People Actually Buy This Stuff?
Posted on September 2nd, 2008 by Gavin under General TipsIt really never ceases to amaze me what people will buy on the AH. Even funnier is what people try to sell (like all the hundreds of stacks of vendor trash grey items you see all the time), but that’s another article for another time.
This is just a quickie today, since I can only embellish so much on this particular tip. But you should be able to add an extra 50-100 gold every single week doing this, even though it’s only going to take you about 30 seconds.
We’ve done an article or two in the past about some rare limited supply recipes that can make you some pretty good coin. But just recently I stumbled onto another set of recipes that is neither rare, nor limited, and it makes me more gold now than all of those other ones ever did.
Which seems like the dumbest thing in the world to me. Why in the world would anyone pay a 400-500% markup when they can just go grab it themselves in about 2 minutes. When I tell you which ones they are you are simply not going to believe it.
I found these completely by accident. I was working up tailoring for my Shadow Priest and my Wife’s Warlock a couple of months ago and popped into Shattrath to get the higher end cloth recipes from the vendors in the Lower City.
As I did, I noticed the AADV price tooltip for one of them and it made me think (for one of the first times ever with AADV info) “That just CAN’T be right.” It told me that the recipe for Imbued Netherweave Bag was worth 29gold on that server. You have to be kidding me right? People CAN’T be spending 30g on a 3g item.
But the historical data was just too strong, so I bought a few of those, as well as a couple of each of the “bolt of” recipes from the specialists there at the tailoring cluster to do a little test. (I know the screenshot above shows my priest tooltip as only seeing 2 of these over 2 days, but the same numbers were true in the hundreds on my banker who has much more accurate data in the tooltip).
So that was 2 each of:
- Imbued Netherweave Bag
- Pattern: Bolt of Imbued Netherweave
- Pattern: Primal Mooncloth
- Pattern: Primal Mooncloth Bag
- Pattern: Spellcloth
- Pattern: Shadowcloth
For a total of 51 gold 60 silver. I mailed it all to my banker to run at the auction that weekend. Again, it’s just silly how well these things sold. All in all, those 12 patterns sold in less than 24 hours for over 165 gold. An average of 13g 75s each. Some went for around 7g and the Primal Mooncloth Bag fetched nearly 30.
I just don’t see why a level 65+ toon (who is already in outlands anyway) wouldn’t just pop into Shattrath and grab these things. Do they not know where to find them? It certainly couldn’t be any easier.
The really nice thing about these recipes is that you could start selling these as soon as you were able to collect about 10 gold. For me that is normally around level 10 or so. Just get a mage to port you to Shatt, set your hearth there and grab as many of these as you can and then reinvest the gold for a few days. Boom, you could have over 200 g by the time you hit level 20.
That sure would make it easy to get your mount at 30 right? I checked this out on five different servers, and there always seems to be at least a 100-150% markup for all of these recipes. That means that this should work on almost any server.
So again, you find all of these recipes in the lower city of Shattrath, in that vendor area in the south part of the city. There are 4 cloth sellers there; Adrion Darkspinner, Gidge Spellweaver, Nasmara Moonsong, and Eiin at 66.3,68.3 Here they are all standing around just waiting for you to show up.
I have found that I can normally sell about 5-10 of each of these recipes every week. I certainly would never have guessed that they would be in such high demand considering they are so easy to get. But you just never know about people – especially the lazy level 70’s out there with more gold than sense.
Oh well, if it wasn’t for silly shoppers, I certainly wouldn’t make nearly as much gold, and so I sure don’t care if they ever find out. Good luck with these, it’s just one more little tool you can add to your ability to Dominate on the ah.



















interesting…… thanks for the tip
OH NO – NOT AGAIN! Every time you specify (like the recipes in this article) everyone and their brother will now be undercutting you!!!! (And me, cos I too was using this little wrinkle
)
Hah, nice tip. Who’d of thought common items like that could get so pricey. Oh well, more money for us.
