Grin'dal the roleplaying troll of Thorium Brotherhood met another great example of humankind:
Ben saw someone trying to fix prices on the trade chat. That's what I call conspiracy:
Hoopdaddy of Daggerspine (US) met with a someone who doesn't really understand the "work adds value" concept:
Trupazz got unwanted advice. The unwanted advisor gets now some unwanted attention:
Nemesisril on LotharUS also got his fair share from M&S advices:
Lazzarruss finally figured out how to compete on the market. But why are the insults then?
Graylo sent us another genius:
BTW I would accept his offer, sold him as many bags for 8G as he can pay for (assuming the cloths are around 5G), and keep undercutting him on the AH.
Feel free to send me evidences of M&S activity! Please sign your mails, because I don't want to write "John.Smith@morganstanley.com sent this mail". Please also send high quality picture, I will compress them properly. I don't mind if you send 1-2MB pictures, but sadly I got some really good puns that couldn't make it here because they were barely readable.
Trupazz got unwanted advice. The unwanted advisor gets now some unwanted attention:
Nemesisril on LotharUS also got his fair share from M&S advices:
Lazzarruss finally figured out how to compete on the market. But why are the insults then?
Graylo sent us another genius:
BTW I would accept his offer, sold him as many bags for 8G as he can pay for (assuming the cloths are around 5G), and keep undercutting him on the AH.
Feel free to send me evidences of M&S activity! Please sign your mails, because I don't want to write "John.Smith@morganstanley.com sent this mail". Please also send high quality picture, I will compress them properly. I don't mind if you send 1-2MB pictures, but sadly I got some really good puns that couldn't make it here because they were barely readable.
36 comments:
I love these posts xD
These must be some of the most hillarious Morons of the Week I've ever read:
- I'm 7 year old
- So?
- I can't do it
- Why?
- 'Cause I'm Undead, my hand is broken =(
You can recognize it's a M&S from a thousand miles distance.
12g for a stack of Saronite Ore? Buy it, smelt 10 Saronite Bars, vendor for 12.5g.
Grindal is awsome. That was hilarious. I can't believe that other player was a real 7 yo. What a foul mouthed, spoiled, pathetic kid that was.
Maybe he was just roleplaying an angry seven years old undead who likes to call people punck?
Thanks for putting these up. I am currently on bad terms with Lazzaruss. He and some others thought they could have a glyph cartel so I decided to take advantage of that and make some money. I posted 5 of each glyph for 10g each, undercutting them by 40g in some cases. I wanted to push some sellers out of the market and also see how business savvy these people actually are. Needless to say they got pretty mad and thought they would educate me on how to sell glyphs. Funny thing is, I am still making 500-700g a day and the number of glyphs on the AH has decreased by 10 pages (about 14%) setting me up for the future. I wished I would have saved some of the conversations I had with Lazzaruss, pretty funny stuff.
I love RP chat, Grin'dal is da mon!
As for the bag business - buying all [reasonably]cheap cloth through whole week gets you monopoly in the bag sector, and all the materials you need to keep it that way and your's only way. Lazy 1-click crafters just leave it for our greedy hands. I once seen my tailor with 45 minutes left to finish crafting bags.. Quite boring.
The troll-type conversation is absolutely brilliant! Well-done RP is probably underappreciated.
I love these posts. I will have to take some screen shots myself and submit them. I started the Glyph business on the first of August.
After two weeks I started getting some complaints about my undercutting practices. It seems some of the Glyph makers here have an agreement on a select few Glyphs to try and make 25-40 gold per. When I post low it really makes them mad.
The Goblin side of me just smiles and keep on undercutting them. While they keep trying to force me to sell Glyphs at a set price.
I know its not a big operation yet, but I am happy to have turned 200 gold into 6.8k in three weeks, and it just seems to get better with each passing day.
