Labels

Tuesday 1 November 2011

Flipping is Bad Mmmkay

Flipping in wow is the act of buying something "cheap" and relisting/selling that exact same item at a higher price earning "profit". This is different from Converting which is where you buy something, convert it into something else which has a higher value and then sell it at a higher price.

The trigger for today's post is Abeni's Reseller strategy. Nicely presented, detailed instructions and some smart thinking regarding only snatching Researched glyphs. In a nut shell its a bait and flip (something similar to Vile's AH Baiting strat).


Now Critical is not so blind as to think only his strats are right and all other methods are wrong, but there is one thing that he sees alot of players waste time on. Yup you guessed it, flipping (did the speech marks in the first sentence give it away or was it the title??).

I can understand why though. There is a certain euphoric (happy) feeling when you sell that an epic for 10k that you bought for 2k, or that 15g glyph for 200g. This feeling is very hard to forget or ignore that's why a lot of gold blogs focus on, "guess what, i flipped this and you can too!" and "this is going to be the next big thing in the patch, stock up now!". Most readers are lazy and dumb, and instead of spending time working on their buy/make/sell they keep looking for that next secret to give them that next "high" (not Critical Readers though because your IQ increases by 10 points when you subscribe).

Well to be honest, I can't blame Writers for catering to their Readers. If you want a juicy eye fillet and I serve you chicken of course you're not going to be happy. But unfortunately this late in the game everything that can be flipped has already been blogged about. Maybe that's one reason blog content is down (who knows? Critical has only been on the blog scene for 2 months).

Interestingly, Critical sees similar behavior in addictions. Gambling is a very prime example. When you're at the Roulette table and you "invest" $5 and get $200 back in 2 minutes "work", who doesn't love that sort of GPH?

Critical advises: think about your core business. If flipping is your core business Critical says keep on flippin. If its not, its a distraction and your time is better spent working on activities that help you to achieve your goal. You have set your goal(s) right? No?? You miss a turn and go back three spaces. Actually more like 56, all the back to the beginning!

PS: want to be a Master Glypher? After starting at the beginning, keep clicking that Newer Post button at the bottom left corner. It will save your life. If not, at the very least you'll help get Critical's view count up and prime this blog to be sold too for $50k just like JTMC!

PPS: Cool snappy title Abeni and very nice writing. Can Critical recommend you too, to also blog? =)

6 comments:

  1. I've always had the idea in my head to buy out reasearch / book glyph that drop below a certain threshold for resale. The idea being that if someone else wants to do all of the crafting, I'll happily pay them below their crafting cost for a glyph - i get to resell higher, and it results in a sort of soft reset.

    Although, balancing that with the psychological impact of a scribe seeing paltry sales at paltry prices - that's not something I've worked out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just because its in print doesnt mean its true........That statement applies to many things you will read. Read everything with a CRITICAL eye.(Did that one for you)

    I have serious doubts that someone would pay 50k for JMTC. As it stands, JMTC is one site I wont go to as it is based on flowthrough and has lost its orginial focus. The very best items that I have seen written were on JMTC by Markco in the early stages of gold blogging. I cant find them there anymore to refer anyone but he is the first and only person I have read that understood and explained the basics of how to make gold.

    Posts like yours Critical on why you recommend a wall or why you think flipping is bad are useful posts. It is the analysis of what we do to make gold that makes a good site and a good read. Buy x and turn it into y tells us nothing about how to make gold.

    Flipping is Good mmkay. Sorry Critical, I see what you are saying but I do take a different view of what we should be doing. It depends on how you deal with flipping but I think you are missing something here. On the weekend i often find deals. These deals will easily double the gold that I spend on them in the next couple of days. Learning what to buy, how to buy, when to buy is a basic strat few talk about. If I buy too many herbs, what should I do. Keep them till I can use them or should I flip them? Broaden your view of flipping and I think you will agree flipping is a strat that can be used by all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Stede and Brent. Again I am grateful I have quality Readers not just any old tom dick and harry that wants instawin gold tips. I also like that Critical Readers have the best humor on the wow gold block. I laughed my ass off reading your post Brent.

    Now back to arguing with my Readers.

    @Brent flipping is the act of discount buying and then on-sell with no improvement or conversion. Discount buying in the weekends or whenever is good. But if you will use those herbs next month why not keep them.

    What Critical hates (and we should all discourage) is players buying something and then managing to sell the exact same item at a higher price and crowing about it. There is only one limiting factor: capital. Because of this any charlie brown with enough gold can take a punt and win. You only hear/read about wins because who brags about non-sales? No one.

    Criticals glyph models are the opposite, there are multiple limiting factors:
    - all glyph recipes (3 months daily lessons maybe?)
    - neverending supply of glyphs, never run out of stock (20 per glyph)
    - cut throat prices (which are profitable to Critical but bad GPH for glyphers 1-5)
    - mass DM cards ready to be converted into trinkets when "rare" cards pop
    - neverending supply of BF inks (mass mill early, hold and store until when needed)

    The more barriers of entry you put in place the hard it is for competition to stay (or enter) that market.

    Put it another way. Flipping is like buying bulk bottles of Coke and selling em cold for $3 a bottle outside a stadium on a hot day. Its a very simple skill to learn: take product A and sell product A at a different time or place. But thats the root of the problem. Its too simple that anyone can do it.

    An expert of databases and website design is going to be "better" than an expert on toilet cleaning. Yes we need toilet cleaners and you can probably build a decent business cleaning toilets. But there are too few limiting factors, if the work is easy and the money is good it is natural competition will increase.

    Remember pplz, the fun only starts when you set a goal and see yourself progressing towards it. Set you goal now Critical Reader! Do it today! (not you Brent you got too much gold already).

    ReplyDelete
  4. The point of flipping to me is to flip an item that I cant use. Take herbs as we have been discussing. I run into people dumping the herbs.....way more than I can deal with given that there are always deals to be found. There comes a point where I know the supply is heavy on some days and no supply for 3 days during the week. Why not sell them at the high end of their selling price range. I cant control the supply of herbs there are just too many. Sure i buy up 500 stacks of herbs very cheap but I will mill most and sell others at 2-4 times what I paid for them.

    To make lots of gold the more ways you can make it the more you will make. Yes it is simple.....but lots dont even think of doing it. I buy items very cheap in trade as people dont want to take the time to wait for their gold. Sure I can process it instead of flipping it but from a time perspective many times flipping is the better option.

    And btw Critical, I still have a goal.....10 million. I am in no rush to get there but wouldnt be surprised I am there after the next expansion. Only thing that slows my progress is buying TCG mounts.

    ReplyDelete
  5. True true, that probably explains why I capped at half a mil and you have 3. Because you dabble in all markets and all methods and Critical only attacked glyphs.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I flip for one reason and only one reason... inflation. I have too much gold to keep all of it tied up in crafting. Even if I wanted to put it all into crafting I don't think I could (I had 2 guild banks full of pyrite... bleeding it off now and making gold). Therefore if I want to protect against inflation I have to keep a certain amount of my gold tied up in flipping things. These things however are not glyphs, or gems, or really anything your average player can buy. Don't get my wrong, I will always pick up the occasional epic from the terribly miss informed via trade chat at the beginning of a patch (4.2 was really really really good to me there were a few items I flipped for a 40k profit each). But the real protection is in mounts. These things will always be worth more tomorrow than they were today. I am not exactly looking to become rich off of the, nor should you, just looking to keep my gold from devaluing.

    ReplyDelete

Popular Posts