I noticed that prices are really wack. Normally its best to just vendor everything instead of selling on AH because prices are so low on everything. Other items are crazy expensive making it impossible to use while leveling (aka Briarthorn herb, which is required for so many potions). Demand/supply in really funky atm.
Between training skills and raising professions, its difficult to maintain any money. Ideally want to have enough to buy a mount at 40…
Yes, The AH is still pretty anemic probably because nobody has much gold.
Dude if you vendor everything …then you will never get your mount. AH all cloth, leather, Usable greens, Even uncooked meat.
Make another toon and park it at the mailbox by the AH. Make sure you have full bags on your toon. Mass mail stuff to your bank alt and go back to questing. Every friday throw it all up on the AH for 8 hour sale.
I check the AH for that one person posting something for a fair price to us both, but most of the time I farm my own mats and the end product sells for a very decent price at vendor
Depends on ah price versus vendor price. Why i have a bank alt parked in org
Ive actually been pretty alright making gold. Im not too rich but i’ll probably be able to afford my mount by the time i’m 40. Personally i’ve found that putting greens on the auction house is useless unless they are really good stats, otherwise the deposit is usually too expensive and they don’t sell for much or at all. Fish has gotten me some good amount of money on the AH and if I find any deals to buy cloth on the AH you might be able to turn those into bandages and vendor them for nearly twice as much as the regular cloth sells for. If you have a profession, finding out what you can make that sells well is good money too, such as an essential quest item.
Just pay attention to how things are selling and be careful not to spend too much on those deposits especially if you think the item won’t sell
I’ve noticed a few things on the AH that are exactly the same as what you’d get from a vendor. And that won’t work, because once the AH fee kicks in, you lose money.
And at least for leatherworking, there are a few leveling recipes where the finished product vendors for more than the individual parts, and the completed item isn’t selling at all on the AH (or if it sells, it’s exactly vendor price).
Some other items sell well…fishing pools and the occasional waterlogged boxes that drop bolts of cloth are good sellers. Some fish and meats are decent (but also fluctuates a lot).
Things are still pretty uneven at the AH yet.
I vendor the grays and sell the cloth I don’t need as well as green boes and haven’t had much problem.
The green boe may vendor for 20s so I’ll list it for 50-60s which is usually less than what similar items are going for and everything has sold.
I’m into mageweave now for bandages so silk stacks I’ve been getting from aoe farming I’ve been selling at 45s a stack… vendors for 30s.
Definitely not rich… all my dps spells are up to date and I have 20g at 36. Not really worried about the mount money though. It picks up a lot 35+ and between that and aoe grinding I’ll get there. I’m also 225/alchy herb and have been selling items like Elixir of Defense (for druid quest?) quite well. Bigger gold with come later though with pots and transmutes.
Every time I go to town I think, “Man, someone could probably benefit from all these stacks of heavy leather and thick leather.” Then I vendor them all.
I vendor all mats I won’t be using myself. I undercut all the competition, ensuring it sells nearly immediately. I may not make as much as others, but it all sells quick and I spend less time dealing with it.
The real issue is gear. The deposits can be substantial after level 15-20. Below that item level range, I can reliably underbid the competition and almost always sell the item for at least 2-3 times vendor price in one listing. And if it doesn’t sell in the first 8 hour listing, I’ll often redo it during prime time with a 2 hour listing. If in the rare case it still doesn’t sell, I just vendor it.
But above that item level of 20, it gets tricky. It seems like right now, there’s more sellers than buyers, and the lowest AH prices on my server are often times only a little above the vendor price, 10-20% above vendor value. That means if the item doesn’t sell the first time, the loss of the deposit usually means you’ll get less than the vendor value if you then vendor it after it comes back from the AH. That’s worse than just vendoring it in the first place.
