Auction House Example: Eternal Belt Buckle

I’ve been in the business of selling Eternal Belt Buckles, off and on, for awhile now. Over the course of the last few days, my server has seen an increased demand for them and I’ve had to put in some extra effort to meet that growing interest. I thought I’d take some time and write down my strategy and methods for taking advantage of this situation along with some general tips and tricks that can apply to other items to sell on the Auction House as well.

Setting The Stage

I have a pretty decent set of characters and professions right now and it’s important that I properly explain just what it is I have to work with.

My main character, Nance, is a 450 Miner (a switch I made shortly after the release of Wrath). He’s the workhorse character of this group and is the only one I gather materials with by hand.

I have a Death Knight alt, Embry, that is a 450 Blacksmith. He spends all of his time at the Magus Commerce Exchange in Dalaran building Buckles and using the mailbox. He hasn’t seen combat in months.

And the last piece of this virtual economy puzzle is my Bank Alt, Daugherty. He receives all of the Buckles and posts them on the Auction House in Thunder Bluff. He’s pictured above because I think he looks cool. On occasion I’ll have another character post Buckles as well but I’ll get to that later in the post.

My total net worth, going into this week, was about 32,000 gold. I say that not to brag or anything (I’m sure tons and tons of people have more) but you should realize that I’m in a position to make these Auction House moves quickly with brute cash strength if need be. You can just as easily do what I’ve done without a big bankroll but obviously the time involved would be longer and the profits smaller.

Identifying The Market

As I said at the start, I’ve been selling these Belt Buckles for a long period of time on a semi-regular basis ever since Embry learned how. I maxxed out Blacksmithing just as the market for items like the Titansteel Guardian and Titansteel Destroyer crashed on my server by two-thirds or more. This left me hustling to find another use for Blacksmithing and I quickly realized the need and demand for Belt Buckles.

The average price on my server for one Buckle is approximately 65 gold. With that in mind, whenever I have enough materials to build a Buckle I make one and have it sell in relatively short order. A sale is usually guaranteed if it’s listed in the lower third of the buyouts.

A few days ago, when I was posting a spare Buckle I had on the Auction House, I noticed that the lowest buyout was 115 gold. That’s a pretty rare occurrence on my server so I decided to strike fast and get in on the action while prices were at that high level. I figured I could make a few Buckles and sell them for 100 gold each before the market went back to normal.

Gathering Materials

Thankfully it is pretty easy to put together an Eternal Belt Buckle. To make one you need the following: one Eternal Shadow, one Eternal Earth, one Eternal Water and four Saronite Bars.

I spend most of my time playing Nance, my Hunter. For at least a little bit every day, after I run whatever dailies I’m doing at that time or when I’m sitting in LFG, I mine in Icecrown. I’ve been mining exclusively in Icecrown since I made the jump to mining in Northrend and have, almost without exception, had very little competition as I make my rounds. As more and more people hit 80 I’m expecting this to no longer be the case so I’m anticipating moving the mining operation to Sholazar Basin sometime soon.

All of the materials for the Eternal Belt Buckle can pretty easily be gathered by yourself with a little commitment to mining. Any miner worth their weight should have a steady supply of Saronite on hand at all times. The Eternal Earths and Shadows should be easy to get as well. If you don’t feel like mining for them you can just as easily get your fill fighting the mobs in Wintergrasp or buy them on the Auction House. They average around 6 gold a piece.

The hardest part of the Eternal Belt Buckle equation is the Eternal Water. As a miner you’ll occasionally put these together hitting enough Titanium Veins but it’s going to be slow progress. You can try Wintergrasp, of course, but the mobs that drop the Crystallized Water are usually under the water and the fights are irritating to say the least.

With all of that in mind, the Eternal Water are the only materials for the Eternal Belt Buckles that I buy on the Auction House. Any time I see someone selling them for at or below 10 gold each I buy them up and mail them off to my Blacksmith character.

So that means I can put together one Eternal Belt Buckle with a little sweat equity and about 10 gold. If I was going to rush the process I would buy all of the Eternals at once for a cost of about 20 to 25 gold a Buckle depending on the buyouts at the time. When I have a nice stack to work with it’s time to sell the suckers.

Making The Sale

With a maximum cost of 25 gold, but more likely something under half of that, the Eternal Belt Buckle is a profitable item even when Auction House prices are slashed below average. The key, of course, is to take the right steps to make sure it sells quickly and for as much profit as possible.

As I said earlier, the average price of an Eternal Belt Buckle had been about 65 gold each leading up to this week. When the lowest buyout rose to 115 gold the rush was on to capitalize. My policy is to always be the lowest buyout for an item down to a certain level I’m comfortable with. In my head I know what an item I frequently sell usually goes for and if I have to post a buyout under that mark I store the item away for another day. For the Eternal Belt Buckle, I never sell below that 65 gold average but with a 115 gold competitor I had to take advantage and raise my price threshold.

But why did the market for Eternal Belt Buckles suddenly jump? I’ve written about setting market prices before but let me explain it again very briefly.

Occasionally, when I want to drive a market price on an item, I’ll post one or more at an inflated price and then come back on with another character and list more of that same item at a more reasonable buyout. Now my guess is that another player on my server was doing this very thing with Eternal Belt Buckles and that’s fine by me as long as I can ride the price wave with him until the 115 gold Buckles expire.

It’s been several days since the 115 gold low buyout and every time I’ve logged in I’ve collected my money for the Buckles that sold and then posted more at an adjusted buyout. I’m always posting as the lowest price but never more than 5 gold under the current low. I just kept repeating this process, making more Buckles as need be.

Knowing When To Quit

Prices are finally coming back down to normal. As I was writing this post I sold three more Buckles for 70 gold each. That’s pretty close to my breaking point and I’m pretty sure that by the end of the weekend the price will be back to 65 gold and the wave will be over on Buckles.

I didn’t keep exact figures but over the course of this run I made approximately 1,200 gold in Eternal Belt Buckles. There are other ways to make more gold in a much quicker span of time but my total investment in this little project was a bit over 150 gold in Eternal Waters. That’s not a bad deal.

Now that the price is stabilizing closer to the average I’m going to stop pushing the production of the Buckles for awhile. I’ll go back to making and selling them whenever I go about picking up the materials but I’ll no longer be actively buying those mats off of the Auction House.

Lessons Learned

This post was insanely long but I appreciate those of you who stuck it out and read to the end. Regardless of your character’s professions, it’s important to monitor the craftable items you can make on the Auction House. By learning the average buyout prices for certain items you can, when the market goes wacky, make a quick killing with a little common sense and a little effort.

I hope anyone who has been struggling to understand the Auction House, or is just looking for tips to make some extra gold, found this post helpful. If you have any questions, please leave a comment or use my contact form.

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2. Companion Pets, Achievements and the Auction House
3. Selling Relics of Ulduar For Mad Money and Setting Market Prices
4. Making Gold With Cooking Dailies
5. Switching to Mining

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