Wednesday (16 Mar) - Auction House Wars

Wednesday (16 Mar) - Auction House Wars

Happy gets to talk about his favorite passion, but first, some guild news.

I don't think anyone would be surprised that the MM2 raid scheduled by Lady Hunter for Wednesday night did not happen. Wild meandered in game around 6:50pm, well after the 6:30pm start time, but even so there were no MM2 guildies around. No biggy, Wild had things to do, such as working on his Therazan and guild reputation. Wild became Revered with the MM guild Wednesday night - the same night that the MM guild reached level 20. There is one very nice bonus for achieving both - Heirloom helms are now available for purchase, and Wild has the rep to buy them. At 1500 gold each Wild bought only one so far - [Stained Shadowcraft Cap], a +agi helm that both Bean and Sista can take great advantage of. With the additional xp bonus the two of them will be getting a +35% experience bonus. Wow. Unfortunately the helm is only available on Wild's side of the family. JB is working on getting to level 85 and doing the things needed to increase her rep with the guild, but it is going to be quite awhile before she'll have access to the guild goodies.

Over to you, Happy.

Happy's posts about the hand-to-hand combat on the Auction House are not very popular (ie, they tend to be boring), but every now and then Happy needs a chance to wax poetic about his passion. Either that, or Happy gets grouchy, and nobody wants to see their banker get grouchy - it's not good for business.

The good news for all us guildies is that right after Wild spent that extravagant amount of gold on the Tsunami trinket, Happy had a run of very good luck over the next several days. Not all of that gold has been recouped yet, but certainly the greater part of it has. Happy is riding a wave of sales of large brilliant shards, greater eternal essences, and (to a lesser degree) illusion dust. There seems to be an insatiable appetite for the large brilliants. Happy had socked away several stacks when they were cheap, and was now pulling in 300% profit on each shard he sold. Each time his stock is nearly exhausted, some silly player drops a bunch on the AH at the "old" price - Happy buys them up and out they go again at Happy's "new" price.

Happy's competitors come and go, but he's recently been battling one that Happy intentionally undercuts every time I see one of his posts. He is usually pretty savvy in his pricing, but Happy's consistent undercutting seems to annoy him to the point of making dumb decisions - such as undercutting Happy's prices by large margins. If he goes low enough, Happy just buys him out and then reposts at the higher price. Sometimes Happy just opts to let him sell at that below market price, saving my stock until I get the price point I'm after. That's the situation with illusion dust right now. Out of the blue Happy's competitor dropped the price in half, when it was selling quite nicely at the higher price. Happy will just wait, and will get the higher price in time.

Then there was another seller who so annoyed Happy with his 1 copper underbids that Happy refused to buy anything he sold no matter what he posted it at. Given the sheer quantities of stuff Happy buys, the guy is not around much anymore.

Greater eternals require special handling. They are not easy to farm and therefore there are usually only small quantities available. There isn't any great demand, either - but when there is, the buyers will pay almost anything for them. Typical sellers don't know this, and routinely post greater eternals for sale at 15g each or less. Happy automatically buys every greater eternal listed for 10g or less. He waits for the right circumstances and sells them at 30g each (more if the buyers are still out there). Right now they are selling at 33g apiece, although once the buyers get what they want, the demand ends and the bottom falls out of the price.

Raising prices on items takes some research as well. Most items that Happy deals with have a price point that you know will sell, a price point where sales may be a little soft but you are still getting buyers, and a price point where the buyer just says no and either does without or goes farming for it himself. Whenever the price is raised there is the risk of getting into that third category. Prices go up most often in situations where a given item is completely bought out, a seller sees that he has (at least temporarily) control of that market, and he'll post very high prices hoping some few desperate buyers will make him rich. Usually those prices get underbid very quickly. Another reason to see high prices is when there is some market manipulation going on. A seller might have a good stock of some item, but doesn't like the price he'd have to sell them at. So, for a few days or more that seller might post very high prices on that item. He knows they won't sell, but he also knows that over time he can raise the average price of the item that is listed in the various action house addons. His "High priced" item will start to look more "reasonably priced." If sellers start seeing sales at those prices, their prices will go up, too.

Happy would "never" play the market like that. Ahem. But for the past three weeks or so Happy has "encouraged" sellers to raise the price of dream shards, which had become almost junk with prices under 50 silver each. Happy has something like 20 stacks of dream shards, but he'd let them melt back into the earth before he'd sell them at 50s - or 1g, for that matter. This week Happy is getting 1g74s for his dream shards, and the buyers are happy to pay it.

Some markets can't really be predicted and so Happy has to roll with the flow. Items with an already low average cost and high demand typically see pricing all over the place. The high demand encourages farmers to drag in truckloads of the stuff, which sell briskly at first. But at the first sign of slowing demand, the price plummets as sellers try to wring that last bit of profit before the price drops too low. The farmers take a break and then suddenly there aren't enough for sale and demand spikes again. Happy rides that spike like a wave coming in off the Bonzai pipeline in Hawaii. Happy posts, it sells out, and he posts again at a higher price. Sometimes Happy can do this four or five times in a single day before demand is sated. Strange dust is like that, as are some of the low end essences like astral and mystic.

Finally, there are items that are so stable Happy rarely even looks at them more than once a day. Bags are like that. Happy selectively sells gem and herb bags which Wild makes. Happy has one major competitor in the bag market that Wild has known literally for years. We've never seen each other in game; never spoken or exchanged a single whisper. Yet we sell our stock at the exact same price - always. In two years we changed prices just once to adjust to rising prices on pre-cata mats needed for some of the bags. Other bag sellers underbid us now and then and we just let them. No one has had our staying power, as making and selling bags takes time and patience.

Happy has all the time and patience in the world.