Saturday, June 5, 2010

Enchanting and the 80/20 rule

In my 2 days off of raiding I managed to get mostly set up with my enchanting scroll business. I have spent about 2k gold on enchanting mats and made 2 of every scroll I know. Since there is no cost to post and cancel auctions for enchants the only cost is making the first batch of enchants. As long as the sale price is above the cost of mats plus AH sale cut I will make money on every one that sells.

My problem right now is that I cant post any because I don't have a good grasp on all the material prices. I need a week of scanning the AH because I haven't done so on this account for months. Once I get a baseline I will be able to set prices for sales.

This is the same strategy that I use with inscription. After my initial investment of making a batch of every glyph in the game I now only make replacements for the ones that sell.

Many people try to use the 80/20 rule. This is where 80% of your sales come from 20% of the type of product you sell. People try to find that 20% that sell the best and only compete on those. I don't do this. I make some of each glyph and even if I sell one a month its worth the cost of posting.

In enchanting and inscription I think the 80/20 rule is missing out on sales. With any other profession using the 80/20 rule is probably best. The reason is that every time you post and cancel you are losing a bigger percentage of your profits.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting to see how you go. I traded chants heavily when I was looking to buy saronites to make my ICC craftables. I've definately fallen into a 80/20 mindset. I used very basic rules of thumb on mat prices and most things will net only a very marginal profit.

    With a lot of passive gatherers now from 5-mans there aren't many chants that go for more than the price of mats. There are still some out there though.

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