Auction House Treatise

Auction House Treatise
Warning - May Cause Heavy Eyelids to Close

Chaitee is betting that the Auction House will pick up speed as the weekend looms closer. Chaitee's offers are not getting any attention because prices have remained below the cost to make them. This phenomenon is not unusual due to the time lags between farming the mats to make items and when those items actually reach the Auction House.

On the surface it appears that Chaitee is overstocked and over priced. But in the often strange ways of buyers and sellers, Chaitee knows she has to wait patiently for low ball items to sell before her own offerings, at much higher prices, will become of interest. The trick is to know when the pricing is ripe to shift. One great example was last week, when Chaitee pushed a run on hexweave bags. These bags can be made in only limited amounts and price out around 800g each. Chaitee got her hands on nine of those bags for a wonderful 725 gold each. Chaitee could have sold all of those bags right away at 850g. But she didn't. She watched, calculating that she had a short window of opportunity where she was the only provider of those bags. Chaitee raised the price of the bags one sale at a time. The last five bags sold for over 1200g each.

Chaitee is hoping for a similar run on Silkweave Satchels. Chaitee's embersilk bags are currently overpriced (Chaitee prices hers at 455g but currently selling at 398g), but once her competitors sell the cheap ones, and they will, Chaitee will own that market at the higher price as well as feed into the even higher priced satchels. If it plays out like Chaitee expects, she will be selling satchels at 525g each or better. At least that's the plan. Otherwise she'll be left "holding the bags." 

Chaitee has a backup plan if/when things go way wrong. She uses a trick to ensure she always has gold available for the dicier business dealings. In a nutshell, Chaitee doesn't always put her gold in the bank after getting sales. She sets a percentage aside that she uses to supplement periods where profit is low. In that way Chaitee rarely has to dip directly into the bank and take out funds. It's a slow process, but Chaitee makes sure that more gold is always flowing into the bank than coming out of it. Example: Chaitee is currently holding 36 sales in the inbox, each of which are worth at a minimum of 500g. She'll winnow that large package down to 10-15 sales by the end of the weekend, and that will fuel next week's take as well as purchases to restock items sold.

Chaitee will continue her discussion and greedy habits thoughout the weekend.