvl 1 armor velluns + dream dust (that crappy 5g/stack dust) = 1000%-1500% profit on low level enchant scrolls for new characters!

Unknown said...

And Earthen Ring (US) FTW. Almost all glyphs now sell for cost of ink, lose money to the tune of parchment cost. Lots of fun.

Iiene of Kul Tiras said...

Jeff says:
"And Earthen Ring (US) FTW. Almost all glyphs now sell for cost of ink, lose money to the tune of parchment cost. Lots of fun."

Is that right?

I'm on the US Kul Tiras server, so it's easy for me to make a level 1 char and check that out.

Ink costs 2 gold per. Snowfall ink sells for 20 per. Herbs are a bit steep, but that could be the day, You would be able to make inks for nearly 0 cost by selling the snowfalls back.

Max overhead per 1 ink glyph? less than a gold.

Glyphs (The ones not used for skillups) range from 4 to 40 gold.

I could make a killing on this server.

Jurandr said...

You don't have any characters named "gaelvon" on Shadowsong-horde do you? I saw that name run by me and I about crapped my pants

N said...

Goblins, I'm struggling with a demand problem. My income is capped, and the cap is dropping, due to the fact that the glyphs just aren't selling. My server is low-pop and dropping, and I fear that there just aren't enough people buying glyphs to maintain the 500g/day goal I'm working toward.

I'm listing certain glyphs, watching periodically during their entire duration, and they're not selling, despite the fact that my price remains lowest throughout the duration of the auction.

I'm not sure how to drive up demand... I've considered advertising in trade chat "Any glyph only 10g!" (very cheap on my server) to create an expectation of low prices, but... I'm just not sure.

Anonymous said...

@nick.

I respect what Gevlon does and how he does it but the truth of the matter is that what works on his server doesn't work everywhere for inscription. Servers are different. Read his comment to @Ephemeron. Read it again.

I do believe that every server has the ability to make money. Maybe not in inscription. Maybe not as fast as Gevlon. But trade has to happen and that means opportunity somewhere.

Anonymous said...

The gold Pug as mentioned above by Zekta Chan, is very popular among the Asian WoW community.

It is really a easy way to get tons of gears but most of all, the raids quality is usually a lot better.
Since the worst people in the raid are the ones that provides the gold and the rest of the raid are just there for the money, people that would go are either :

1) Really geared and skilled but needed the gold buy things and don't know how to earn with the AH.
2) Got some golds(a couple thousands) and wanted specific pieces of gear.
3)Got a lot of gold and really badly geared but can do the minimal requirement for raids(dodge fires, not die), they usually take a dps spot.

The first kind of people usually are about 5-7 slots of the raid, usually from good guilds or are alts of them. The second kind of people usually are usually around 15-17, with really strict armorying and questions asked.
The last are usually around 1-5, leaders usually will only take a minimal of them and will check their gold.

The average performance of the group is a lot better then normal pugs and sometimes even surpasses guild runs. I've even seen a couple of them doing Ulduar hardmodes when it was new.

Remember selling achievements and mounts? It is just like that but they sell gears and the gold is divided by people in the group.

The real problem is when the leader decides to transfer as mentioned above. It is not uncommon for people to do such a thing. You'll usually only go with people that has reputations of leading a gold pug(Usually the ones that started it back in TBC)

In my opinion with a leader that has credibility, gold pugs are a whole lot better then /rolls pugs(and as i said above sometimes better then a guild run, people would even give up guild raid spots just to get into one of these "pugs") and everyone will get something in the end, whether it be gold or gear.

Anti said...

"(M&S) sell glyphs for sometimes less than a single gold. why? because their herbs are 'free' because they farm them themselves."

if they sell glyphs for less than you can buy herbs, mill pigment, craft ink and manufacture glyphs for.....buy them.

if it cost you 1-2g to make a glyph and someone sells it cheaper buy it. you get rid of the competition, save time in your manufacturing, lower your average costs.

if they are still making profit you have to evaluate your costs. perhaps you are paying too much for herbs.

if they arent making profit, perhaps dumping stock after power leveling, they cant continue losing money forever and its best you profit then the end consumers.

N said...

@Anonymous

I'm increasingly afraid that's going to turn out to be the case for my server. It's an incredibly immature market, with glyph prices fluctuating wildly, but people on my server aren't used to buying glyphs regularly (probably because of the wild price fluctuations).

I'm trying to find a market that'll be stronger, which I'm afraid might turn out to be JC.

Anonymous said...

I recently followed the Gevlon way on my decently populated server after doing research every day for about 3 weeks.

I'm pulling about 800-1000g profit a day. It is taking a bit of time, but this time will decrease with practise and most of it is afk anyway.

Anyone can do this, if you have hardcore undercutters it may just take a little longer.

Anonymous said...

I have been reading the GG blog for a few months and have slowly started up a Glyph industry on my server.

At the beginning I was bringing in decent income as I slowly built my Glyph selection up through books and research.

Now I have hit a bit of a road block where I have several undercutters and it has reduced my income to about 100-200g per day. I put up about 1000 glyphs in a shot and less than 2 hours I will use QA2 to do a scan and it shows that about 90% of my glyphs have been undercut!

What strategies have you guys used to push out the competition? I am fairly sure that none of these are other goblins as I have been watching there patterns and they don't really follow anything resembling a Gobbo.

Thoughts?
J