Trade Skill Master: Accounting

The TradeSkillMaster Addon (TSM) has a great module called Accounting. It does various things including the tracking of your sales, purchases and the items sold. This module hold all of your sales and purchase information. Please keep in mind that it starts tracking once you add it to TSM but it will not back track anything prior to the addon being installed. There are many ways that this information can be useful so I highly recommend you have a look around this module.


The accounting module can be identified by the stack of coins located on the left of the TSM logo.

Once you click the Accounting button you will have a choice of a few tabs.

Sales Tab

The sales tab shows a list of items sold, how many were sold and for what price. It also lists how long ago the item(s) sold. This a a great tool for studying your market to see what sells and what sits. It also includes a search option so you can check in on specific items quickly.

This way I can see what a specific item sells for and see where items are most likely to sell for more. Some items have a pattern of selling better on certain days. This also lets me keep an eye on fluctuations in the price. If I see that the sale price varies from 3 gold to 5 gold each then I can consider only selling the item for 4-5 gold. This will mean that the my items won't always be posted but it will mean that I only post them for sale at a premium. 

This is also a great way to test the market. If you post an item at 10 gold and it never sells but it does sell at 5 gold then you know 10 gold is to high but 5 gold is liked. You can then push your price up a little each time to test the limits of what an item will sell for. Overall, the sales option gives you a good amount of information regarding what you sell and how it behaves on the auction house.

Purchases Tab

The purchases tab holds all of the information about items you have purchased. Similar to the sales tab, this information can be a great tool for tracking variations in the market with regards to your purchases. If you happen to purchase something to flip but can't remember what you paid for the item then this is a priceless tool. Just like the sales tab you can search for specific items and determine your markup based on the purchase price.  

Items Tab

This tab lists the averages for your items bought and sold. This is great if you want a summary of activity. 

Resale

The resale tab gives you a list of items that you have purchased off the auction house and then posted again. If you flip items at all then this tab is an excellent place to have a look. The advantage of this tab is the average profit. It lets you know what items are being sold at a a profit or a loss. This can be great for considering what to sell in the future.

One of the great features of the resale section is that it gives you the ability to look at each item individually.

You simply hover over an item you wish to see more information on and click. This will open the stats page for that specific item.

Why is this data important? This information can help you to narrow down a market on a specific item. If you wanted to purchase all of the [Awesome Thing] for 5 gold and under and then post it for 10 gold each then this would be the way you could track it to see if it is profitable. This sort of flipping can work well in the profession leveling materials market. This market can fluctuate and be a bit erratic.  If someone is leveling their mining they might flood the auction house with ore but once that ore clears there is none available until someone else decides to level mining. In situation where your market is doing this, then you can actually create a stable market and at the same time make a nice profit. Purchase from the guy leveling mining and sell at a nice markup when the auction house is empty of that item.

Resale also lists the people purchasing from you. This feature lets you track regular buyers and even lets you see if your competitors are purchasing the items you are selling. I have often watched my competition to test their maximum buy out price for an item. If I know that BettySue likes to purchase all of the [Awesome Thing]s on the auction house under 5 gold them I can purchase all of the [Awesome Thing]s under 4 gold and repost them for 4 gold 99 silver. It is favorable because it creates a nice fast profit.

Summary Tab

The summary tab shows you your overall sales and purchases broken down to show what item you have made the most gold from as well as what item you make gold from with regards to quantity.

Options Tab

The options tab lets you set how you would like to view this module. Most of the options are fairly self explanatory but I do want to mention the "Don't prompt to record trades" check box. This lets you disable the trade prompt. When you trade an item for gold it will attempt to record it as a sale. It will pop up a prompt that looks like this:

Alternatively, when you purchase and item via trade you will be prompted with something like this:

This feature is set up so that transactions via trade are counted. If you want everything traded in exchange for gold to be recorded then you can disable this option. I prefer to leave it as is and let it prompt me. I sometimes purchase items that I wish to send to other characters and would prefer to not record them as part of my sales.

This brings me to the one downside of this module. It will record any items you purchase for personal use and that can sometimes skew the statistics a bit. You can combat this by not purchasing personal items on the characters you auction on. However, I have not found this to interfere much and just keep it in mind when looking at the data.

Conclusion

This module is all about information and information can be an outstanding tool. If you take a little time to check out the information and look for creative ways to use that information then you can make the art of gold making quite profitable. Not everyone wants to crunch the numbers for every item but this module is set up to be useful at a glance as well as useful with an in depth look.

Trade Skill Master: Introduction

At some point you are going to become overwhelmed with items to post. I find that posting more than about 10 to 20 different items every day starts to become a bit time consuming. This is where TradeSkillMaster (TSM) comes in to play as one of the most wonderful addons for gold making. It has just about every feature you could possible want. Not only does it have the ability to streamline the posting of auctions but it can also make purchasing items easier, crafting more efficient and it can track all of your purchases and sales. That's not all! It can help with finding items to disenchant off of the auction house, it can improve your mailbox and it can help you with the storage of items.

