Again using the undermine journal, I have a few images to show
I prefer to sell Dark Succor on my server than on Hydraxis Alliance. In fact, I would not be selling it on Hyrdraxis Alliance.
For me, glyphs generally sell shortly after posting or not at all. At the moment, all that leaving glyphs up for 48 hours seems to do is suppress the long term price of it. The more frequently I post, the more glyphs I sell, and will intend to post several times per day over the weekend, but only once or twice per day during the week. Posting 1 or posting 10 makes very little difference to my sales, but a large difference to my effort in mail collection.
I am attempting to take sales from my competitors. In turn they will attempt to take sales from me. Some will do so by posting when I dont (i.e. early AM). Others will post walls of glyphs (5 or so at a time). Yet others will track my toons and logins, and immediately undercut. Finally there are those who post as/when they can.
I want to discourage immediate undercutters. Some will undercut at 1 copper, which has no real effect on prices, but I personally find a little annoying. I will undercut by 5 g on the majority of glyphs, with a larger undercut on glyphs that dont do as well. There will be times that I will post, log out, wait 5 minutes, log back in and re-post. If this re-posts a lot of glyphs, I will rinse and repeat. This will annoy other glyph sellers, as repeated repost cycles will crash some prices in fairly quick order.
My current frame of mind is to have profitable sales, and continue to dump my few remaining significantly underperforming glyphs. For the majority, I will post 1 of each glyph regularly with a 24 hour window. I work during the day, and am not organised enough to post before work. Some days I will (either accidentally or deliberately) allow all glyphs to expire.
For glyph costs, I base it on the price of the most expensive ink (blackfallow), but will continue to buy and get milled cheaper herbs and use them for additional profit. At some stage I expect to need per ink pricing, but today is not that day.
Compared to a month ago, not many glyphs are currently selling (with some attributing it to Australian kids returning to school), but we are selling ok. It is also my belief that players will happily spend 40-60g on a glyph just in case but will only buy glyphs they need at 200g. If pricess fall, then we will sell more glyphs.
If I find my profits falling, I will be more aggresive. I will probably adjust my pricing in a fortnight regardless.
Given our known experience with Dark succor, and other anecdotal evidence, the majority players do not yet have a full set of glyphs. New players, new alts and players backfilling glyphs will all contribute to ongoing demand. It appears that 4 scribes can fulfill the current demand for glyphs. There will be spikes where patches add glyphs, change glyphs, or popular forums change their glyph suggestions, where temporary demand may exceed regular supply. Over the course of Cata, I expect that demand will fall off from current levels, but not much lower.
Glyhs will continue to form a significant part of my income expectations. However, with a falling time commitment to glyph crafting, I will be exploring other professions again for profit opportunities.
Posts
I will state a couple things I believe are essentially true based on my server. Glyphs sell based on who last posted. Wall of glyphs dont really impact sales. They set a price ceiling. Undercutting your comp by 1copper is in your best interest as the ability to drive people out of the market doesnt work in the long run. Sure one may leave but it is just replaced by another.
ReplyDeleteI sell on a medium pop server with the alliance being on the lower pop side. There are a number that sell glyphs but you can see the regular posters. A price war helps purchasers not sellers. On my server I prefer to buy whiptail at the price I can sell inferno ink at(130-150gold). The ink sells and my glyphs basically represent my profit. Thus one could say I could be selling glyphs at a few gold and make lots...well that isnt how I sell as the market may only have a 50-100 sales each day. I only make glyphs that are selling over 100gold. I list glyphs only if over 60gold. From time to time I drop my threshold just to clear space. I want profit and I prefer easy profit If I get 20 sales from a posting it is easily 2k. A good night gets me 5k from one posting. To make gold on my server it is a function of reposting. I have always reposted 3 times a day. If I want an extra 1,000 gold I would post in the morning. Declining prices hurt revenue. I believe in buying out the one or two glyphs that are under 20gold and relisting at 300gold. They sell and it keeps the market high. I know every market is different but in all the markets I play in deep discounts just hurt your sales. I only do it to clear stock that I dont want to relist.
I am more than capable of driving out other competitors, especially when Moonvengence and I get into a trade war (Which I do not think we are in). The problem with driving out everyone else is you need to make everone's profit not worth their effort. At this point, I am making more profit (with a lot less work) by allowing competitors
ReplyDeleteMy problem with the 1c undercut is that it involves a lot of reposting to ensure your glyphs are the ones to be bought. I have seen cycles where thousands of glyphs are being posted and cancelled for very little difference other than AH fees.
A 5g undercut means that if you undercut me soon enough for me to notice and hard enough for me to care, then a price war will ensue, to the point that one of us bails. I lose nothing by undercutting by 5g, as without my undercut I don't sell anything. The 1c AH camper cares a lot though, as every time he has to relist, he is doing so at a significant discount.
Deep undercuts hurt everyone's profit margins, but increase your personal sales. I would rather make 45g profit on 10 sales rather than 49.99g on 0 sales, or even 2g profit on 30 sales.
@ Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if people driven out of the glyph market will be replaced by others anymore. While that used to be the case the fact that the Books of Glyph Mastery are now much rarer means that the number of new glyph makers is being limited.
Neither you nor Moonvengence bother me over-much. Whilst I'd obviously prefer you both weren't there, I know someone else would just come along to fill the void. And whether you're undercut is 1c or 5g I'm not fussed, in either case it's reasonable. I'm making profit, so I'm happy. There's times when I get immediately undercut and others where I do the undercutting. But most days it seems to even out.
ReplyDeleteYour strategy makes good sense, it's not far removed from what I'm doing. Moony is posting larger walls of posts, but if he's happy to do all the work, good luck to him.
The ones that bother me are the 2 or 3 regular sellers that continue to insist on posting at pre-Cata prices (say sub-15g) on glyphs that otherwise would easily sell for 40-80g. I don't see how they can be making any profit.
Neoriv @ Cael.