Back to making gold

It wasn't by plan to start playing the AH again. I did that more than a bit last time i played so I know I'll not run out of gold unless I go on a spending spree in the Paris Hilton way.
Then it happened... I got hooked on gold again, so it's back to making gold though I don't need it.

In order to make a solid amount of gold in WoW you need to do one of two things.
1) build a crafting empire of alts.
2) farm content for drops, mounts and what not.

As I only farm for transmog I go the way of the crafting empire. Mine consists of 8 toons. This include everything from my main to the characters posting on the AH.
With my setup I have 4 characters for posting items on the AH depending on the type of item and also with an option to create a price war as I can undercut myself if needed.



Also I have 4 characters for crafting (Inscription, Alchemy (x2), Jewel crafting, Blacksmith, Tailor, Enchanting). Depending on what time of the expansion it might be you need to do different things to make the easy gold. In the beginning of a new expansion/tier you can do well if you sell PvP sets, flasks, potions, farm items (leather, herbs, minerals etc.) and crafted epics.

Few items don't seem to ever die in sales no matter the time of the expansion/tier. That's where I make the bigger part of my gold. Inscription alone give me 75-80% of all my gold. Glyphs is a tough market and it can take a lot of gold to get into it depending on server and competition. You need to post/cancel more than any other market I've been a "major player" in. But it pays off once you've made your crafting/posting process work with as little effort as possible.

Gems and enchants are also a solid market at every point. People will never stop getting new gear or playing around with gems, enchants and reforge. Personally I only do very little enchanting as it's mainly focused around 2 days a week on my current server; the day of reset and the day where the bigger guilds raid during their progression.

Owning the market
With inscription I always try to keep 7 of each glyph on the AH. These are posted from two posting alts where one of them post for ranged classes and the other for melee. That setup is purely for my own sake as glyphs are hard enough to fit on a single toon when you also need herbs and inks to keep the production running. Then I have my undercutter. A posting alt with only the "cookie cutter" glyphs. His mission is to act as a 3rd active thread to people who try to enter the market. He will undercut to a point where I actually can lose gold - but if I lose gold, those who follow will too.

A few "always low on gold" players supply me with the herbs at a fixed price that I adjust every week depending on the market. This ensures they get a fair price while I secure my position on the market through access to the cheapest herbs lowering my total cost. When I was at my peak of AH activity I had 6 players gathering mats for me on a daily basis. But using about 200 stacks of herbs pr day (in progression times) that is needed!

- the key to success is their hunger for easy gold vs my eager to make more gold. As long as they get paid faster by me than they do from the AH, then I'm the better deal even if they make a little less.
Sometimes like in the beginning of a new tier I hand out an extra percentage as a bonus if they supply me with X amount of stacks pr week/day.

In order to control the market you also need to keep a very close eye on the competing players. Add them to you friend list, notice who is crafting around you (can be seen in chat), know their normal times of play, find out if they use posting alts and so on. The more info you know about the competition the easier it is to control the market.
- but don't be afraid to throw a little gold out the window when new players try to join the market. Better to spend 1-2.000 gold to scare them off than have them take 50% or more of your future profit.

Before I go into too many details I'll leave you with this for now. Oh yeah, and no market control without the use of Trade Skill Master.