Tradeskill Master Addon

Just visit tradeskillmaster addons and take notice of the list of downloads. The download on the top of the list labeled TradeSkillMaster (core) is the skeleton of the addon.

All of the other things listed are the modules. Each one does something different and you can select which modules you want to use. You will need to use at least one module for TSM to be functional. I will cover the set up and use of the addon over the next few weeks.

Tradeskill Master Application (desktop)

This is a wonderful feature. It is added to your desktop and lets you know when items you wish you buy show up on the auction house. Once you set up your deal finding lists the application can pull from those lists to know what to look for. It can also back up your lists for you. It makes for a very useful companion to the addon.

Features include:

• AuctionDB Updater - Keeps your data up to date without scanning the auction house. 
• Deal Notifications - Let's you know when items show up on the auction house for the price you want to pay! It even sends you an e-mail when deals show up.
• WoWuction Updater - Let's you use up to date data in game.
• TSM Settings Backup / Restore - Automatically backs up your settings. 
• Report TSM Lua Errors and Bugs - Lets you report lua errors or other bugs and lets you track the status of your tickets. 

TSM Mobile

 The author is currently working on an app for your phone! Be sure to check back at TSM Mobile for updates.


Overall TSM is well organized and extremely customizable. I have noticed it is frequently updated with positive changes. At the moment this is my favorite addon. I will cover the modules starting with the auctioning feature next week so be sure to check back!

Gold Making 101: Trade Chat

I will admit, I am not generally fond of trade chat. Most of the time the text that scrolls through is miscellaneous chatter that can sometimes be quite obnoxious. That doesn't mean trade chat isn't useful. As a gold maker trade can be your friend. You can use it to advertise that you have posted something on the auction house or you can advertise to sell something directly.

Hecklers

Most of the time when you advertise with a price attached (WTS [Awesome Thing] 1k) you will get a few hecklers. These are the people who tell you that your item is overpriced or generally unwanted by anyone. Ignore these people. Most of the time these people are upset because they want to purchase the item but don't have the gold to do so. The people who have the gold and want to purchase it are not going to be persuaded by these people. I can't tell you how many times I have sold items despite trade being full of complainers.

Haggling

Haggling is a great tool as a seller. When the buyer feels as if they are getting a deal then they are more likely to buy. Pick a lowest price before you decide to sell and stick to it. Also, be sure to mark up the item in case of hagglers. I have [Awesome Thing] that I purchased for 300 gold. I am willing to take as little as 500 gold and the average value is 800 gold. When I post my WTS in trade I will mark it up to 1k gold to allow for hagglers to work me down a bit.

If you are buying an item from trade always haggle. Even if you end up paying full price it is a good idea to always at least try and haggle. If there is a long pause after you suggest a lower price then it is likely that they are considering it. Sometime you will get a response in which the seller makes it clear that the price is firm. In those situation it is not recommended to haggle further. Keep in mind that some sellers are in trade because they have an item that they want to sell quickly. Often they are impatient and willing to sell for less that the value.

Remember that trade chat is your friend and will serve you well for selling items as well as buying items. Being polite and ignoring the hecklers will earn you a reputation as a serious buyer and seller. In the end, trade chat can be a useful tool for the gold maker.

Gold Making 101: The Undermine Journal

Now that I have made a little bit of gold off of the items I fished up at the Darkmoon Faire I am going to head over to The Undermine Journal.

The Undermine is a wonderful tool for finding cheap items to flip. Just select your realm with your faction. You will be taken to the front page for your realm. Here you will find various articles from other gold makers. I highly recommend looking around and checking out their sites. I have found an endless amount of useful information from these posters.

Today I will be looking at the Good Deals page. After selecting Great Deals at the top of the page be sure to click the Great Deals option below it.

This will take you to a list of items that people have posted below potential market value. You will find a variety of items listed. Here I have found a transmog item that flips for quite a bit.

Something to keep in mind. All of the items on this list are great items to flip. I wanted to point out this specific item as a higher risk item. The reason I consider it a higher risk is because 3 others are posted. So it might not sell any time soon. However, the purchase price is 1 gold and I currently have a little over 100 gold so it isn't going to cut into my gold all that much to take this gamble. The other items on the list may have a lower sell price on average but there is only once of each of those items so you don't have to worry about competition. At first it is best to focus on the cheaper items.

Be sure to check out the bottom of the page as well. The "Potential Low Bids" section can have some great bid items that can be a profitable flip. Some people aren't patient enough for wait for a low bid and they will sometimes completely overlook bid amounts.

Don't be afraid to poke around the auction house and see what you can find. Just for fun I though I would check out a search for "glyph of" to see if anything cheap turned up. I found 3 very under priced glyphs that I re-posted for a higher amount. One of them was posted by others for 250 gold. I undercut them by a small amount and I am crossing my fingers!

The Undermine also have a great addon that I recommend. It shows you the market information for items. It can give you a good idea of what things are worth. That way you know your items value before posting and won't make the mistake of under pricing. It also helps when looting to see what is worth holding on to for the auction house.

Overall The Undermine is a great resource for finding deals.It updates frequently so there is always a chance for new deals!