How to Make Gold in WoW for Beginners – Part 2 – Vendor Items

The first strategy that any character should implement to start making some gold is auctioning items that you have bought from NPC vendors:

Advantages

• Requires very little capital
• Works at any level
• Takes very little time to implement
• Does not involve farming
• Does not require a tradeskill
• Can make enough gold for most characters to get by quite nicely on

Disadvantages

• Smart buyers will buy from the vendor, not the AH
• You probably won’t make gold cap using this method alone

The first question you probably have about this method is why would anyone buy an item from the Auction House when they can buy it from an NPC for less? There are actually quite a few reasons:

• Lack of time/willingness to travel:  Some of these items are only available on vendors in far-flung locations. Effectively they are paying you to go fetch it for them. Incidentally, cities other than Ogrimmar/Stormwind can count as far flung locations.
• Lack of knowledge: People may see your pet or recipe for sale on the Auction House and not realize it is available from a vendor.
• Limited Availability: Some of these items are only sold in limited quantities by an NPC. Once the item has been purchased, other buyers will need to wait for it to respawn. Some buyers may prefer to purchase from the Auction House than wait.

Limited Supply Item Vendors –  Major Cities

The easiest vendors to buy from are those in major cities and these are accessible to characters at any level. I’ve started out with limited supply recipes from Darnassus and Ironforge for Xennith.

As noted above, items from the more distant cities will usually sell better. I find that items only available in Darnassus sell better than those from Ironforge and those from Ironforge sell better than those from Stormwind. One exception is the White Kitten sold by Li’l Timmy because Timmy himself is on a timer.

You can set up an alt in each city to speed things up. Just have the alt purchase the items and mail them to your bank alt or main character to post on the AH.

Gathermate Addon

Gathermate 2 is a great add-on for anyone who wants to sell limited supply recipes. It will highlight the vendors on your mini map!.  Make sure that you set them to display in the add-on’s option screen. It is also very helpful for miners and herbalists as it will track ore and herb locations for you.

Pricing Vendor Items

Pricing these items can take a little trial and error, but my best advice is don’t be shy! Start high!

Start by checking Appraiser for the current market value. If others are selling the recipes, then price yours accordingly. That doesn’t mean that you *have* to undercut. But bear in mind that the market will not support too much supply of these items so if you are only the 4th cheapest, say, there is a good chance that you won’t sell yours. Personally, I only list limited supply recipes if mine is the only one for sale or if there are only one or two others. If the others that are listed are cheap, buy them up and take a shot at resetting the market at a higher price if you think the market will pay it.

If there are no others listed, try listing at 50g and see what happens. If they sell quickly, try a little higher next time. If they don’t sell, try listing them at 40g. It won’t take long for you to get a good  grasp on pricing for your server.

Good Sellers

Transmogrification in patch 4.3 has been quite good for some of the Tailoring patterns (colored shirts, tuxedo items etc) so you may be able to go higher on those right now. Check out what people are charging for the items made with some of those recipes right now and price the recipe accordingly.

A couple of the limited supply Alchemy recipes sell very well.  Recipe: Free Action Potion can fetch a good price (try starting it out at around 80-90g). It can be hard to track down on the vendor too. If you are Alliance, it is sold on two vendors, Soolie Berryfiz in Ironforge and Ulthir in Darnassus. Horde only have one vendor, Kor’geld, but at least he is in Orgrimmar.

Expanding your Vendor Horizons

As you level, you will be able to find resellable items on vendors in more distant parts of the game. Some of these items are limited supply, but some are not. Even unlimited items will sell well on the Auction House because buyers want to save themselves the time it would take to travel there. I’ll be posting more details on Outland and other far-flung vendors in a later post in this series (when Xenith is high enough level to get there!).

Resources on the Web

Ironforge Limited Supply Route by Sinshroud at The Consortium Forums

Dalaran Limited Supply Route by Sinshroud at The Consortium Forums

Thunder Bluff Limited Supply Route by Kathroman at The Consortium Forums

The three links above are to detailed descriptions of fast routes around Ironforge, Dalaran and Thunder Bluff that will take you to all the worthwhile limited supply vendors in those cities. Ironforge and Dalaran have videos and all three have maps.

Until Next Time!

Series Navigation

<< How to Make Gold in WoW for Beginners – Part One