Niche Markets: Gems

While most jewelcrafters stick to the "tried and true" methods of shuffling ore and cutting/selling gems in their daily routine, there are very few that maximize their profit-making capabilities by hitting niche markets. By definition a niche market is one that is typically uncommon, specialized, or as in most cases, simply unknown. However, if available, niche markets can easily provide more gold than your standard jewelcrafting routines. In this post, I will go through several that I have found to be extremely profitable and remarkably non-competitive. While I will give the usual disclaimer that this varies from server to server like all things, there will inevitably exist untapped markets waiting to be pushed; all you need to do is find them!

1. Wrath Gems

I'm not going to claim that I found this market, or that this idea is altogether new. Nevertheless, it remains easily the most profitable niche market that I have found in Jewelcrafting. The reason for the success I have had in this market is mostly attributable to the large 70-twink community that exists on my server. With Cata gems limited to gear above certain ilevel, twinks can only go for the next best thing: Wrath epic gems. The limiting factor in this niche market is clearly supply. In Wrath, jewelcrafters were able to obtain epic/rare gems in a variety of ways: shuffling ore (saronite/titanium), valor point vendor, and buying cheap gems on the market. However in Cata, there really only exists one reliable way to obtain your epic gems: using justice points at the Dalaran vendor. The best practice for this is to bark in trade chat with a macro along the lines of:

         WTB all your Justice Points! 100g per 220, more profitable than selling JP boots!

From my experience, simply barking a few times a week at peak hours will get you the supply you need to last awhile. As in many niche markets, there are a couple things you need in Wrath gems to be successful. 

• Be patient: while there will be a demand for your gems eventually, don't flood the market and drag down the price. Have confidence that it will rebound if it takes a small hit.
• Buy patterns: if you don't have all the patterns from the Dalaran JC vendor, get them. While the variety of gems you will sell will be smaller than your variety of Cata gems, it doesn't hurt to have extra cuts.
• Buy up any cheap uncuts that hit the AH: many people don't understand the value of their uncut Wrath gems and will cheaply post them just to get them out of their bags. Take advantage of this by adding these uncut gems to your snatch list. 
• Don't count out rare gems: if you have a supply of Wrath rare gems or access to extremely cheap saronite ore, cut and sell those as well. Those cuts are also still in high-demand by people unwilling to pay the price of Wrath epic gems. If you have a transmute alchemist, don't be afraid to transmute as well.

2. Nightmare Tears

Awesome market. I know a bunch of bloggers have already talked about this niche, but it truly is fantastic. While it may take a little bit of time to sell your nightmare tears, the return on them is fantastic. Add dragon's eyes to your snatch list or buy them with extra Dalaran tokens if you don't need any cuts. Look for cheap infinite dust or even shuffle eternals if you have extra. This market will always stay alive and kicking for two reasons:

• People are dumb and don't understand prismatic sockets.
• Low-level characters and twinks need gems.

I couldn't find a more recent screenshot of MySales showing my nightmare tear sales. But in the weekly span shown below I made nearly 3000g pure profit on selling these. I know on some servers, these are selling for about double the price of my average below as well, so there is definite upside for many of you out there. 

3. Late-night and other non-peak times

This may be a bit easier for me to profit on than most, but regardless it's a strong market with very little competition. Since I live in France currently and play on US servers, I am on at all sorts of weird times. While most people would not bother trying to push their goods because of the perception that no one is online to buy, I continually make strong profits by posting and checking my auctions whenever I get the chance. While this market is open to a variety of professions and goblins, gems seem to sell the best as they are always in highest demand. Many people on late at night or early in the morning will opt to buy from the AH for several reasons.

• They perceive that finding a JC at that time will take too long.
• They are likely in a rush to get to bed, go to work, or do something more meaningful with their time than save 50g on one gem. 

In that vein, it is also easier to sell goods at exorbitant prices late at night, as people are typically willing to pay more because of their perceived lack of sellers. Whatever the case may be, if you do find yourself online late at night, make sure to check the prices on the AH. While your competition may be sleeping, the demand for gems never will be. 

Typical late-night haul...

Just as I was writing this at 5am server...

4. Leveling mats

Just like any other crafting profession, to get to 525 in JC you will need quite a bit of gold and/or a steady supply of leveling mats from a gathering alt. While it is invariably cheaper to get your own mats, rarely do people put in the time to farm them because of the hassle. With that being said, many people also look online to see the cheapest and fastest way to powerlevel a profession using sites like wow-profession.com to aid them. You can easily use this online advice to your own advantage by controlling markets of raw mats essential to the leveling process, especially those mats which are typically rare and expensive. Use your auctioneer scan data to build a database for price or use The Undermine Journal (www.theunderminejournal.com) to obtain knowledge about prices for these mats. Undoubtedly you will get sellers posting what they think are cheap gems or mats for next to nothing. You can also bark in trade for specific mats that you know are selling well. There are always people who don't understand value of random items in their bags and will take any offer to shed them for more than vendor price. 

