by R. O. Lanham

Created on: July 14, 2010

In World of Warcraft, everything revolves around gold. You need it to buy mounts, gems, gear, and anything else of value. Most people say you can make gold one of two ways; by having a profession and creating finished products (gear, gems, potions), or by spending time gathering materials people need to make finished products. But what if there is another way—a way to start making gold whether you are a seasoned player or just hit the level cap. This is the method I use to make gold without farming or using a profession.

 Trade Channel

 Making gold through the trade channel is similar to how retail and grocery stores make money. Imagine the inside of your local grocery store as the equivalent of the World of Warcraft auction house. You walk down the aisles and see tons of items for sale. Fortunately, you only need one thing, you find and buy an apple which costs $1.00—you would much rather pay $1.00 than take the time to grow and harvest your own apples. Besides, you only need one apple, and you need it now.

Most of the players in World of Warcraft are the person in the grocery store buying an apple. They know what they want, and they are willing to pay extra to get it fast.

 Now put yourself inside the grocery store's shoes. In order to make money, you need to sell apples for more than you what you pay. You find an apple farmer and ask him how much an apple is. He quotes you the market rate for an apple, $1. This doesn't work because you want to make a profit, so you tell the farmer you will buy 100 apples for $75. The farmer really likes the sound of $75 from one deal and agrees, despite the quarter discount. The World of Warcraft market works exactly the same way.

 To start doing this, you need to go to a major city in-game with an Auction House. Once there, start looking at the trade channel, and take note of what items people are linking. Often times, a linked item will be accompanied by “WTS” or “WTB,” these stand for want to sell, and want to buy. Look for items with the WTS tag, find one you are interested in and open the Auction House search window. Find out what the average price for a single count of that item is and write it down. Now for the fun part.

 Whisper the person selling the item, and ask him how much a stack is. A stack equals 20 counts of an item. He will quote you a price so you should be ready to do some quick math in your head or have a calculator handy. Take the number he gave you and divide it by 20. Compare your calculated number with the average Auction House price you wrote down earlier. If your calculated number is less than the Auction House number, you can make a profit by buying the item in bulk and selling it in smaller quantities and a higher price on the Auction House (think back to the grocery store buying 100 apples for $.75 each and selling them for $1).

 What do you do if the calculated number is higher than the Auction House average? Well, you haggle with them—always try to convince the seller to lower their price. Nine times out of ten, they are willing to negotiate, and you will make more gold. My favorite technique is quoting them the price you want. The promise of large sums of gold from one transaction is extremely hard to resist.

 You do not need much gold to start doing this. Look for items you can afford and start out small. Finally, I recommend supplementing your gold income with other methods, such as daily quests, because doing too much of one thing is always boring.

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