Question for Gevlon or others doing inscription for cash:
Where do you get your mats? I've begun doing inscription on my server and, for the most part, the money has been good even at low levels. That said, I am finding it difficult to produce glyphs in any real volume because of the shortage of herbs on my server. As an example, I occasionally find that there are -no- reasonably priced mageroyal/briarthorn/swiftthistle/bruiseweed/stranglekelp in the AH or, more frequently, that there are fewer than two stacks worth. In other words, selling glyphs is easy; making glyphs is hard. Am I overlooking something?
i wish i would recieve hate mails :(
@Anonymous
You're overlooking Jessica Sellers :)
Anonymous:
we got maxed out inscription skill and we just buy northrend herbs (on my server <10g stack) convert them into northrend inks and trade these into others with NPC in dalaran when needed
Here's an idea: the next time some idiot lectures someone on how "u can't make money like that," put your gold in a trade window and leave it there for a few seconds.
It was funny in the previous "stupid mail" post that someone was telling Gevlon that he couldn't make money doing what he did, and you can see in the same window that Gevlon had around 168,000 gold at the time. Imagine that guy's reaction if he suddenly saw 168,000 gold in his trade window and got a whisper to the effect of "so, you say I can't make money by undercutting you?"
Just make sure not to trade the money to them by accident. :p
Thanks as always for these, Gevlon.
Grin'dal, you're awesome.
@anonymous
I don't deal with anything but northrend herbs. On my server, the snowfall ink I make from northrend herbs is usually above the cost of the stack of herbs. Crazy I know, but that is the case. Thus, I just buy all northrend herbs that are <= 15-25g a stack and mill up my supplies. Sell all of the Snowfall ink and then trade Jessica Sellers for all of the other inks you need.
Also, search this blog for inscription. Everything you need to know about inscription, Gevlon has laid out for you.
@Glyphious
This is exactly what I do with my glyph market. However, the prices on Snowfall ink have tanked in recent weeks. Per ink, I used to get 18-22g. Now I'm lucky to get 8-10, if they sell at all. From my last batch of milling herbs (an easy 75 stacks from last week), I'm STILL trying to sell my Snowfall from them - and guess what - I'll need more ink this week. I think a lot of this has to do with the market maturing and demand on the inks for making Darkmoon cards softening.
Ha ha! That was fun. The excuses, my goodness.
The comments here are making me smile.
Again, I love these posts! The cartel, that's classic, ha! I would've said "Sure! Here's some bags, buy 'em!" then continued to undercut, too. Suckers.
- Grin'dal/Matojo
Gevlon: What other sites have good information as pertains to WoW economics?
@Gevlon: Tell people to stop sending you jpegs. It's an outdated format. .png uses the same amount of storage space and doesn't lose an absurd amount of quality the way a .jpg does. That alone should clear up some of the readability issues...
Watch out, that cartel reads some HIGH POWER econ stuff!!
no sunday posts makes me QQ on the inside ;_(
@glyphious:
It may be true you can undercut ur competition to make some profit, but it's always better to all sell high.
I make around 2kg a day from glyphs and most of the profit comes from selling a few glyphs at the price of 50-100g, not from selling dozens at 5g. We do have 'goblins' who sell glyphs at 5g on our server, i usually just ignore them, or when i feel like screwing them over, post glyphs at just above mat price to piss them off. Most of them are gone within a week.
A true goblin is someone who maximizes profit, not someone who hurts the market to get minimal profit. And certainly not an AH camper who waits for the competition to log off and undercut, because time is money my friend.
Honestly, I probably wouldn't send CoD bags to Graylo (the last conversation posted), because if I was Graylo, I would have the bags sent to me and let them sit in my mailbox until they auto-returned. This would take supply away from my competition (at least temporarily).
"It may be true you can undercut ur competition to make some profit, but it's always better to all sell high.
I make around 2kg a day from glyphs and most of the profit comes from selling a few glyphs at the price of 50-100g, not from selling dozens at 5g. We do have 'goblins' who sell glyphs at 5g on our server, i usually just ignore them, or when i feel like screwing them over, post glyphs at just above mat price to piss them off. Most of them are gone within a week.
