The Basics Of Selling On The Auction House

In this guide I will be using examples of AH prices. A notation of 12/20 (17) means opening price of 12g, a buyout of 20g and an expected selling price of 17g. The expected selling price is your own personal opinion of what you think that item will sell for on that day. That number will become easier to predict as your experience grows. If you find yourself in a situation where you don’t know what something is worth then talk to a trusted group mate or guildee. If your friend from school plays on a different server his/her advice may be wrong as prices can vary considerably from server to server.

Never create an auction like 1/50 (40). Nobody will buy it out at 50, they will bid 1g and hope for a windfall. It takes many, many bids to move a 1g starting price up to around a fair price of 40g. You will likely end up selling that 40g item for 5g. You would be much better off listing it as 35/50 (40) particularly if the initial fee is high. The 35g initial price should attract some bids and then you can hope for either continued bidding or a buyout by some player with more gold than brains. Even an auction like 1/30 (40) can backfire on you. Buying a 40g item for 30g is attractive to players but a lot of them will try to bid the 1g and hope for the big score.

Try to bracket the estimated selling price when you set the initial and buyout prices. The example of 35/50 (40) is smart. The initial bid price is a little below what you think the item will sell for. The buyout is about 25% higher than the expected sell price. Always set a buyout since many players simply refuse to bid and will only buy items. If they need something now they buy it now. Not a smart way to buy but their loss is your gain.

You can see if other identical items are for sale on the AH by browsing. Many players just undercut the lowest price currently on the AH when they create an auction. Simple, but effective. The problem is that you may be entering a price war. You can often maximize your selling price by waiting until there is less competition for your item (More on this in the advanced section.).

The AH charges a fee for every item that you try to sell. You will see the fee listed when you place the item in the auction box. It varies, from nothing on nexus crystals to multiple gold for a weapon. Also the longer the item will be listed, the greater the fee. You will pay this fee immediately when you create the auction. If the item sells, the AH will charge you a 5% commission, and you will then get the initial fee back. That is why the item you sold on the AH for 100g shows up as 97g in your mailbox. Think of it as 100 – 5g (5% commission) + 2g initial fee = 97g. It is important to note that you only netted 95g even though 97g was in the mailbox. You paid the initial 2g fee when the auction was created. If the item doesn’t sell then it will show up in your mailbox when the time expires and you will have lost the 2g initial fee.

You can set the length of the auction as 2, 8 or 24 hours. A lot of items are best sold on the 24 hour basis. This gives you the best chance of finding a customer. The 24 hour fee is negligible if you are fairly certain of selling the item in that time period. Some items like player equipment have very high initial fees and are best sold on an 8 hour basis during a busy time on your server. It can be brutal to list an item for multiple 24 hour periods and end up paying more in fees than the item was worth. This is the situation for Darkmoon Faire cards on my server. I laugh every time I see a time limit of very long on a card that has a 2g buyout. Somebody is just giving his or her gold back to Blizzard. Be mindful of the time when your auction expires. Starting an 8 hour auction at 7pm means it expires at 3am. If you have a low minimum bid compared to the buyout then it may sell at minimum price.

It is an old saying in business that the secret to success is to “buy low and sell high”. That is very true for the AH. Most players make the mistake as thinking of the AH as just another NPC vendor in the game. It is not. The difference is that vendor prices are static and AH prices change over time. Recognizing those price cycles is very important. Some price cycles are predictable and you need to take them into account.

Each server has a varying number of players online at any given time. I will use North American servers as an example as they are the most common. In the early morning (2am to 8am server), the players are at a minimum. During the day the number of players is increasing. A lot of players start logging on around 4pm and the numbers peak from 6pm to 11pm. Why is this important? Say you were lucky enough to win a lifestone by rolling 100. When should you sell it? If you rush to the AH at 1am and try and sell it you will only have a few potential buyers online. You’d be far better off waiting until 5pm the next day and trying to sell it then. If everyone is off on guild raids from 7pm to 11pm on your server then you might try to list the item at around 5pm on a 2 hour basis. Seeing a short or medium time limit on an auction does tend to attract more bids.

Server load also varies on a weekly basis. Some players have a life and Friday and Saturday evenings are generally lighter load than other evenings. However, Saturday and Sunday morning and afternoons are busier than weekdays. Generally, it is better for selling when you have more potential customers online.