Casual Capital: Glyphs

Recently, I powerleveled inscription on an alt to try my hand in the glyph market. For those who are unaccustomed to glyphs and the AH, it's typically a very automated and cutthroat market with a ton of gray area in terms of profitability; depending on raw material supplies and server economy. Some servers economies are so dominated by glyph barons, that finding well-priced glyphs for the average buyer could take weeks of scouring the AH. However, on other servers glyphers are so competitive that many are willing to sell at cost to push their product regularly. In any event, auction-house tact and strategy is no more prevalent anywhere than in the glyph market. Given my penchant for micro-strategies in the gem and enchanting scroll markets, I didn't have time to "play ball" with the glyph kings of my server. However, I did develop a simple posting and layering strategy that not only covered my ENTIRE costs of leveling and mat costs in 4 days, but also helped provide a steady secondary gold income to augment my haul in other markets.

To begin with, you will need a scribe leveled to at least 475. As you learn more glyphs through Northrend Research, etc. etc., you will invariably make more gold by having a greater selection. But in the beginning, you will have to make due with what you have already. In leveling my alt to ~490 in Inscription, I spent roughly 3000 gold and roughly 1000 more gold on my first stacks of cinderbloom to mill. On my server, stacks range anywhere from 20g to 35g depending on the day of the week. Knowing I wanted to do this ahead of time, I of course was able to snag some well-priced stacks beforehand.

Before I go through my process, I need to mention one tool that was invaluable in my quest. I honestly could not have succeeded (at least so far) without using the add-on "TradeSkillMaster" with its herbing and auctioning bundles. Essentially what this add-on allows you to do for inscription, is easily queue glyphs for crafting while also providing a simple list of mats required to complete the glyphs. It also shows your current quantity in bags, in your bank, on alts, and even on the AH so that you can see where exactly your supply is at. Below are some screenshots with the interface:

TradeSkillMaster also has an auction-house component that allows you to quickly post glyphs or any other items with any set of customizable parameters. You can control your undercut, your breakpoint below which you won't post a particular item and the maximum/minimum amount of one particular item you want to post. You can also configure items into groups (e.g. glyphs) for even easier posting. Altogether this took about 15 minutes to configure and has saved an untold amount of time for me even after just a few weeks.

Back to my plan and execution. Basically, my goal with glyphs was to spend as little time and to make as much money as I could playing the glyph market casually. I decided to completely avoid trying to reset particular glyphs for one. Instead I decided to just sit on glyphs that were not profitable. From my experience on my own server in the past few weeks and from knowing the basics of just about each spec and class in the game, I can say that the majority of glyphs that were not selling well, were glyphs that should not be used under any given circumstance by a class. For example: Glyph of Starfire. Some people might see it as a potentially decent prime glyph for boomkins; however, it's terrible and the market price for it is indicative of that. It never once sold above 1g in the three weeks I scanned glyphs. On the contrary, many minor glyphs actually sold quite well because of the general lack of minor glyph utility for each class.

Nevertheless, the most consistent performers were the prime glyphs. More important to note, the prime glyphs of feral druids and affliction warlocks, two of the most FotM PvP arena classes at the time. In that vein it would be important to note that if you play on a serious PvP server such as Illidan, Tichondrius, Sargeras, Blackrock, etc., it would be wise to understand the "state of the PvP union" to put it briefly. PvPers are constantly rerolling or rolling alts to take advantage of strong compositions or other class imbalances; more so than PvEers. By understanding the PvP community, you can make a strong profit in the glyph market. My two top sellers over the course of three weeks: Glyph of Rip and Glyph of Corruption, by a landslide.

However, I played the market with the vast majority of my glyphs and used my material supply efficiently, crafting glyphs that had been selling well the previous week and crafting popular glyphs that were fetching top dollar in my scans. Twice a day (once in the morning and once before raid time), I spent 5 minutes reposting my undercut glyphs in batches of 5 for 12 hour intervals. Making sure to keep a supply of popular glyphs in my bags whenever I logged on, I was easily able to repost glyphs that had sold the night before or during the day. The only time I would ever mill was on the weekends when I had time to spare and had snatched up a solid supply of cheap herbs over the week. In total, I made roughly 4000 gold in the first 4 days, and have continued at a pace of ~1000g per day selling glyphs in a marginal amount of time. Especially considering the rather cheap prices of glyphs on my server and the multitude of AH-botters and glyphers, I would say there is definite potential for this to succeed on any server under any conditions. All you need is the basic knowledge of supply/demand, a strong add-on like TradeSkillMaster that can automate the process, and 10 minutes a day and you should be raking in easy gold steadily, and more important, casually.

Lessons from 4.2...

                                                           A typical week...




