Play the AH

[Upptagen]

Hey! Currently I'm trying to get as much money as possible prior to Cataclysm. I've heard alot of people who have said "Just play the AH" or something similiar, to make gold.

So, how do I play the AH? Any tips? The basics? Please share!

[Evisa]

Mining is a good way to make money on the AH, at least for me. Just watch prices and buy low, sell high and that pretty much goes for any item.

[Deleted]

The basics? Buy cheap - Sell Expensive.

To be a bit more specific, wait for a highly demanded item to drop down in price, buy alot, re-sell for profit.

And what items are highly demanded? Depends on your server. GL

[Upptagen]

Anymore tips?

[Natrii]

set auctions for 12 hours, and prepare to take them on and off constantly to undercut who under cutted(I don't think thats a word...oh well sounded fun in my head :P) you

[Lovestar]

Anymore tips?

Check out this thread, it's not perfect or the whole story, but it's still a very nice primer: AH Entrepreneurship

[Resies]

Farm something that sells semi fast.

Under cut X(the lowest value) by a lot
Buyout all of the people who undercut you, remove your listing, and post it all at X-1copper.

[TotalFreak]

Gems, gems, gems. Even though it's close to Cata, people are still buying them to max their gear for leveling because they're going to make 20k off of questing anyways.

[Varyk]

It won't be easy to do now, as caa is almost here, almost every in-demand item isn't really "in-demand anymore. I made a lot of gold with buying and selling enchanting mats. To be more specific Greater Cosmic Essences and Abyss Crystals. You could buy them for 8-10 (GCE's) (19-21 Abyss) gold each and sell them for (12-14) (25-30). buying/selling by the 1000's it was quite the profit. I made well over 500k over the summer. Another extremely easy thing to do, Is just buy any good deals u see in trade chat. People are constantly needing 100-200 more gold for something and will sell stuff worth way more for less because of that demand. Take advantage of those deals.

[Gizzly]

Get auctioneer and press the button with two arrows on.
When its completed scanning, right click the magnifying glass. In there you can find some things.
First: Disenchant, the options i normally use are min 3g profit and i usually just buy em all (Btw, you have to check the "custom levels" box if youre not an enchanter.
Next is resale, i also use 3g there, but be careful some of the items arent worth buying. In my opinion dont sort the list by the profit tab. use the percent tab instead, it helps. You'll just have to use your judgement to determine what items to buy and what isnt worth it.
This is vendor, i just disable bids allowed, and make the min profit 50silver. Sometimes theres a whole bunch of Primal Nethers, or lv70 gems. Just buy em all and vendor.
And like natrii said, use 12h.
Another helpful tool in auctioneer is appraiser. Its very simple so you can figure it out for youself (its an auction poster, fiddle around with it)

[Isharii]

I still make about 2k a day from buying gems cheap, cutting them and marking them up about 20-30%.

[Stereorage]

I make a modest 500g a day just by questing, and thats not dailies. Go out, and any chaacters you have leveled to 80, download the Carbonite addon, and quest quest quest. Complete all the quests you can in Outlands. get all of those zones done. Some people find this boring, but since you are level 80, not needing any of the quest rewards, you will simply be selling all of the rewards to a vendor. Or, if you are an enchanter, you can disenchant those quest rewards, and sell the mats for profit.

Seriously, after you get your character to max, and cannot gain any more experience from questing, you get bonus gold for every quest you turn in that would have otherwise given you experience. I did this on a fresh level 80 character, made about 2k gold in two nights, and I have more to make. That is just from questing and selling the rewards to vendors.

Not to mention that on your way, you are probably also gathering from nodes you come across, or skinning all the animals you kill, etc, looting, all of that, and picking up a bunch of stuff to sell on the AH. The stacks of cloth you will pick up as well. When your questing day is done, simply unload all the stuff on the AH, and the next day, check it out, see what you have.

So yeah, this may not be a post on how to "play the AH", but it IS a way to make gold. Playing the AH, as you put it, I see this as very risky, because you are relying on the behavior of other people, rather than a sure fire way to make gold if you do a little bit of work. I made 1k in one 4 hour session one night. Thats not counting the other gold I made from AHing the mats, and gear peices i found on my way.