It’s not against the rules to do what they’re doing but I feel like venting a little…
There’s a person on my realm that constantly advertises their professions and offers them at “cheaper than AH” prices.
This sounds great, but then I noticed this person sells on the AH. For kicks I decided to look through different listings at different times and this person seems to have their listing at the top very, very often at the same prices as everyone else.
No, they’re not the only seller, but it feels like they have a heavy hand in controlling market prices, but then turn around and say they can sell “cheaper than AH” in trade chat.
It’s not against the rules but it feels super scummy. Why not just offer their “cheaper than AH” prices on the AH itself?
because of the AH cut. youll get more selling in trade than selling on the AH at that price. you keep some on the AH for when your not online, and sell in trade at a cheaper price, but you still ahead as you arent paying the AH cut.
If people think they will get a deal, they are more likely to buy, when you have depreciating product you want to sell it as fast as you can, or if you have product with low margins you need to sell volume.
So he has items in the AH for the person looking for goods, then he has ads in trade for potential impulse buyers.
He’s justaximizing his potential in the market, it’s the same thing that grocery depressed do with chocolate bars etc at the cash register. Try to entice impulse buyers into quick sales, even if they didn’t originally set out to purchase a chocolate bar.
It just really looks a lot more like a case of a retailer who marks up their price ahead of a “sale” just to make it look like buyers are getting a discount.
I even decided to message the person today. For a ring that’s 130k on the AH, they offered me a “discount” of 30k. No way that’s just them trying to avoid the AH cut. It’s scummy.
The Auction House is a scammer’s dream pure and simple… Let’s use Frostmourne as an example for crafting Shadowghast Plate… For Shadowghast Ingots, which cost 4 Flux, and 1 of each: Sinvyr, Oxxien, Phaedrum, Solenium ore, and results in 2 being created, the individual bars are being sold for more than the cost of the entire craft - or if quantified, more than double the material cost…
This then extends upwards to the Legendary crafting where the Legendary can be crafted for as little as 19k gold + 2 Progenitor Essentia, and then auctioned for 80k… To this end, I usually charge 20k-23k for crafting if the Progenitor Essentia are supplied - and even then this results in a tidy profit… Anything greater is just gouging…
Someone else will just buy out their Cheaper AH and relist at a higher price; making it where they are possibly helping someone else make more gold than themselves.
Is it a fake discount? Have you responded to their trade ad and then found that the price they offered there was not what they were willing to charge when you met them in that dark ally?
Perhaps they are simply selling to two different markets. Those who are out in the middle of a zone and use their AH mount when they need something. And the bargain hunter who sits in a city and watches trade for a bargain.
I say, if you don’t like the person then don’t do business with him.
But perhaps, maybe you should learn from him so that you could be more successful in the WoW business industry.