Play Time, Market Type and You!

Do you have all day to play WoW? Or just twenty mins before work and an hour or two after?

Stuck with which markets would suit you? Or even which markets would fit your time span?

Wait....You don't think play time should effect your market choice??

Lets discuss....

Ok so I'm gonna start by talking a little about how I play WoW at the time of this post.

I currently work evening/night shifts, this means I tend to play WoW between 1am-4am and then again from 12pm-3pm. This means that I generally miss what most gold bloggers consider "Prime Time" (5pm-12pm, Raid time essentially) However around 2-3 months ago I was able to play wow at pretty much any time I wanted, this change in playtime left me with a very specific question to myself, that I think a lot of people should consider.

"Does my time of day playing effect the way I approach Making gold?" 

Well in a one word short answer, Yes. However the long answer....It Depends on the market, and my competition!

So in order to explain my reasoning behind my answers I'm gonna split this post into my view off "Markets" in a similar way to how I spilt gold makers into types in my Why do you want gold? post.

When considering the WoW economic markets I consider it as being split into three main types each with sub categories, these types being the Consistent Market, The Single Sales Market and the Monitored Market.

In order to understand how time frame can effect the way I look at markets we need to consider each of these market types in more detail.

The Consistent Market

A constant Supply of raw materials and a constant demand for finished products creates a Consistent Market, a market that will in general be viable on most servers, on both factions. The Consistent Market can be broken down into sub markets:

• Short Term Consistent Market - This market includes everyday things WoW players will need, this is usually a general set of items across any server and on both factions that can sell anywhere from between daily to even hourly. Some examples being:




• Mana/Health Potions


• Cut Gems


• Enchants


• Buff Food


• Raw Materials




• Mid Term Consistent Market - This includes items players will need when they upgrade gear, stock up in advanced for weekly tasks or other similar activities. These can follow trends based on Raid end times, PVP/PVE point cap resets, or daily quest/cooldowns resets. Some Examples Being:




• Volatiles for Truegold/Dreamcloth


• Nightstones/Jaspers/Zephrytes


• Expensive Weapon Enchants/Scopes


• Flask/Potion Stacks

The consistent market is something I see as an anytime, any amount of time market. If you have ten minuets or ten hours a day to play you can still make money in the consistent market.

When it comes to competition in the Consistent market it doesn't matter if you have extremely aggressive and strong competition or a small amount of passive competition you can still make money by knowing your competition and market and increasing as much knowledge as possible!*

The Single Sale Market

This type of market is based upon opportunity and luck where the sale of an item arises for a specific items, due to drops or a good deal in trade that you normal don't involve yourself in. This can be anything from a rather cheap Epic item in trade, to a random item drop during farming.

These items could sell on a daily basis within the AH however the ability to obtain them is not consistent and therefore in my mind I do not include these items in my thought process of consistent sales. A great example of this was posted by @Jokinee on Power Word: Gold where he talked about "Flipping Epics". This is a perfect example of a Single Sale Market, its about taking advantage of a one off purchase or loot and making profit by selling the item for its true value.

This market is something that comes down to opportunity and a little luck, obtaining the items by watching chat or having one drop in your lap when killing a mob or completing a quest. The key to this market is knowledge and patience, where taking the time to sell the item for an appropriate price will result in great profit.

"An item worth 20k sitting in your bags is still worth 20k, even if it takes till next week to sell"

This market is great no matter how much time you have, however it isn't one id personally put all my hopes on if your playtime is limited or you're just starting out with gold making. Also make sure you pick items you understand the functional value of (IE why someone would want the item in the first place).

REMEMBER THIS IS AN OPPORTUNIST MARKET

Great items to watch out for cheap are :

• Non-crafted Role Playing items such as - Gold Wedding Band


• Non-Crafted Epic End-game Armor and Weapons such as - Dizze's Whirling Robe


• Rare World Drop Recipes - Recipe:Savory Deviate Delight


• Twink Items - Mindthurst Bracers


• Wow Trading Card Items  such as - Reins of the Swift Spectral Tiger


• A few specific items -




• Elementium Ingot


• Sulfuron Ingot


• Haunted Memento


• Ruby Shades


• Battered Jungle Hat


• Blood Elf Bandit Mask


• Diamond Tipped Cane

The greatest strength of this market is that competition doesn't matter if you pick the correct items to buy, this means it is a great earner no matter your play time or play schedule!

Monitored Market

This type of market is very similar to the consistent market as it usually revolves around something players will need constantly from a day to day or even hour to hour basis. The biggest and most obvious example of a Monitored market is Glyphs!

A monitored market is a market where undercutting is constant and heavy, and competition is highly aggressive. This is due to people camping the AH and "Monitoring" their sales. It is usually based on items with high demand, high supply of raw materials and very low posting costs, which allow a large number of items to be crafted, then  posted and re-posted as and when needed.

This is a high playtime, prime time schedule type market, where players with lots of time and the ability to play at high pop times will benefit most. The ability to constantly check these markets and repeatedly re-post items when they sell are are undercut often wins out, Profit isn't always high per post, but this is more of a sea of posting for little profits than a one shot massive sale.

Now to me I see this as a market for people who have extremely large amount of daily /played the ability to react to undercuts, competitor sales and a sudden crash or rise in a specific items sales.

Ok so I said that my change in play time had and had not changed my method of making gold, and the reason for this is I choose my markets!

So ask yourself

"when do I play?"

"How much time can I play for?"

"will I have more time during prime time on my server?"

Once you have asked these questions, you can look at the market types and consider which would suit you, combine the markets with my original post about the reasons we as players want gold Why Do You Want Gold? and find a market and style the fits you.

This post is meant as a simple overview of the markets through my eyes, and a way to see how playtime can be used within different markets, however it does not look at the markets in much depth. So please keep following my blog and I promise to follow up this post looking in more depth at each of my perceived Markets.

As always Guys and Girls Keep it simple, and please please please only do it if its fun

Gimp

*This post is not about specific selling techniques so I wont go into depth of dealing with competition as it is out of scope, however I suggest checking out some great post by some of the other bloggers Prncess Pwn - Dealing With undercutting, Alto - Know your competition, Flux's Marking the Competition, Faid's The What, When, and Why of AH Posting are a few examples but there are loads out there, and I highly recommend checking out 20K Leveling Gold Guide if you really need help with this type of thing.