I've been responding to many questions recently about how to get started with little gold capital and what is best to start flipping.
After my last 5 paragraph response to a simple "what are your profit margins?", I think it would benefit more aspiring goblins to post my answers in their own post. So here goes...
Question: With prices continuing to drop for mats how do you make a profit?
Answer: Prices do fluctuate but on my server they generally never go near low enough to make it unprofitable. Realize, I'm not selling for the lowest possible price, I'm selling convenience. Neat stacks always sell higher than the lowest price and if the mats ever get too low I have the capital to reset a market and recoup any losses on either the weekends or reset day (Tuesday for me on NA server).
But knowing the right prices to buy comes with time and experience and the only way to get that is by investing time to gain the experience. You had to put in time to get your character to max level and over that time you learned how to properly use your class. Same applies to the AH, and flipping mats is a relatively less risky way to learn than buying one 50-100k boe that could tank in price.
Question: What kind of profit margins do you list at when you restack?
Answer: That honestly fluctuates with the market. On things I know move fast I dont worry as much with what I know their highest price to be all week. Take for instance, tidespray linen. On my server this item can fluctuate a good bit ranging anywhere from 10g - 25g as the lowest current price throughout the week. And with the epic boe farms there is always a TON of it up in random stacks. People that do those farms aren't thinking about playing the AH or they wouldn't be out there farming.
So, if its Thursday, which is usually a pretty slow day, and the price has dropped to 12g for most random stacks I might buy it all up to a certain price depending on the quantity and then relist it in 200 stacks undercutting the lowest other 200 stack. If its 18g then I go just under that. If its 22g, even better. Either way, as long as I'm over 5% profit I'm staying ahead and it moves very fast. Point being, it really depends on the item. You don't want to buy up tens of thousands and hold onto them waiting for a big jump in price. You have to just keep the cycle going as long as its profitable and selling. The only reason I'll stockpile is if I know a big change or patch is coming and I'm speculating a huge rise in prices. Or if I'm getting things way cheaper than I feel they should be and I'm planning a reset. This is of course pertaining to the raw mats that move quickly. These methods aren't going to make you millions overnight but they work for people with either:
- Not much initial capital to invest
- Less than 30 minutes per day at the AH
This is what has given me a pretty steady income of 100k-200k each morning when I open my mailbox and it also gives me knowledge of the markets that the rest of the crafted professions markets are based upon. Once I know how and when the raw mats markets fluctuate I can then branch out to either crafting or flipping crafted items. I can predict when a ton of DMF cards are about to hit the market when the same buyer that I've seen selling cards/decks starts buying out tons of my linen. Because I know that as of now linen bracers are the best way to make expulsom through shuffling. When that happens I might send them a whisper offering to either
- Sell more linen at a reduced price (allowing me to lower profit margins but increase total quantity sold)
- Offer to buy/trade cards that I might need to compete decks or to resell
As you can tell, with some research and experience in raw mats, you are actually learning so much more than if you just focused on the end product of say alchemy/inscription/enchanting. And despite what soooooooo many people on this subreddit seem to believe every single one of these professions has the potential to be profitable when you understand the economy from a macro perspective.
Question: I'm on a medium to high server, can you do that with herbs and ores as well?
Answer: I do it with literally every raw mat. Have a TSM group set up with shopping operations and one click will search every raw BFA mat and I just buy what i know is low and relist when i have the stack sizes i want. You will start to get a knowledge for where prices are and where they can go by watching what sells. I'd also suggest spreading out what you buy to reduce risk. Don't go all in on herbs or ore but buy everything that seems lower than it will be at peak times.
