Auctioneer Tutorial – Search for Resale ItemsPosted by xenith on May 5th, 2009

The SearchUI module in Auctioneer is where things really start to get fun and where you can really start to learn how to make gold in WoW without grinding or farming.

The SearchUI module is the main module that you will use to implement the Auctioneer method to make fast gold without farming. This module doesn’t just let you search for items that are being sold at a low price, it lets you search for items that can be disenchanted, prospected or otherwise converted into other items that will sell for more and make you a profit. You can also have it automatically buy certain items if it finds them listed below a certain price.

In this part of Auctioneer 101, I am going to show you how to make gold in WoW by searching for Resale items. Head to the Auction House and click the Search tab to get started. From the Searchers list on the left (you might need to expand it), click Resale.

Auctioneer Search for Resale

Your first task is to decide how much profit you want to make on an item for it to show in the list. Profit is figured by taking the value of the item and subtracting the price it is listed at. The value is determined using the Price Valuation Method that you choose,  which we will discuss later. You will make the listed profit if you manage to resell the item for the listed value.

The minimum profit you want to make on an item to see it in your search is really up to you, but is related to how much gold you have to invest. If you only have a small amount, you will need to use a low value here to find items you can afford. If you have plenty of gold, you can set it higher to avoid wasting time on items that only make a few coppers.

You can also set what percentage of market price the item price has to be below using Min Discount. By default, only items that cost 50% or less of the full valued price of the item ( the value is determined using the Price Valuation Method that you select. I’ll talk about that in a bit). Leave it at 50% unless you have really slim pickings at that setting, then you can raise it a little if you need to. The higher this percentage is, the less profit you will make on items.

Next, you need to decide if you want to list Bid or Buyout items or both. Basically, if you select to Allow Bids, you will see all items that you can resell at a profit if you win them at their current bid price. This can be a very profitable strategy for the patient player. You will need to monitor your bids though, or you will be outbid often and lose the deal. If that sounds like hard work, you can still make great profits by only listing items that you can profit on if you purchase at the buy out price and resell. To do this, select Show Buyouts but not Show Bids.

Check Seen Count is an important option. This sets how often Auctioneer needs to have ’seen’ this item at auction before it will list it in the search. This helps to make sure that the data is accurate before Auctioneer will tell you that you can make a profit. Its also very important that you have a good weeks worth of recent, full scans before you start to use Search or your valuations will be wrong and your profits wont be what you expect. Use a Check Seen Count of at least 10.

Check the Enable individual maximum price option and then enter a maximum price for items you want to see in the search. Its no use listing 1000 gp items if you only have 100 gp to spend.

Price Valuation Method sets how the value of an item is determined. The value is used to figure out how much profit you will make. They work in pretty much the same way as their equivalents in Appraiser.

Setting it to Stats: Appraiser will automatically use the same method as the current pricing model selected in Appraiser. As with Appraiser, Market Value works for most situations and this is the one that I use. Unless you are very good at statistical math, you probably won’t use the others. Do not use VendMarkup for the Resale searcher. There is a separate Searcher that you can use to find items that you can sell to an NPC Vendor at a profit.

You should always leave the option to subtract AH fees and deposit from your profits enabled. You can select the auction duration that you usually use and the average number of times you re-list items to make sure the correct amount is subtracted.  if you select 48hr and 3x for these, Auctioneer will subtract the 48hr listing fee plus deposit multiplied by 3 from your estimated profit in the search result.

Now you can go ahead and click Search and see what items you can buy low and sell high. To bid or buyout an item, just select it an click Purchase. Auctioneer will buyout or bid based on the reason for listing it that is shown in the ‘Reason’ column. The usefulness of the results that you see depends on the exact settings that you use. There is no one correct way to do it, it depends on the strategy that you are using and the market on your server at any given time. You can get some really useful info on strategies for making gold using resale items from the Auction House Mastery video series. I would recommend getting this if you want to avoid wasting a lot of gold on figuring it all out by trial and error.

CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + click Purchase will purchase all the listed auctions. Use with caution! Not Now can be used to remove items from the list for this session only. If you close and reopen Auctioneer, the item will be listed again in new searches. Ignore Price will permanently ignore items at that price and Ignore will permanently ignore all items of that type permanently.

You can also use Clear to empty the list completely. Use the tiny + button to show the full options window again and then use the tiny – button to  show the search results list again.

Now you can collect any item you bought out from the mailbox and use Appraiser to post them at a profit. Here is where using Stat: Appraiser will work out for you because you will be able to list the items at the same price the Search valued the item at,  so you will get the profit you expect.

This should give you a basic idea of how to use the Resale searcher. Other searchers work in a similar way but help you to figure out items that you can buy then disenchant and resell, prospect and resell, sell to a vendor etc. The filters help you limit the search results that you get back. We’ll see how to make gold in WoW with these in the next post. Get the Auction House Mastery series if you would like to see videos of exactly how a successful auctioneer configures the SearchUI tab for maximum profits and how you can develop your own strategies for any server and any market.