Right now, I carefully check not just what other sellers of the particular item are selling it at, but all variations of that item (e.g., search on the item’s base name by deleting the “of power,” “of the bear,” “of the whale” parts). And if it looks promising on that search, I scroll through the AH listing for that type of gear at that item level to see if it looks like it can be sold for much above vendor price for all items of that item level that are listed. Usually it can’t, so I vendor most stuff. But sometimes it can, so I’ll list it once for 8 hours and if it doesn’t sell, I’ll vendor it. Right now, I am vendoring most gear above level 20. But for some items that have a good combo of stats or for which there isn’t a lot of competition, it is worth trying to sell it, but only once.
I also like to do something I call “buying lottery tickets.” Before I log for the night, I hop on the AH alt and scroll through some mats that would be helpful for me, looking for any with times that aren’t “very long” with low bid prices, since some folks use that to push up their listings in the default AH view. Often those bids values are less than 1 silver for lots of things, even full stacks of cloth or ore or bars. Then I put in those copper bids, and the next morning, I may only win 1 or 2 out of 10, but for the winners, I got them nearly for free, except for the time to look for them. And for the losers, I get my lottery ticket price back, which is way better than the real lottery.
/moo 
What?? Selling everything to vendor can get you to 100g even before level 40!
I generally check, and if the lowest price is close i just vendor. Ive seen several where people are selling it for 1 copper more than vendor, so they made less money than vendoring it.
Im level 29 and sitting at 11 gold right now. Ive trained all my skills so far, and have all of my professions trained to 225 (not sure where the actual skill is at but have the expert training). Not sure how I’m doing on gold compared to most people.
All low and medium leathers from skinning. Also most green items. Not really worth the time to list that stuff to make 25% on it after factoring listing and selling fees. Time is money friend!
Had little issue getting mine back then and I rarely use AH. Margins razor thin except on end products which I rarely sell.
Sadly these things are selling below vendor price the majority of the time on my realm. It’s frustrating. Good for those buying, bad for those trying to actually earn some money.
I’m not saying these things should be selling for a ton, but definitely enough to gain at least a small profit. The AH isn’t worth even using right now hardly. I have just been holding onto my leather I have gotten from skinning to either use for a future alt that will do leatherworking or to actually make a profit selling on the AH when the economy is a bit better.
Depends on what I have. Cloth, ore, greens that I can’t use go on the AH for tailors, blacksmiths, and enchanters. At some point, herbs that are too low for use with my alchemy will also go on the AH. There’s always a new toon being made that can use the low-level stuff.
I’m concentrating on the journey, not the endgame, not trying to be a Rockefeller, so vendoring everything else is good enough for me. I have all of my training up-to-date, my pet’s training up-to-date, with enough left over for an emergency fund and/or saving up for that first mount.
Just give it some time, no one really has money at the moment, so they have to be picky about their purchases.
I actually made quite a bit of money through blacksmithing because people were selling bronze bars way cheaper than they should have. I was able to craft items that vendored for more than I paid for the bars XD
Sadly people have since caught on to that and adjusted pricing 
i think there is room for, those enterprising/helpful people, to make an updated guide/video on toon management in classic
a refresher
for example, i have not needed to really use a “bank alt” before
not in this capacity- for me at least
see- with a mail alt what you are utilizing is the 30 day storage on mail; you dont have to accept all the mail on your “alt” just because you have mail
let stuff sit in there use it as you need it
use the “return to sender” option as well with your alts and toons
dont vend white items if you can help it
we just need to wait out more players getting higher levels and more gold
there are arbitrage opportunities all over the place but you need to be patient and forget in terms of wow live economics or even rolling a new toon in live
i have found a couple streams that net 2 silver per flip; it’s not alot but it works and the stuff sells
dont think that if the ah is selling fo less than 1 gold than “vendorvendorvendor” readjust your mindset and find the margins
At the moment yes because most of the auction prices are lower then the vendor lol, if I had the time and patience I would buy all the auctions lower then the vendor price and sell them to the vendor.
Someone else is probably already using an addon to do that…
I vendor after 2 failed AH attempts depending on the item due to deposit