A true goblin is someone who maximizes profit, not someone who hurts the market to get minimal profit. And certainly not an AH camper who waits for the competition to log off and undercut, because time is money my friend."
QFT.
People who try the massive undercutting method in the inscription market and seem to think "6.8K" gold in 3 weeks is a lot make me laugh. I make that in less than 3 days usually, and again most of the profits are from selling in the 15-35G range, not the cheaper ones, and ALWAYS undercutting by 1 silver. You're just wannabe goblins.
So how do you deal with the AH-camping-1s-undercutters? There's quite a bunch of those on my realm, so I hardly sell any glyph at all.
@William,
The post said they went from 200gold to 6.8k. I think as a start up from scratch that person has a made progress.
Every person that's been here for a while knows the goal is 10k+ per week.
But go ahead and show who the real ignorant people are here. The ones that try to put down others.
"So how do you deal with the AH-camping-1s-undercutters? There's quite a bunch of those on my realm, so I hardly sell any glyph at all."
You can't keep them away, they will be there no matter what. As long as glyph prices are at least 15-25G, you'll still make a decent profit for the short time when they do sell.
@anonymous
That makes me ignorant, how? I take issue with people who think there is only one correct strategy for selling glyphs which is to massively undercut (and everyone else is a moron). In reality, on a competitive server it will only work against you (and every other seller) in the long run.
Quoting Willian:
That makes me ignorant, how? I take issue with people who think there is only one correct strategy for selling glyphs which is to massively undercut (and everyone else is a moron). In reality, on a competitive server it will only work against you (and every other seller) in the long run.
Well said. I've stated several times on this blog as well. The key to success in the AH is adapting your strategy to the market and competitors.
The strategy of heavy undercutting is a possible strategy, but not THE ONLY strategy. Obviously, it worked for Gevlon and others but there are servers when it's not going to work. I'm sure there are 2 'goblins' somewhere who are going head-to-head and barely make any profit at well.
So, for those you who think others who don't subscribe to your strategy as 'morons': One day, the 'moron' may fight back and destroy profits for everyone (consider Lazzaruss in the example).
So in the last week I've been reading this blog spot.
It actually encouraged me to make a goblinish alt. So I got my stagnant 68 mage and decided to make some money.
With no professions, I gave him about 100g and managed to level his tailoring and inscription to almost max level. Creating items and either selling them on AH or disenchanting them with my other alt.
One week later I've started up a decent business via crafting bags and inscriptions. I took on Gevlon's advice at heavily undercutting competition and instead of selling glyphs for 40g+ a pop, I'm selling them at 8-10g a pop, making 200% profit on materials.
At any given time I have up to and over a thousand auctions posted. And I quite like seeing all those messages pop up on the bottom of the screen "A buyer has been found for your auction...".
So today, it finally came....
My first encounter of the competition. Up til now I've been making a decent amount, have accumulated on hand 4k gold with a lot more in the AH. Which I would say is not bad, considering I started from scratch (including no professions).
This guy named "Sac" from the guild Nurfed, I believe his name was, on the Blackrock realm.
He came up to me and said;
Sac: "Hey kid, you there?"
Sac: "...answer me"
Me: "Hey, what's up?"
Sac: "No more undercutting the glyph competition by 100%, okay?"
Me: "Why?"
Sac: "You're not making any money out of it, and it's killing the entire market"
Sac: "You've single handedly killed the glyph market for everyone on this whole server"
Me: "No I haven't, I'm still making plenty of money"
Sac: "Inspect me, look at my achievements, do you know how to do that?"
Sac: "I make 1k gold a day, and mostly from selling glyphs at 40g each"
Sac: "You can't make that sort of money from selling glyphs at the prices you are selling them"
Sac: "I want you to make more money to. I'm the best glyph seller on the server."
