There are far more experienced Goblins that lurk here, but I thought that I would explain some of my experiences with AH Flipping. I am sure that there is a lot that I am missing, but this is intended to be a beginners guide, not an all inclusive guide to flipping.
The various flavors include Sniping, Flipping and Resetting. All are very similar in concept but typically differ only in the amount of inventory and cost of the purchase.
WARNING: do not snipe, flip or reset anything without studying or knowing the pricing patterns of that item. The goal is to earn gold, not throw it away. You can learn the price by studying TUJ for your server (every economy is different), or by daily following the prices on the AH for a few weeks.
A little about me:
3 million or 60% of my Longboi came from flipping raw BFA resources over 2.5 months. The remaining 30% came from BFA crafted goods such as flasks, bags, enchants, etc. The final 10% came from old world crafts including Sky Golem, drums, glyphs, etc.
NOTE: my experience is with flipping raw mats and crafted goods that I craft myself to list. I do not have any experience with Transmog listings, and I do not feel confident to provide advice on flipping Transmogs.
Sniping:
Picking off the easy fruit (open, attractive targets). For AH, this is buying up a few items that are significantly below what you know as the going rate. Example: someone posts a 188 cloth at 1.8g when the next listed price for that same cloth is 10k quantity at 2.2g ea. Sniping is usually low risk and easy money, but you are only earning a few gold here and there. Sometimes the people who are posting these are baiting other sellers to place their items low so that they can buy them up. Other people just don't know the value of the item or that it can be turned into a vendor for guaranteed gold.
Mote of Harmony:
3g 116 <-- good for sniping (total 348g, avg 3g each)
6g11s 640
6g20s 177
7g85 96
12g 1609
The above block is a perfect example of an item to snipe. Because I know this item, it still moves well even though its an old content item, and typically the selling price is around 5g for these. Its only a 348g investment, but could easily get 1g+ profit for each item. Buy and relist immediately, but might take a few postings because 6g11s is higher than normal.
Flipping:
Buying up a significant amount of the inventory with the purpose of relisting it back on the AH at a higher price. Example: someone dumps 10k ore at 5g each while last week it was 8g. While this may seem similar to sniping, the volume of the dump moves it into another category because instead of a few hundred gold for the purchase, it is 50k to buy out all the stock they just posted. The original poster was most likely interested in a fast paycheck, and knew that another goblin would quickly buy it up. Flipping doesn't have to happen right away; you can hold it until price goes up again later in the week. You also don't have to buy out all of the lowest tier stock, such as buying 10k Zin when it drops to its weekly low.
Enchant Ring - Accord of Mastery: (cost to craft: 607g)
400g46 14
450g46 8 <-- might buy all including here (total 9210g, avg 418g65s ea)
496g46 5
559g46 5
668g64 15
902g46 5
902g85 20
904g03 10
Because this is one of my regular items, I know that this item has been hovering around 500g, but a few days ago had a reset to 900g (it quickly dropped back down to around 500g). While the above example might also be good for a reset, I have a hard time paying more than crafting cost and so it is too much of a risk for me. However, I am interested in buying the 2 lowest price tiers and flipping them for nearly 80g profit.
This one is also good because considering the TSM cost to craft is 607g, it is cheaper for me to buy up other people's enchants and relist them than it is for me to craft my own. However, while the TSM crafting cost is 607g, I know I can actually craft it for much less using my: LW Bracer > Inscription Offhand > Veiled shuffle. But in this case, it is a lot easier just to take the 80g profit for a few seconds of work and call it a win.
Resetting:
Control the market of an item (at least for a short time). Typically resets work best when you buy up at least 50% of the available inventory and move the price significantly higher. Ideally you can reset the price to 2x what you paid for it.
War-Scroll of Intellect: (cost to craft: 63g)
65g 162
67g99s 50
68g 1
76g98 9
80g81s 2
100g18s 4 <-- might buy all including here (total 14k cost, avg 67g09s ea)
149g80s 20
159g33s 508
For a more stable item, the quantities are often weighted heavily at the bottom. The resets work because even though some of the items are much more expensive than you would like to pay for them, the overall bulk purchase keeps the price low. Buying out and resetting the price of the scrolls to 149g80s COULD net you 75g profit on each if you sell them all at that price (over doubling your gold)... however it rarely works out that way. You might sell a few at the top price, but eventually its going to drift back down. I would consider the flip successful if the price settles at 90g netting you a 20g profit off each one.
