Shop Smart: Auctioneer

This week on Shop Smart we are going to look at a feature of the Auctioneer add-on that can make you some quick gold at lower levels. It’s the vendor search option. If you’re not using Auctioneer I would suggest you download it from Curse.com and run a few scans on the Auction House to get your baseline started.  So after you get it installed you want to look for the search tab at the bottom of the Auction House interface. Under the search tab you want to look for the vendor selection to the left of the screen. Spend some time and look at your option to see if you want to consider bids or buy out and how much you want to make per item.  I look for items with at least a 1 gold or more profit and only look for buy outs, never bids. This does limit me but also limits my risk.  Now your asking me what does this do, well it looks for items listed on the Auction House for less than they vendor for.  I know what you’re saying, “No one does that!” but the truth is they do.  I buy things all the time just to turn around and vendor, mostly white items. Why this works breaks down to one simple word, "TIME". Most people jump on the Auction House and mass post undercutting the competition and not really looking at the posting price. If you get a few people doing this then it doesn’t take long for the price to drop under the vendor amount. You will never get rich doing this or even make enough to buy that epic mount but it can get your cash flow started early on. One word of caution is to never rely on the add-on to do all the work for you, make sure you know your vendor pricing.

"Making gold is not just about selling; it’s also about spending wisely." -Brimbane

Milestones-Level 40

Hit my next milestone at level 40. Now I know what your saying level 40 is pretty dull, no new talent points and not any spells to speak of. This is true, but what you do get that makes level 40 an important milestone is  Journeyman Riding that not only grants you the ability to mount up at 100% ground speed but also comes with an achievement Fast and Furious. Believe me your level 85 friends will love the fact that they don't have to wait on you to catch up near as much.  Plus for me Level 40 marks my halfway point in the journey, yes I know 40 is not half of 85. At 40 the quest and instances just start to feel more epic to me and seem to matter just a bit more. Well that's my thoughts anyhow. See you guys at 50. Brimbane out!

The Brimbane Report #3

This week went a little slow for me on the gold making front. After 1 day and 18 hours I'm sitting at level 40 and 3400 gold. If you take into account the 600 gold I spent for Embersilk Bags I am still on pace at 100 gold per level. The main reason I saw a decrease this week is that I have decided to switch to alchemy at 65 and have been stockpiling herbs, instead of selling them, so that when I make the switch I can power level.  I have noticed on my server that a lot of the mid level herbs and ore are not even listed on the auction house so I can sell them pretty much whenever I like. I suspect to have a surge in income once I sell off any extra herbs I have after leveling alchemy.  I have found a pretty good spot just inside the Western Plaguelands to gather Khadgar's Whisker, Fadeleaf and Kingsblood, that all sell well, while doing quest so no real farming involved, just grab them as you go by. Now that I have hit 40 I am going to start with Ragefire Chasm and see how far I can get soloing in the instance list. I will be posting an average amount of gold you can expect to get when running each instance.  That’s all for this week's report see you soon.

Shop Smart: Return of Investment

In this week's Shop Smart we are going to be looking at your Return of Investment. RoI is something I don’t think many players think about so I wanted to touch on it and hopefully to bring it to the forefront of your mind.  Let me start with something simple that everyone uses and what really got me to thinking about this, Bags. That’s right Bags, we all use them and we often make a tidy sum selling them. But when we are forced to buy them, or make them for ourselves, when do we reach our Return of Investment. 


For example when Brimbane hit level 30 I treated myself by purchasing 2 Embersilk Bags for 300 gold each. I was happy to find them listed so low on the Auction House.  These 22 slotters replaced my 14 slot Journeyman's Backpacks for a net gain of 16 new slots.  If you do the math you will see that it comes to 37.5 gold per bag slot. Easy to make up with extra stacks of wool, herbs, or any other item that sells well, that you'll loot during your runs. If you look at the per slot cost it becomes easy to rationalize that added slots equal more loot and more loot equals more gold. If you follow this line of thinking, as I do then you are mostly correct. On the other hand if I had 20 slot Frostweave Bags and replace with 22 slot bags then I would have been looking at 150 gold per bag slot. The cost here is much harder to justify. But at some point even 4 extra slots will pay for themselves over time. The amount of time it takes is know as your Return of Investment.


This is a simple example of RoI. When you start looking at things like armor or enchants the picture is not so clear.  I am unsure if I could explain it to the degree needed to fully understand outside of an economics class so I will leave it for your own personal study. But by using my example, I hope you will start to think about how much you really spend on those epic purchases. Because, if at the time of replacement, your RoI is not accomplished then it should be counted as lost gold with no way to recover.


"Making gold is not just about selling; it’s also about spending wisely." -Brimbane

Milestones-Level 30

Brimbane the Druid recently hit what I consider a milestone when  he reached level 30. With a flash of lite and several on screen notices, it was quite the fan fair.  How could anyone help but notice when you reach these new levels as you are presented with an onscreen notification of not only your new level but also skills and abilities available from trainers. This was in my opinion one of the smartest things Blizzard has ever done. I for one love milestones, those little things that take the tedious aspect out of leveling.
To present leveling in this way gives you something to look forward to and not just the ding and go approach of the past. Pre-Cataclysm I often would find myself going to a trainer whenever I made it to a town and find that I had several levels of training to do, not anymore. In this new shattered world I look for trainers more frequently so I don't miss out on those new abilities. So I'm off to hit my next milestone at level 40 before the next Brimbane Report.

The Brimbane Report #2

Well week 1 is behind me and I am happy with the results. I have logged just over 23 hours of play and have reach level 28. My bank account is sitting at 2565 gold. Now I have done well on the auction house with ore and herbs but my biggest source of income was the Deviate Hatchling I sold for 1900 gold. Of course after the auction house cut I only pulled in 1800 gold. Now I will admit that I got lucky when I looted that little guy from Wailing Caverns but that is the whole point isn't it, that rare gem you find while running an instance for loot. I will be setting up Wailing Caverns in my farm rotation to see if I can pick up a few more of these. Good luck on your farming and see you next week.

The Brimbane Report #1

Welcome to the Brimbane Report. This is a weekly wrap up of my earnings and status of Brimbane the Druid on Altar of Storms. Since this is the first week lets start with a few things I did to get Brimbane off on the right foot. With Brimbane being an alt of mine the first thing I did was send him BAGS! I cannot stress enough how important bag space is, anything left in the field is money left in the field. Yes those copper add up. Now if this is your first character don't worry Blizzard has a few quest early on that will let you pick up a few bags.  Plus within a few levels and a little work on the auction house you will have the gold needed to buy them. Now that I had storage out of the way I looked at professions. I started off with herbalism and mining for two reasons. Reason number one is because both of these professions for a low lever character earn large amounts of gold. Second is the fact that they both yield experience when farming nodes. This leads to faster leveling that in turn means faster instance farming. Now other professions make money also, for example enchanting or jewel crafting, but they do better at higher levels then the two I have chosen. So now I'm off to earn gold, check back next week for a full report of earnings.