I have been in the gold game for years, so I will let you in on a (not so complicated) secret: You need time and gold to make gold.
Let's look at a few examples:
You have 10K in hand. You don't have a guild bank, you log in once every other day. You have a stack here and a stack there of goods to sell. You have, at most, around 50 auctions a day. You sir/madam, are not going to pull in a ton of gold. My guess is you might make hundreds on a good day. You know what? That's good. But, and emphasis on the but, you need gold (and stock) to make more gold. A good number I figure is that one percent of your liquid gold you have you should be pulling in a day. 10K=100g. Don't worry, it will creep up, you just need to re-invest that gold to continue making more.
You have 100K liquid. You just got a guild bank, you log in "almost" daily. You are starting to build up a stockpile of materials, and you are starting to know what sells on your auction house. You read blogs. You do what you can to get the sales. But you are struggling. You are pulling in around 1K a day, and can't get much more. You wonder why. 1%'er. You are doing exactly what you should be doing, but once again, get your stocks up. You need to continue to stock up on goods on the low end (price point) on your server, and repost during the high times. This is where the AH gets interesting, and more of a "watch and learn" than the "read blogs and learn".
What and where I am going with this is DONT GET FRUSTRATED in your quest for gold in WoW. There are many different options to make gold in each auction house, and you need to find them. Sure, you can hire me to Coach you, you can buy my Gold Guide, you can buy 20KLeveling, and you can learn what is needed to make gold. But the absolute best way to learn is to know your AH, and on a more personal level. How you ask? Here's a few things to get started:
- What are the ebb and flows of the market? Do you notice that Volatile Life is sitting around 5g on Mondays, and kicks up to 14g on the weekends or vice/versa?
- Are you always looking for "x" material- Noticing it's never on the AH? Farm it. If you can't, find someone that can.
- Are you re-investing your profits? Do you have a guild bank to store your AH schtuff? Do you have a stack (at least) of each material that you use in your crafting? No? Get stock my good friend.
- Are you only in one market? Or two? Or ten? Or fifty? Remember, gold is gold. Whether you make 5g on a sale or 500g, profit is profit. The lesser profits are normally the easiest. Vendor items, gear "flips", and quick to craft items normally give the least amount of profit whereas high risk (BoE mounts, TGC cards, BoE epics) will give the most profits. *but beware of a potential loss if not done correctly.
- Do you post Auctions? Or better yet, do you FOLLOW up on them? Do you see what is selling and when? When you sell "x" glyph, do you already have 3 of the same posted? Do you automatically run TSM or recraft another and repost? Or do you just run to your bank and grab one and toss it on the AH immediately? Know your role. As I mentioned many times before, if it's not on the AH, it's still selling.....for someone else. They get your sales. Take advantage of that. Let that sink in.
- Are you utilizing posting "times" correctly? Do you utilize your 12, 24, and 48 hour auctions? Auction "fees" go by a percentage of vendor price, then multiplied by length of time. Are you posting your epic BoE's for 48 hours and paying 20+ gold if it doesn't sell? Day after day, week after week? Or are you selling your Enchant Scrolls on 12 hour when it's only silvers more to post 48's? Take that in consideration.
- Are you utilizing posting "days" correctly? Are you posting your items on Tuesday night for 12 hours or 48 hours? Are you posting your Ore 7 days a week and losing out on the highest prices on Thursday evening? Those gems/enchants used to sell like hotcakes on Tues and Thurs nights (raid times on your server), so you only post then? With the dungeon queue, you might want to reconsider and rock them 24/7.
Think of WoW like a Puzzle:
Everyone has to start out with a "kiddie" 6 piece puzzle (the 1-10K'ers). The first few times you put it together and pull it apart, it gets easier each time (the 10-50K'ers). But then, you get "older", and it turns into a 20 piece, then a 100 piece, then a 1000 piece. You can work on it all hours of the day (post/repost), and get it done faster, or you can break it down into hour blocks and knock it out little by little (the every other day posters). It's up to you on how you play with your "AH" puzzle, and how well you understand the process, and more importantly, how quick you gain gold.
After time, you will realize when you open the box, you seperate into shapes/corners/edges/colors/etc (multiple markets). You might pick one part of the puzzle to work on first (posting days), maybe the "easiest" part of the picture (posting times). Then you go into another part and branch off (vendor items to crafting goods), and so on and so on.
Then, you realize that you are missing a piece. You look all over, can't find it anywhere. Maybe the cat ate it. Maybe the dog. Maybe your kid/sister/brother/parent (competition). Now, you are on a hunt for it. You need to find that piece. Are you one to give up, and throw it away? Or are you the one that will, after completing your puzzle (other than that one missing piece) will "make your own"? What I mean here is going "outside the box". Making your own niche market that no one has talked about (in any blog/forum/website) that is a market on your server that no one else is in?
This, my friend, is where I feel the "top of the mountain" is in gold making. And boy, does it feel good to reach that peak.
What to do now? Start another puzzle......