Sac: "I'm from a respectable guild and I don't want someone new to the market to ruin it"
Me: "I am making money, I've made plenty in the past week"
Sac: "No you haven't, I can see you're only bringing in 500g a day"
Sac: "And I'm just going to keep undercutting you, just like now"
Sac: "Only undercut the competition by 1c and you'll make much more money"
Me: "But I'm selling lots of glyphs at my price and money's rolling in"
Me: "So you keep selling your way, I'll sell my way"
That was pretty much it, because I had to go to work. But I suspect when I get around to buying enough Books of Glyph Mastery, I will be able to wipe him completely from the market. I'm looking forward to the coming week. =)
Sprakk
@Sprakk:
That's what I love the most, the people that come up to you and try to get you to stop what you're doing by telling you, "You're not making any money." I get that all the time now, usually in the form of a whiny letter that's stuck in between the 150 auction sales I'm cleaning out of my mailbox on my lunch hour. ;)
Bottom line is that if they're coming to you and whining, you're clearly doing something right.
In my observation, there is a direct correlation between price and the number of sellers. High price - high number of sellers, which mean more competition and more undercutters to irritate you.
Fortunately, the opposite is true, as well. Occasionally the prices need to be driven down to 'thin the herd'.
To deal with goblin undercutters, there are several strategies:
1. ally with all the other competition, all post glyphs at just above mat price, drive the goblin away, then bring the market price up. If he's stupid enough to post under mat price, well well, you've just got yourself a deal.
2. get deals on mats, lower mat price = you still make some profit at insanely low price while the goblin doesn't make any profit, thus driving him away
3. try to teach him about elasticity and how glyph is an elastic good, and tell him there is so so so much more in economics than simple supply and demand. (there is a risk that you would be percieved as a moron and screenshotted to be posted on this very website)
4. if the said goblin camps, post 1 glyph of each type then log off. log on your alt, wait for him to undercut (usually ur undercutter posts 5 glyphs at the same time), undercut him by 1 glyph again. if he cancels and undercut, repeat. Do that especially during peak hour of selling glyphs. Make sure you have enough supplies. See if the cancelling undercutter sells any glyphs at all.
5. If you tried all the above strategies and your little goblin friend is still so persistent and believing making a few hundred gold a day in glyphs is so good. what can i say? move on to another niche and thrive there.
Howdy, first time reader of your Blog. I actually got the link over on Tobold's blog that I've read for a while.
I find this post very interesting as I've been at war with the fellow enchanters on my server for the past few weeks. Basically I've been undercutting their scripts by about 10%. I realized after a few days my scripts were no longer selling as they were just undercutting me by 10%. I'd undercut again by 10% and then I started getting whispers and mail telling me to stop lowering my prices.
So what did I do? I lowered my prices...drastically. I took my enchant gloves-crusher which was selling for 200g, and I went down to 89g. I don't really care because I just want to finish leveling my enchating. These goons buy it and throw it up on the AH for 200g. So I used my 89g to make another crusher enchant, and put it on there for 129g. Same thing. They purchased it and put it up for 200g. I did this about 20 times and finished leveling my enchanting, made about 3k gold. I noticed that they stopped buying my scripts and reposting them around the 175g mark. Then actual customers bought the scripts and no one seems to buy them for 200g. The mats are only 60g so I see no reason to charge 200g.
Either way I made some enemies and I plan to do the same thing with tailoring.
Love these posts.
The best way to deal with a stagnant market is to undercut big like Gev 40%. This will not only make it more painful for the 1 silver cutters, but may actually force some comp out of the market. That is the whole point of his posts. There are settings in auctioneer that will let you specify your undercut amount and if there is no comp you can raise the price by 160% or whatever depending on your prefs. Yes, this pisses people off. Yes, you will get hate mail / tells. Yes, you may take a loss on certain sales. Yes, this method will suck the blood out of your comp and make them want to give up.
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