WARNING: in this example, there is actually high risk because the curve is actually flipped. The majority of the inventory is at the top, not the bottom and I can see that there are actually 3 individuals who have posted the inventory at 159g33s. You basically have 3 motivated competitors who are banking their stock and waiting for someone else to reset. This might actually work out OK for you, but there is still a known risk here. I went ahead and reset it this time even though I have stock from another reset. I consider this particular item valuable even going into Shadowlands.
Take a look at this one:
Dredged Leather: (market value: 10g98)
7g 410
7g04 233
7g05 17
7g43 5
7g44 2
7g45 1071
7g59 5
7g79 44 <-- might buy all including here (total 13k cost, avg 7g30s ea)
8g45 7846
8g90 4758
9g 9170
9g75 134
11g27 49 <-- might buy all including here (total 192k cost, avg 8g70s ea)
12g99 858
16g93 178 <-- might buy all including here (total 206k cost, avg 8g92s ea)
29g 11097
How deep of a reset would you do? The two bottom options would own over 70% of the items listed on the AH... approx 23k qty at a value of potential overall resell at market value of 10g98 could get you 60k+ profit. But you could also lose big time because I have seen prices of Dredged Leather drop down to 5g each (that is when I buy them up). Also this is another example of a competitor banking extra inventory and waiting for prices to rise before listing at a more buyer friendly amount.
Tips
(1) Don't forget to factor in the AH 5% cut.
100g listing price * 0.95 = 95g income when sold
95g income - 65g cost = 30g profit
Considering flipping cloth from 2g11 to 2g25?
2.25g listing price * 0.95 = 2g13s75c income when sold
2g13s75c income - 2g11 cost = 0g2s75c profit (not really worth it)
(2) Diversify! You also have to look at multiple markets. If you consider yourself the king of ____ market, then you are not diversifying. The key here is to mitigate risk... if the market ____ falls, that doesn't mean all of your sources of income are affected.
(3) If its too competitive and you don't have the gold to control it, then you need to play a little smarter. One thing that I like to do is to buy up a lot of the cheap stuff and make the item look tempting for someone else to reset.
(4) Find opportunities that are within your budget. If you can't find a way to recover from a reset or a flip, then don't do it. You don't have to do the big "risk everything on black" move. It might be more work, but successful goblins earn small amounts on lots of transactions instead of the grand big buck.
(5) Do not attempt a reset before going offline (or away from AH). The pricing is so volatile right after a reset as soon as other goblins catch on, chances are you will come back to a price that is lower than what you paid for the reset and nothing of your inventory has sold. If you reset, you MUST watch it and react to others.
(6) Even though you might have a lot of inventory, limit the amount that you post. If you are watching the AH, there will be other people who are watching to post their items to sell before yours. With the new AH the last person who posts gets sold first. So it is to your advantage to only post something like 1000 at a time if its big quantities that you are dealing with. Then when others post, you can come back and add another block without having to cancel yours first and then relisting it. All that time between cancel, run to mailbox and relist is a potential lost sale. I leave the original postings on until I don't have any more... and then I go through and cancel all but my most recent post.
(7) Consider supply and demand. If you don't already know, then learn what the item is used for. For example, I personally stay away from flipping Storm Silver because I have very little use for it. It is not part of any shuffles, and I don't work in the Uncanny weapon or armor markets. It is also too easy to get when I farm. I have also been burned in the past on this item when I overcommitted and the market dropped 50% what I paid for it.
(8) Limit the amount you stockpile for Shadowlands. If you are working toward your Longboi, you should not be intentionally stockpiling ANYTHING long term. If you are a crafter, then keep about 1 weeks MAX of raw stock so that you can do your crafts when prices are low. If prices rise next week more than what you can sell your crafts for, then don't craft... find a different market and wait for that to recover.
(9) There is the same potential to earn gold when you flip from 5g to 6g as you do from 1g to 1.2g. This is two examples of exactly 120% markup, but it doesn't feel like they are the same. Its nicer to say you are getting 70 silver (sell rate of (6 * 0.95) - 5) profit instead of only 14 silver profit. In both cases they have exactly the same AH fees and profit. If you spend 10k gold you will walk away with 1400g profit in both cases.
(10) You can mostly ignore AH deposits. If you sell the item, the deposit is refunded and only the 5% AH cut applies. If you are listing raw materials, the vast majority of items have super low deposits (exception is uncut gems and some old world ores/herbs). Its possible to bank 10k Storm Silver for 48 hours for less than a gold. If you stick to flipping raw materials, as long as you sell higher than you bought it for you should make a profit even if it takes a while to sell.
