Lengthy Introduction

Markets I'm Into

In this first blog post I wanted to share what markets I'm into.  I have a maxed profession level jewelcrafter, alchemist (transmute specialist), tailor, leatherworker, blacksmith, and enchanter.  I have plans of leveling an inscription and engineering too soon.  With these professions I am into all the pvp crafted armors of all types. Not so much with leatherworking though as I am saving up magnificent hides for patch 5.4.  If can get a good deal on MoP ore I will buy up a bunch and do the shuffle.  With my alchemist I will do my daily living steel, transmute gems, craft potions, and flasks.  I have an exalted with tillers farm on two toons which help bring in herbs, especially golden lotus.  With these markets I am always on the look out for good deals on MoP ore and golden lotus.

Struggles and Triumphs

Now that I have shared my markets I'm into, I wanted to share some of my struggles I have had and how I have been tackling them.  First problem I have had recently is that I noticed I just wasn't making the profit I was used to in the jewelcrafting shuffle.  So I went through my accounting tab on TSM and started analyzing my purchases and sales tabs.  What I found is that I had been mindlessly cutting what I though were popular gems and just undercutting the competition without regard to my cost.  I also checked Undermine Journal to find I had also been enchanting scrolls regularly at loss compared to mat cost.  I am not selling any scrolls now at a loss and just stockpiling the rest of the mats.  As I have learned from many of my favorite gold makers, generally, the price of one golden lotus equals the price of a 20 stack of ghost iron ore.  The stack of ore on average will prospect to at least one rare quality gem.  Many of my mindless cutting and posting of rare gems were far below that value.  To curb this loss I have been buying rare gems when I can find them at below the cost of a stack of ore (many times for much less as all rares have a slightly different market value).  Also my investigation has shown that golden lotus also has dropped below what stacks of ore are going for.  This being said I have be transmuting many of my hybrid colored and red gems to lower my average rare gem cost even more.  I have only been cutting gems that are making 30 gold or more than my average cost of that rare gem color.  Most are going for 2 or 3 times what I paid for the uncut gem.  I prospect much less now and have just been smelting most of ore and sending it to my blacksmith/ alchemist.  Using this and another tactic in this market I have actually doubled my profits in the last week.

My second problem I have run into is that I have a competitor in the crafted pvp plate market that, no matter what, posts everything he must have stocked up for around 150g; helmets, chests, legs, everything.  This is much less than I am used to getting for these items.  To tackle this I have been just trying to reset the market back to around 450g and slowly many of the selling prices on individual items have been rising.  I suspect this is due to this competition running out of his overstock he was just trying to off quickly.  I will have more information on how this pans out in my future posts.

Thanks to my inspirations

In this final section I had originally planned on going over some of what I'm going to be stockpiling for the 5.4 patch.  Rather than beating a very bruised horse, I decided to just link Mithrildar's excellent post What I'm Stockpiling for Patch 5.4.  He covers everything I was thinking and more.

I would also like to thank all of the gold makers that have inspired me on my gold making journey.  Rather than list you all off, know that if you are on my blogs and podcasts I follow section I am talking about you.

Finally I will mention that I will be doing my best to answer the 20 days of Gold Making questions, posted by Nev, as I come up with more content share about my gold making journey.

Thank you all for reading.  Feel free to comment your thoughts or contact me by email or follow me on twitter.

Good luck on your journey.

-Droth