How to Reverse Engineer All Your Sales – for results

Reverse Engineering a Sale

Players come to me on twitter or email me and ask “where can I get lots of gold?” and I have to tell you guys:

“you’re doing it wrong”.

You’re thinking from the end goal, rather than the methods!

I think of making gold from the reverse.

• Who has the gold that I want?
• What do they want in return for that gold?
• Where can I get that item/s?
• What are the barriers I face, and how can I get around them?
• How can I give to the customers, and therefore get gold in return?

Example: Reverse Engineering Living Steel

This is one of many many potential items that could be acquired, and sold.   Maybe Living Steel is a no-go on your server.  There are thousands of other items you could reverse engineer.

1. Wowtoken is released
2. Therefore players might have more disposable income and be able to buy high price item such as Vial of the Sands and …
3. Panther Mounts!
4. You can check this by watching trade chat, seeing what people are WTB, and checking volume of sales in the Auction House.
5. Panther mounts all need Mists of Pandaria gems (Sun’s Radiance, River’s Heart, Primordial Ruby, Wild Jade) plus serpents eye (very common item from jewelcrafting), a vendor item plus Living Steel.
6. Living Steel is not something that Jewelcrafters will all have easy access to, unlike the gems. Research shows that the mats are Trillium Bar and Spirit of Harmony, and it’s made by Alchemists.
7. So then we quickly look at Trillium Bar and Spirit of Harmony.   Of course, my server/s aren’t the same as your servers and their availability and prices, but we can make an educated guess that there is less trillium and motes of harmony available now that Warlords of Draenor is released and less players are farming Mists of Pandaria content.
8. I would check the AH for trillium and motes of harmony and look for ways to acquire these.  Are they flippable? Can you buy motes and turn them into spirits?  Can you farm the trillium? Do you have a friend who would like a few gold in exchange for doing that farming for you?

Research into White Trillium using The Undermine Journal on my server

Looks like a wide range of prices.  Could be flippable?

Researching Motes of Harmony

At first glance, it looks like you could buy those 5g motes of harmony, make them into spirit of harmony (cost 50g) and resell for 70g with 20g profit.

That is until you check the global sale price of Spirit of Harmony and find out that it normally sells for 33g, and the undermine journal shows that the quantity is rising and prices falling.

These Spirit of Harmony sellers are just trying to take the mickey with their 200% prices.

Wait a minute, where else can I get Motes of Harmony?

This guide is NOT “go back to your Tiller’s Farm”, after all, 16 motes of harmony does not make you rich, you would make more motes farming Guo Lai Halls or Sra Vess. But I do want you to encourage you to look at gold making from the other way around.

Flip your gold making into reverse.  If you want to be rich in real life, you could find out what is the job that pays the most in the world (Sultan of Brunei?) then decide to become a Sultan, and wonder why you failed.  Or you could find out what people want to buy, and then sell it to them, and repeat the process until you have money.

Start with providing a service, a trade, something useful. Give, and then take. Not stand there, demanding.

Your takeaway from this blog post:  Instead of asking “how can I farm gold?” ask “how can I serve, and profit from it?”

Here comes the tweetable!

[bctt tweet=”Find what players want and profit from helping them”]

About the Author

The Gold Queen is written by Alyzande. With many level 100s, 9 years expertise in making gold, 11 garrisons, 17k+ achievements, 1593 days played, and over 32 million gold earned. The Gold Queen blog teaches you how to make gold playing World of Warcraft using ethical trading, auction house flipping, crafting, reselling snatch lists, and farming gold making.