Letโs fast forward 4 Days Until Cataclysm โฆ Cataclysm hits. People go roll worgen and goblin, people level new alts, what is the first thing they will need? Bags. What is the cheapest bag to craft, yet sells well and has a nice markup? Netherweave bags.
Now you might be thinking, wellโฆ those are 16 slotters why in the world would people buy those? Wouldnโt they want 20 slot bags? The thing with 20 slot bags, is that their material cost makes them way more expensive and harder to sell to new and upcoming characters. Currently I can craft a netherweave bag for roughly 3-4g, including the thread, a 20 slot bag costs me about 30-40g to craft, and they sell for a little above that. I'd rather craft something for cheap and yield the same amount of profit, if not more, than something that is expensive and harder to sell. Netherweave bags also sell is larger quantities than Frostweave bags, in my opinion, as their price is low and it is more affordable to the low levels.
If you're going to seriously sell bags in Cataclysm, you're going to need to know on how to build and maintain a wall. This is going to be extremely important in securing yourself profits, while keeping the competition out of the market.
Sherretz, From the JMTC Forums wrote a nice explanation on how to โwallโ up a market
โ Basically, you throw up a large volume of bags at a set price. The idea is that your presence outlasts and outweighs the people posting in smaller volumes, even if they undercut you. This is generally done close to mats price to force out other sellers and give you a larger portion of the market. It can also serve to drive up the price of mats on the AH, further cementing your position since you can make profit where others can't.
This will take some strategy in the bag market, however. You'll need to buy out most of the AH cloth to drive its price up, while also choosing the proper price point.
For example, on my server, if I did this, I would probably put the bags up at around a 5-6g BO. I'd buy up all the Netherweave priced at or below about 7-8g, with the idea that cementing my place in the market will outweigh the loss I accept by buying higher priced Netherweave. โ
Basically what you would do, is make a wall of bags, and start buying all the Netherweave cloth a little above the price that you have the bags posted at, or up until a certain price point, mine will be 10g. While you are making a loss, the amount of bags that youโd be selling for a profit would offset the loss. The trick to this method is to keep your competition from getting the cloth, therefore shorting the market and raising the prices for the cloth.
You're going to be undercut, but simply buy the cheap bags out, selling one at 200% profit will make up for two or three bags. On top of this, you're also shorting your competitors supply, the less they have, the more they'll want to make, and if you've done everything correctly, there should be any cheap Netherweave Cloth posted at the Auction House, so he'll be out of the market before you know it.
Making a wall takes a substantial amount of gold. I personally would not recommend it to anyone who does not have a ton of gold, as you're most likely going to be burned out of the market by people who do have the gold to properly control a market.
Of course you could just not wall, and constantly undercut your competition. This is a safe method, but it will make the price for the bags lower due to the constant undercutting. Be careful, as you could drive the price down low enough for your competition to snag them up, and you donโt want that happening, as theyโll simply buy you out and repost for profits.
Youโve only got a couple short days before Cataclysm, how will you approach the bag market?
