Today's post is from Beermaker, fellow AUO guildie and alt-a-holic.
“Hi, I’m a bag salesman”
I didn’t used to be, but after reading Rorik’s post I decided to give it a go. I had an up and coming priest that was a tailor, seemed like it would be a good fit. It would just take a while to get him leveled up to be able to make the Netherweave Bags. “Don’t you have a Deathknight you could power level it on?” Rorik asked. A light went on, a Deathknight took up tailoring (There’s a joke in there, I just know it), and now I happily sell Netherweave bags on the auction house.
Leveling up tailoring wasn’t all that difficult. It probably took about 3 days of limited playtime. I used a guide off of wowwiki to level up. It’s a little bit outdated due to some recent changes, but it still works well enough. I deviated from it here and there so I’d have items to disenchant on another toon, but other than that it only cost a couple hundred gold for me to get leveled up (I had a fair amount of runecloth on hand, so that helped).
Now, I haven’t been keeping great notes at home. This is still a game so I refuse to maintain a profit/loss statement regarding my little “business”. I do know for a fact that it has a positive cash flow for me though. Here’s a few of the details of what I’m up to….
I may be opportunistic, but I’m no fool. I don’t way undercut on my prices. I usually price them out anywhere from a few silver to one gold less what’s listed. Other times, I’ll price above them if some are too cheap. Why give away a nice profit margin? I don’t flood the market. There are other tailors who do. I list a few, and when they sell I’ll list a few more. The sellers flooding the market also usually undercut by a large margin. Those will sell out fast, and my few bags listed in my normal price range will sell anyways. On average, I’m probably moving 20-30 bags a week.
I buy all my mats. Yep, I don’t spend time farming Netherweave. I buy it. I watch the AH every day to see where the price is. It’s a commodity to me, and when it falls below a certain price I buy all that I can find. Notice I said find, not need. If it’s below my price threshold I buy every single piece I can find on the AH. Why do I do this? It keeps my competitors from being able to buy at that low price (Let them pay more for it), and it insulates me from the market. Recently I went through about a 5 day stretch where the price of cloth was ridiculously high. I bought nothing. Then the market crashed, and I bought dirt cheap.
Interestingly enough, as the cloth market crashed the price of bags has increased a bit. Perhaps it was from everyone else paying more for cloth (after I bought up all the cheap stuff)? I’m happy to play along of course, and price a bit higher myself. More money for me.
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Beer - Great article!!! Even though you don't keep a P&L statement (profit/loss statement for those who aren't financially savvy) you still managed to observe some important things that have given me some insight. I never really thought to list HIGHER than my competitors who undercut by a large margin. It makes sense, if they flood the market with a bunch of cheapy crap I am more than likely to have some buyers at a good price once the "sale items" are bought out. Also, you reiterated an important point that Cathy has mentioned in previous articles. Only list 1-2 items at a time! OMG I can't tell you how hard it is for me to do that but I know if I have some patience my stuff will sell. Ok, I'm done rambling now. Once again, excellent article!!!!!!
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