It's been a while since I concentrated on making gold. I have more than enough gold to be comfortable so I haven't grinded out the ah stuff in a while. At most I have been posting glyphs about once a week for a few months now.
I have only been on the selling side of things for those few months because I had a stockpile of about 10 thousand ink of the sea. Last week I noticed my profit margin was way up. I decided to take a look at why that might be. I found that herb prices were sky high compared to what I was paying when I made my stockpile.
Low level herbs were about 4g a stack, now they are at 17g. High level herbs were at 12g per stack now 24g. And they have been staying that way for weeks now. Something is up.
I only see prices like this for a week or so after blizz hands out mass bans to gold farmers. Usually the prices come down as the farmers get toons up to the level they can farm again.
So what is happening now? Why wont the prices drop back? The answer is Battle.net and Warden 2.0. Now that blizzard has a solid way to identify and ban farmers we are seeing markedly less of them around. Less farmers = less competition. Less competition = higher prices.
Now lots of people see the higher herb prices as a bad thing. They see the cash cow limping along and not making the mountains of gold that it once was. Those of us goblins who see the wind blowing have already adjusted accordingly.
For instance: When I made my stockpile of inks, the mats cost came out to 80s or 2g12s for each ink of the sea depending on what I did with the snowfall inks. At the time I was making a profit off the DMF cards so it was the 80s mark. I could sell a glyph for 1g31s and still make a (miniscule) profit.
If I were to buy herbs now at 17g and 24g a stack my ink price would be about 1g60s or 4g depending on if I could sell DMF cards at a profit for the lower price. I cant so, my new glyph price is 4g per ink and any DMF cards I sell is pure profit.
Add 50s for each parchment and my glyph prices to break even used to be 1g30s (if my DMF cards sold which they did). Now its 4g50s per glyph with any profit from DMF cards as extra free income.
Big hit right? wrong. Since everyone has to pay these herb prices and no one can make a profit over mats costs on DMF cards, we are all in the same boat. Anyone selling under this price will lose money and eventually have to quit. The good thing is that those who haven't figured this out yet are falling by the wayside. Glyph prices are going up and with them the profit margins are too.
The biggest beauty of the whole thing is that I still have about 5 thousand inks in the bank that I bought (as mats) at about 2g each and my new bottom line reflects the current prices at 4g. If a glyph sells at my lowest price I still make 2g profit over what I payed in materials.
Bottom line is I love warden and blizzards efforts to eliminate bots and gold farmers. Sure the cheap mats are gone, but so are the part time competition and the quick buck people who don't want to put the work in. Less people who are trying for a cut means bigger slices for those of us who can still work the market.
It may just be time to reexamine whatever profession you have to see if some items have become profitable again now that less people are in the markets.
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