Gold tips from 20k leveling

Here is some good tips from 20k leveling forums

Buy herbs for milling at 8-9g/stack, don't sell Snowfall Ink since I use it for cards as I'm working on Darkmoon Faire rep - according to the calculations in this thread, each ink is costing me 1.3-1.5g. Add 40s for the parchment, that's ~2g to make a glyph. If I can buy them off my competitors for less than that, getting me extra stock for less than what I would've spent making them and forcing them to restock, I'm happy. ;)

I've got pretty much all my competitors on my friends list. So I watch while they chain-undercut each other, then once they go offline, buy the lot out - this is especially great to do on Wednesdays (EU servers), reset day, when everybody seems to be reglyphing. I can consistently buy out my competition on useful glyphs at <1.5g, repost at my fallback which is 75g, and sell 5+ of them before anybody logs back in to undercut me again.

Desperate people leveling professions


Tip:
I have mentioned this before, but watch trade chat for people trying to buy materials. You may not have what they want at the moment, but what they ask for may tip you to what they will be looking for later. You can preemptively get those items ready to go on the AH. A couple of strategic whispers will also do wonders.

What I am trying to do is guess if they are leveling a profession, which one it is and what level they are at. The armory will tell you which one. Waiting for them to log out and then checking the armory will give you a more accurate number. A simple "Hey, are you leveling xxx? That was really very expensive for me, but worth it in the long run. What level are you at now?" will work wonders. It also sets them up to expect to spend lots of gold. Is this shady? I don't think so.

Now with the information you have, you can make some very good guesses about what they will need next. If you are not familiar with the profession just use Wowhead to look up the recipes a player can learn from the trainer or consult a popular 1-450 guide.

Here are a few examples:
[2. Trade][Buyer] WTB: Mithril Ore and Citrine
(probably a JC, try to sell him bars. If he gets ore he can prospect it for Citrine and other gems, costing you a lot of potential sales. He will very likely be looking for star rubies, thorium ore/bars and Large Opal and Aquamarine soon. Whenever possible to reasonably do it, keep ore out of his hands.)

[2. Trade][Seller] Wts: Ring of Silver Might x 30
(A HUGE TELL! Jade is the single most profitable gem on my ream before wrath and Golden Draenite, and this player is very likely about to hit it. This is definitely a JC who wants to be spanked)

[2. Trade][Buyer] WTB: Tangy Clam Meat
(A cook, not as common as a JC, but often enough. If I saw someone looking for Tangy Clam Meat I am going to soak up Buzzard Wings, White Spider Meat and Barbed Gill Trout.)

BONUS TIP:
Be careful what you ask for in Trade chat when leveling a profession. The way I handle it is over the week or two before I level a profession I add the items I will need to my Shopping List in Auctionator. I wait for great deals and then buy. I don't even start 1-450 until I have everything I need for it. My first JC cost about 300g 1-350 and the second one was 600g 1-350. I sold items I crafted to get those prices of course, and 350-450 was total profit.

BONUS BONUS TIP:
Slow down a little. Being impatient cost gold. If you have to wait a couple of hours to move through a couple of points, then wait. Players desperately trying to go from 1-450 with no planning as fast as possible, pay me a fortune to do it.

Reset


Might be common knowledge from all the AH veterans here but recently I've been trying to use the Auctioneer Add-On(post option) to my advantage by logging in 48,24,12 hrs before the maintenance downtime. At those times I will go into the most commonly sold mats (or items I want to resell) and make 1-2 listings at a huge buyout but leave the bid extremely low. Usually 5-10g below normal selling buyout price depending on item, sometimes even less. What this does is sets any one's auctioneer post option for an extremely low bid undercutting what you posted for. What you are hoping is that this person will just spam click the post option and miss the crazy low bid price. Now since you have done this at the 48,24,12 hour mark before maintenance you will have time to cancel your auctions before someone wins your items at low bids. You will lose the ah deposit but should make it up when doing the scan from auctioneer for resale items to bid on before the server goes under maintenance. There are a few variables that keep this from working but I have been surprised at the increase I am getting in the resale scan before server reset since I've been doing this. Could just be coincidence but an increase of around 20-30 items for each of the markets I did this in I feel is proof enough for me. I have netted around 10k'ish while using this method in about 3 weeks time.