Some basic and advanced lessons we can learn from the booming 4.2 shuffling markets:

1. Understand the effects patches have on raw materials. 

• Inevitably new patches bring new gear, which necessitates a higher demand for supplies across the board; decreasing the supply of everything from obsidium ore to hypnotic dust and increasing the price and spending threshold that buyers set. 
• However, one important thing that many people overlook is the way in which patches change the manner of obtaining raw mats. A perfect example of this in patch 4.2 is Heavenly Shards. With the changes to Justice Points and Valor Points in 4.2 that de-emphasized Heroics and emphasized running old T11 content and ZA/ZG heroics, the manner in which players obtained the majority of their Heavenly Shards now changed. Prior to the patch, players got their shards from disenchanting heroic gear/346 JP gear/regular dungeon gear. But, as many players turned their attention to vendors and content that rewarded "purple gear," people had to rely more on shuffling ore for JC items (necks/rings) to provide this raw mat. This transition of characters across the board to higher level gear had a direct effect on the ways in which essential materials were obtained, which also segues into my next point: 

2. Understand the connections between raw materials.

• Most goblins are already well-versed in the enchanting/JC/alchemy web and understand the basic concepts on how to make this a profitable venture. However, I guarantee that the majority of goblins also lost out on profits in any of these professions by not predicting or adapting their plans for the above changes to Heavenly Shards. I've seen few gold-making blogs out there that put strong emphasis on stockpiling Heavenly Shards pre-patch. The effect: a market of Shards that continues with low supply and high markups. The larger effect: increased/increasing enchanting scroll prices, increased Greater Celesial prices, steady Maelstrom prices (despite the increased supply), and steady ore prices. While the demand for ore is already at an extremely high threshold, the ultra-high demand for Heavenly Shards has helped shufflers legitimize their routine even more. 
• On a day-to-day level, it's even more important to understand the connections between raw materials to maximize your profits. If you see the market flooded with Heavenly Shards and lacking in well-priced ore, you can assume that the price in shards will ultimately increase as long as the low supply of ore continues. You can also naturally assume that the Enchant Weapon - Landslides and other high-end scrolls that are now selling for 1100g will increase as the market realizes a decrease on the supply end. Have the patience to see these market corrections through. 

3. Understand market volatility and posting trends.

• While it's important to keep a strong buying strategy, don't be afraid to adapt that strategy to the market conditions and always be ready to predict a change to your strategy. Understand the daily/weekly patterns that go through the AH with raw materials. Most servers are extremely active in buying early in the reset as many players need to gem, enchant and augment (belt buckles, etc.) new gear they acquired from raiding and conquest points (PvP equivalent). Most servers also become less active as the week continues and less and less players are acquiring new gear. Naturally, this leads to higher prices on produced goods early in the week (cut gems, enchants, belt buckles, etc.). However, as I have found on my server, this also leads to quite a unique situation in regards to raw materials in which  prices are actually lower and supply is higher mid-week than on the weekend. I would assume this is because people are less-focused on stockpiling during the week, as they are busy providing produced goods, which allows ore supply to stay long enough on the AH to accumulate undercuts. 
• Regardless, identify these trends and use them to manipulate the markets in your overall macro strategy. Additionally, identify the sellers during high-supply conditions and see if they are willing to negotiate a business relationship. I guarantee they would be more willing to make concessions when their supplies are consistently being undercut on the AH. 

4. Don't be afraid to stockpile. The more gold you invest, the more profit you make.

• This is the key point I wanted to harp on in regards to raw materials and more specifically, elementium ore. You can't ever have enough. At least in this market where the demand for enchants, gems, new gear, and item enhancements are at a peak. You need to have the confidence that this market will not dissipate in a week. It won't. While the rise in prices can be steep, the decline is always gradual. Furthermore, with proper manipulation, you can actually artificially increase prices to maximize your profit. The perfect example of this is stockpiling. By buying up all the well-priced ore, you are able to not only control the price of ore, but also control the supply of gems. Unless your server is chock-full of stockpilers who are willing to take losses to stop you, you are guaranteed to make strong returns. 
• In conjunction with my previous point on market trends, it's important to understand the best time to post. As a stockpiler however, I will typically post my gems at any and all times as long as they don't drop below my breakpoints. On certain occasions, I will reset the price or wait for the price to reset itself, but my general strategy is to mass produce gems. However, certain items stockpiled items like high-end enchanting scrolls, pets, or even mounts for the most adept goblins, are better off sold during peak times, as their market volatility is higher on a pure gold margin basis. 

5. Final point: be logistically prepared!

• The most important point I would make here is to have proper addons that can not only track your AH activities, item production, and investments, but also track them efficiently. The most important for me would be: Auctionator (which is an absolute must-have for any goblin), TradeskillMaster (which greatly cuts down your time spent not only producing items, but posting and cancelling them on the AH), Postal or Mailget, and the Auctioneer bundle. 
• Devote your in-game time (if possible) during peak hours to your micro strategy. Babysit your high-demand and high-profit items (red gems, enchanting scrolls, mounts, pets, etc.) and make sure to keep a steady stream of supply up once yours go down.

Quick Introduction

Hi guys, wanted to introduce myself quickly before I delve right into my posts. My in-game name is Theodos on US-Sargeras Alliance. I have played this game for over 5 years now, always fascinated by the myriad of ways to get (and spend) gold. I've done everything in this game from high-end PvPing as a two-time gladiator during the Burning Crusade to high-end raiding progressing with a US Top-50 guild here on Sargeras. But throughout the five years of playing this game across all spectrums, I have always been lured to the prospects of making more and more gold, testing numerous methods in doing so. Hopefully you goblins can learn something from this blog and feel free to ask any questions you may have!