I've got to be honest with you. I played WoW for many years without really ever using the auction house. I of course had to occasionally purchase materials there that I was incapable or unwilling to farm, but I rarely sold anything. It seemed like every time I tried nothing would move. I felt like I was just wasting my time trying to price my materials and loading each auction only to have all the stuff come right back at me in the mail. I'd frequently just vendor perfectly sellable items because I just didn't want to deal with the hassle.
I am a convert now. I've even given my husband free license to mail my banker toon anything that is not complete grey vendor trash and I will auction it for him rather than see potential profits disappear into a vendor's pocket. Yes I even auction common items, those pieces you collect that have white text for their name. There's some real money to be had at times when someone out there really wants those eggs you found while leveling. I've even managed to sell some common items that don't know they are vendor trash.
I'm not hardcore though. I will only list something if I'm going to get more for it (after the AH's 5% cut) than I would have if I vendored it. I also only list certain things once or twice before giving up and collecting vendor money. If it's a mat for a tradeskill I'll hang onto it for a week or two and then start trying again more times than not, because there's always someone new out there leveling their skill that wants those goods.
The turning point was when I was reading WoW Insider and I kept reading about different auction mods. There was a Gold Capped article about Auctionator that caught my eye. Initially what caught my eye was the way that it handles browsing other peoples auctions when there is something you need to buy. If you haven't read that article I linked you should, you will see what I mean. Then one day I decided to try the sell tab. I didn't change any of the default settings; I just through my item in the sell window, changed the auction length and posted it. Within a day I decided to liquidate all the various junk I'd been sitting on "in case I needed it". I made thousands of gold. I was amazed. My husband was amazed.
I didn't do anything special though. All I did was decide to stop being a pack rat and sell my stuff. The built in auction house has gotten better over the years, but Auctionator really makes life easy for the casual auction house player. I'll tell you about my experiences with Tradeskill Master some other time, but for now I'll say if you just want to dump some things on the AH quick, and you aren't going to do any real volume, you should stick with Auctioneer.
These days I've got it set up to a default auction length, and my bank alt opens directly to the sell tab. I make sure that I run a full scan at least every day or two (if I can log in) so that I can watch trends on certain items. To make this browsing easier I've set Shopping Lists. Some lists are for the current crafting materials that I need, while others are for older materials or even gear upgrades. This addon can really do a lot for you, but it is so unobtrusive that if you just want to buy and sell items you can just do that, and do it easier.
I will concede that I am a bit of an addon junky. I like sparkly new doodads, but I also don't like clutter and I don't like to bog down my system so I tend to install them for a bit then delete them when the shine has worn off. I have a feeling that like Deadly Boss Mods, Auctionator might be here to stay.
Despite the fact that I used the word rules in the title of this post, I actually don't have any rules for using the auction house. Sometimes I undercut by a tiny bit, other times I'll undercut a lot because I'm still making plenty of proft and I'd rather see my auctions get bought in 5 seconds. You can get all fancy and try to figure out what time of day might leave you with as little time to be undercut as possible, but I just list everything when I'm ready to log off for the night so I can wake up to a mailbox full of gold to spend. The only AH practice I have that might even approach being a rule is that I try not to list auctions on Monday night, because I hate losing multiple hours to server maintenance. I sometimes forget, but since most of my auctions are only 24 hours it really chaps my britches if I get up in the morning and realize that time in ticking away on auctions that no one can browse.
What auction tips or tricks are you willing to share? Is there an addon that you love to use in conjunction with your auction house dealings?
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