(11) Practice, Practice, Practice. If you are starting out then make it a personal goal to spend at least 1000g per day on flipping something. That is a low enough investment that it will not hurt you if you make a mistake. As you practice you will gain confidence in the tools and yourself and make this a successful venture.
We’re very excited to share the following work-in-progress list of changes you can expect in TSM 4.10. Over the coming weeks we’ll deep-dive and highlight some of these new features in future blog posts.
You can register your interest to participate in the upcoming TSM 4.10 beta test by
visiting this sign-up page, or guarantee instant access once it’s available with a
priority Beta invite through TSM Premium. There is currently no date set for when the Beta phase will begin.
We would love to hear your thoughts on what you’re most excited about! You can join the
discussion in Discord, or Tweet us
@TSMAddon with hashtag #TSM410
Addon UI Customizations- The UI is now much more customizable, including the following:
- You can now select between a few different themes to change the color scheme of all TSM windows.
- Scrolling tables can now have their columns resized and hidden.
- Vertical dividers can now be dragged to resize the left/right content.
- In selection lists (i.e. group item lists and Auctioning “Post from Bags” list) now allow for dragging with the right mouse button down to quickly select multiple rows.
- All UI state and context (i.e. collapsed / expanded groups, divider position, table context, etc) is saved between sessions.
General Features- Account syncing has been updated to include Accounting sales and purchases.
- Filter strings now support a max quality (i.e. /armor/uncommon/epic).
- Throughout TSM, there have been a ton of optimizations (especially around UI performance) and minor fixes. Some of the bug fixes are detailed below:
- Fixed error with Skillet + TSM loaded.
- Fixed recording of incorrect commodity purchase quantities when not using TSM to open mail.
- Fixed a bug where the “Destroy Next” button would get stuck.
- Fixed various issues when buying commodities via Shopping / Sniper.
- Fixed the auction purchase message to properly show the item / price.
- Fixed issue with Auctioning not posting the right quantity of commodities.
Price Sources- There are new operation-based price sources available:
- auctioningopmin, auctioningopmax, auctioningopnormal, shoppingmax, sniperopbelow
A new SmartAvgBuy price source has been added alongside the existing AvgBuy price source to replace the previous “Use Smart Average for Purchase Price” setting.
A new SaleRate price source has been added which represents your personal sale rate.
A new NumInventory price source has been added to represent your total inventory quantity.
Auction House- The Shopping tab of the auction house has been renamed to Browse and the various auction tabs have been reordered.
- Browse scans now show browse results as they are loaded, and allow for pausing to quickly buy items before the entire scan finishes.
- Auctioning scans can now be paused/resumed to post/cancel items before the scan completes.
- The “even stacks” option has been removed from Shopping/Browse as it is no longer needed with the new commodity system in 8.3
- The Bid and Buyout confirmation window with Browse and Sniper can now be added to the TSM macro.
- You can now quickly cancel your own auctions from Browse (retail only).
- The Crafting search mode has been removed from Shopping, and replaced with the (pre-existing) “/crafting” filter option.
- The default commodity purchase quantity will now be more intelligently set when doing certain Shopping searches (i.e. gathering).
- The My Auctions UI can now be sorted (retail only)
- Favorited Auctioning searches can now be renamed
Operations- Various Auctioning operation settings (post cap, max expires, keep quantity, stack size) now accept custom prices.
- Restock quantity settings within Shopping and Crafting operations now accept custom prices.
- The Auctioning post cap has increased to 50k for retail.
Crafting- The crafting queue will now be sorted by profit (after whether or not you have the mats needed to craft things).
- Recipes can now be favorited within the Crafting UI to allow for easy access.
- Material costs can now be easily reset to the default value.
- The crafting tooltip will now show for all craftable items, even if the crafting cost isn’t currently valid, to allow for more easy debugging of missing mat costs.
Groups- You can now search for any item in the game and easily add it to a group via the new Base Group UI.
- A group with multiple operations can now have its operations easily be reordered by clicking and dragging them.
Dashboard- The gold graph on the dashboard is now much more interactive and provides significantly more detail.
Destroying / Ledger- The Destroying UI now allows for selecting a specific item to destroy next, and shows the expected results at the top of the UI.
- Added a “Total” column to the Sales and Purchases tabs of Ledger
- Added total and % profit columns to Resale tab of Ledger