Ty for the tip
the stupid one is never the seller. It’s the one who buys
great job finding that and yes it is odd what people will buy like tuxedo plans for about 100g a piece i tryed and they DID sell but yeah im going to go buy about 50 of these to sell
This article relates to the one about selling those fishing and first aid books. Personally, I always check Thottbot or another website for the source of a pattern if I am suspicious of the price but this seems like a good strategy. I suppose part of the reason is that Shattrath is a confusing place with the crowds of Npc’s so most people won’t know the lower city by heart or have a large inclination to explore it entirely.
this is awesome ! , I found one that works great too! in stormgarade keep they sell the books for bandaids witch so many lowbies love to use bandaids, and many Dont know where these books are buy for under a gold and sell for up to 5 ! I was making almost 100g a week !
yes I know how people wouldn’t know they can buy these recipes from vendor so easily… Tailor recipes sell exceptionally good, from runecloth bag in Wintersprings to Netherweave in Shatt. Transmute Primal Might will sell sometimes, although it’s vendor item. Others like bronze tube and coal are sure sell too, good money for low lvls.
Shat is a confusing mess the first time you go there. Most new level 70’s probably have no clue you can get those there. I have made a ton of gold off of the first aid books. It is crazy that I can pay 3 or 4 gold and turn around and make double or triple that per item most of the time. The first aid books are really easy to get just like these recipes.
By the way I got the first aid tip from your site I believe.
Wait hold on, you only just figured this out now? -_-
The reason for this is plain and simple: People are lazy. They will pay more, much more for something if it means they don’t have to get off their asses and get it themselves.
another good one is off the enchanting recipe seller in lower city [enchant shield- majour stamina] 3g from vendor 25g-35g in Ah on my sever
It really is suprising what people will buy at the AH. I personally used the first aid books as a way to make easy money on the game, buying for a little and then marking them up at least 10 times. My favorite thing to buy is at the taylor merchant next to the bank in Iron Forge Common white shirt is bought there for 3s 60c I think it sales on my server for 5g. Its just amazing what people will buy if you put it in front of them.
70 alliance lock
Always done it, unfortunately this article (like all your articles) really hurt the market for easy tips like this, but hey, still free gold practically.
Nice tip.. not one that I like being made popular, since I’ve known about it, but still a nice tip. I always found the guys selling mining picks in the AH for a few hundred gold a little.. odd. What’s up with them?
I think they jack up mining picks and the like JUST to throw off the stats on your Auctioneer…u need to make sure that the confidence is fairly high before you post
well thanks gavin… u ruined my scam lol ^_^. meh idc people will probably still buy them.
Not that this comment should sit in this article, but I have mods as well that shows the cost of items. I have 7 toons on one account (yes all but 2 are 70’s and I have no life lol). Can anybody advise why my mods will work on most toons, but not on others? I have the addons set to run on all toons not just toon specific. Sorry again for the inappropriate entry.
Prices vary from server to server. If your toons are spread across different servers, then there is your problem. With mods like auctioneer, you need to scan the AH with one character from each of the servers you play on. However, the memory alotted for auctioneer will max out around the second or third server (depending on the economy of each server, which generally correlates to the server population), so you have to be careful about how many servers your characters are spread across.
Also, when you setup addons on the character screen, you do it for either a specific character, or all of the characters for one server, but not ALL of you characters if you have them spread across different servers. Be sure to check and see if the characters you are having tooltip problems with have the addons active.
yea there r stupid ppl out there who r either 2 lazy or don’t know any better. I knew about this trick a looooooooong time ago except it was selling 1st aid books.
or you can’t run to get the books(like with my hunter when i was a wee little 20 and wee little 50)
I can’t remember what it was but i bought a common item once(like that) to repost for i think 2 gold, but i made a typo and put in 22 gold and it still sold.
HAHA I have an addon that tells me where you can buy recipes if you can so I don’t waste gold at the AH for them. But I love profiting off someone else’s ignorance.
