Selling Relics of Ulduar For Mad Money and Setting Market Prices

As of yesterday, the Relic of Ulduar is a quest item for a Sons of Hodir Reputation quest called Ancient Relics. That’s important because also, with the new patch yesterday, the Relics are no longer soulbound. So you know what that means, right?

Auction House Explosion

I had been sitting on 374 of these Relics for weeks now as I anxiously awaited the release of the 3.0.8 patch. The moment the servers were live yesterday I rushed to the Auction House to see what kind of pricing people were using for the Relics. Unfortunately, as I checked over the next few hours I never saw a single one go up for sale. By dinner time I was frustrated enough that I thought I’d just test the waters myself.

I put up two stacks of 20 Relics with a 40 gold buyout on each. They both sold within minutes to the same buyer. It appeared that I might have undersold those first two stacks so I gave 100 Relics to my girlfriend and had her post them on the Auction House in five stacks of 20 with a 80 gold buyout on each. Those also sold within minutes.

Setting The Price, Then Crushing It

So in a matter of about ten minutes I made 480 gold selling these Relics. I was worried that with the Auction House empty I wouldn’t be able to sell any more at my price range so I had my girlfriend list five more stacks of 20 with an insane 100 gold buyout on each. We were pretty sure no one would bite on that (and we were right) but it did make the next four or five sellers list their own Relics at just under her crazy price point.

Using that to my advantage, I listed three more stacks of 20 with 60 gold buyouts and they sold very quickly as well. That brought my total for the evening of selling Relics of Ulduar up to 660 gold.

The Lesson

Although this post is sort of about Relics of Ulduar it’s really about a simple technique to control a market on the Auction House. These days everyone is only concerned about selling their items quickly by undercutting everyone. By taking advantage of that and setting the bar incredibly high you can control the undercutters. Then you simply turn the tables on them and list your items at your regular price since it’s now below the current market average (that you yourself have created).

Hesston on January 21st, 2009

I’ve been doing the same thing with mammoth mining bags on my server. There are several undercutters that seem to not have a grasp of basic economics. They undercut my prices by a huge amount, in an attempt to sell before me, instead of to their financial benefit.

So, I buy their low, low priced bags, make a few of my own, and then list them on three different toons at controlled prices. (High-medium-market)

When the seemingly “low-priced” bags sell, people are forced to buy the slightly higher priced ones since they are the only ones listed. If those sell, or someone undercuts again, I repeat.

It’s not a flawless plan, but it has worked fairly well.

Nance on January 21st, 2009

My girlfriend has been working with Herbalism and Inscription a lot lately and, let me say, those people are absolute savages. Everyone she’s competing against on our server hasn’t gotten a drop of common sense. It’s totally normal to see people undercutting each other by 50% or more on items that would regularly go for 10g.

It’s bad on all professions though. I was just checking my auctions at lunch and I saw a guy selling a Titansteel Shield Wall for 900 gold. You could make more than 900 gold just by selling the mats it took to make the freaking thing in the first place.

Jan200921

Nance

2