I can beat this. On my realm I’ve made enough gold in a week to get my epic land mount by selling rune thread in the AH. I’ve been buying for 45s from the trade vendor and it’s been selling for between 30g and 40g a piece without fail.
I did a similar thing to this with the easily attainable common Jewelcrafting recipes. I bought them on the basis that my Warlock was going to be a JCer (he’s turned out to be a tailor and I’ve been collecting herbs on my main to fund his WotLK day 1 inscription drive) but in the end that went out the window. I did have 4 recipes, but I sold 3 of em for approx 100-200% above the amount I bought em for. At the end of the day, some people would rather pay money to have something from the AH straight away, than go look for it (I certainly do sometimes). A good tip to remember with recipes is :- If its common its purchaseable from a vendor, pop the recipe in Wowhead (or whatever) and go buy it yourself.
People buy them because they’re lazy. When I’m looking at blacksmithing plans I just put my mouse over them to see if I know them already and if I don’t I just buy them if I have the gold. I could probably spend the time getting them for a fraction of the price but I am just too lazy
hey, just my 2 cents. youre actually providing a service. buying recipes scattered all over the place and putting them into a single , easily accessible area called the AH. ive been doin this for about a year on my server.. and guess ive made a couple thousand gold by now.. youre not scamming people youre the retailer. thats what i keep tellin myself.. lol =P
I like your use and abuse of the auction system on WOW.. It is a great example of taking something perfectly legal and using it to your advantage. I have been expirimenting with it a little and I have made several hundred gold this week. I do not have the time you guys have to put into this apparently. Everything I do has to fit in about a 2 hour window of play time everyday or two. With me being the only one of my friends who has reached 70 it is difficult because everyone wants help with this or that. This is a tip that takes very little time to do. Do you have anymore tips like this for the person who does not have hours to farm or hours to spend in the AH?
here’s another one that hasn’t been posted… if you have any scryer repped toons, go to shadowmoon valley and purchase the two imbued netherweave recipes from the scryer tailoring vendor. maybe 6-8g from her, maybe 30-40g on AH.
and yet another! go into the instance old hillsbrad, you can easily solo this if you avoid the wandering mobs. purchase the formula for enchant shield – superior intellect(i think that’s what it’s called) from the dalaran wizard for 6g-ish.. you can do this up to 5 times a day if you have a buddy that you can reset the instance with. i’ve sold this for 22-30g on AH consistently.
At least these are unavailable to Aldor or non-repped scryers…the buyers arent quite as dumb in this instance
buy low, sell high
Also, the Runes of Teleportation, Ankhs and other reagants will easily sell for 5 times their worth, some even more than that!…. and lets not forget to do a vendor search each time you log in….people lose money by undercutting competition without checking the vendor price…its worth it even if you only make 1 or 2 silver for walking from the AH to mailbox to vendor…
BTW, if you are on my server, dont undercut me pls! (Praxxis)
one you wouldn’t think of is the recipe for Crunchy Spider Surprise, because it generally only works on the alliance side. this recipe was once only attainable by horde, but is sold by a draenei merchant in bloodwatch. you can buy it for about 4 silver, and auction it for anywhere from 2-7 gold. may not be uber amounts i know but when you are first starting out on a new server, it’s a nice little boost right there at the start.
Hey Gavin, i just wanted to say, and for any others out there, that i regularly use this since i found it on my 70 mage, and that each recipe can go for up to 20g a piece on my server, Kilrogg!! I can easily sell them every 24 hours, and rake in serious cash! This is a great tip for any people out there who want to try this!
I have added this to my first aid and fishing book tips. In the first week I have added nearly 100 G to my bags.
Thanks for the tip.
Hmmm… sounds promising, and there’s nothing you really can lose. . . fault always lies with retarded buyers I guess. . . Gotta try it out. Question for the article writer though, would it ever work to buy out all of some type of item (say, hardened adamantite or something like that) and sell all of it way higher? I know cornering the market may be fun but I’m scared of undercutting people