The purpose of this experiment was to see the glyph business from Critical's competitors' Casual Glypher eyes, characterised by:
- 1cp undercuts
- 1 per glyph
- post around once or twice a day
- in the weekends if have time, do the relist dance with other campers
Anyway, experiment started on 1 October and as of 31 October it has been exactly one month and its time to end the experiment and draw some short conclusions. On 1 November I pulled down all glyphs from the AH, recrafted all glyphs back up to 20 (to make inventory match starting stock for comparison purposes).
Unfortunately I auto-sent burning embers to mr lucky sod. I shouldve kept them at least for record's sake then sent them all after taking a snapshot. The best I can do is estimate, see below for some really nasty estimation calculations.
(mysales data here if you really want to see exactly what sold)
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Inferno estimation calculation:
2,063 glyphs sold = 6,189 BF used
6,189 + 1,332 BF leftover = 7,521 BF total
Using yesterday's equation:
w = 0.3b + 0.05i
We can then assume the ratio that 3 blackfallows is always accompanied by 0.5 infernos when milling whiptails.
Hence:
7,521 / 3 x 0.5 = 1,253.5 infernos.
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Start:
End:
Heatmap:
Conclusions:
- quite good income for a month's casual work posting around once on weekdays and maybe around 5-10 times on weekends
- only had to recraft maybe twice during that whole month because I started with full stacks of 20
- cash in hand 98k
- 1,332 bf inks x 11g (TUJ mean price) = 14.6k
- 1,253 infernos x 29g (TUJ mean price) = 36.3k
- everyone played nice, nobody crashed the price (that I know of)
- TOTAL (estimated) profit of 148.9k for 1 month's really simple work
Not bad income eh =). The interesting question is whether Critical strats which aim to totally crush competition, can result in more profit. Only one way to find out!!!! (sorry Sapu!)
I wish thing could work that way on my realm lol. when prices were high at 80-150g a glyph everyone was undercutting like mad and I would barely get 2k in sales a day after two/three reposts every day.
ReplyDeleteSince I first started posting here two/three weeks ago I have supressed all glyph prices to 50g and down to 16g. many glyphs are conastantly below 20, because everyone is still undercutting same as before! I'm still fighting to get sales, and I am moving higher volume because people go "oh hey all the glyphs are cheap, ill just finish out my class" and buy a whole set, but I end up with the same 2-3k a day in sales.
maybe a few small time glyphers have dissappeared but after two weeks plus of crappy prices, not one of my major competitors has showed the slightest indication of backing down.
Theres no fun if competitors drop dead without a fight =).
ReplyDeleteNot quite sure what you your current posting strat is but here are 2 quick comments.
1. Use floors/ceilings to:
- chase out weak glyphers
- learn/understand your serious competitors (who, how many alts, posting strats:campers/wallers, real floor, glyph recipes)
You probably already at or past this stage and know quite a bit about your competition.
2. Focus on the toughest (lowest floor) competitor and give triple walls a try this weekend:
- 3x 24g
- 6x 59g
- 3x 89g
- 48hrs
- post once, leave everything up for the whole 48hrs and let em expire. Come back later and see what your fishing lines caught. Maybe 3k maybe 5k maybe 20k. Dont know till u try and you're in a better position because you have done floors/ceilings so you have a baseline to compare this different posting strat to.
on my realm it has taken 3 weeks (not really that bad i guess) and the floors celings worked to almost completely snuff them out. you can tell they use TSM because they only create new glyphs of the profitable ones. they havent truely left the market. but a window opens long enough for me to sell one or two good priced glyphs before its back to the floor. price per bf is 6g if you shop creatively. floor set to 17 to help with lower priced old ink herbs.
ReplyDeletei had no intent of taking over a market but when i was undercut every 15-30 minutes by 1c well i decided to crap on their plate too! funny i was doing the floor celing before reading any posts of it but your blog definately gave me a few pointers to "perfect" the strategy.
keep it coming!
I see I'm not the only night owl :)
ReplyDeletequick summery for you so you might advise further:
I have been doing floors/ceilings.
45g Ceiling
15g Undercuts
15g Floor
I have been buying herbs continuously for the last week and a half and have pushed the the cost of ink up to 5.5g each on the AH, while still getting a health amount at 3-4g an ink from direct
supply mail.
Here are the TUJ profiles of my three main competitors:
http://theunderminejournal.com/seller.php?realm=A-Kilrogg&seller=Bottomless
http://theunderminejournal.com/seller.php?realm=A-Kilrogg&seller=Missile,Ui
http://theunderminejournal.com/seller.php?realm=A-Kilrogg&seller=Jaytimus
All three of them have been posting less frequently I suppose, but they are all still undercutting below my floor. None of them have purchased a single glyph from me, and completely ignored my triple wall two weeks ago.
The only thing I can think of is get more consistent with my posting, I have left several hour windows open multiple times where people dive back in.
Curses for not having an Edit button! I immediately thought "what if I took a 1g loss on every glyph for a while?"
ReplyDeletewhat does Critical think of dropping my floor another 2-4g and keeping prices even lower for a week?
Just a quick blog tip: if you do a series of posts like the Casual Goblin Experiment, it's easier for new readers to catch up if you tag the posts.
ReplyDelete@Al quick comment to answer your last question. The good thing about glyphs is you have alot of product to experiment with so mistakes are not big mistakes. If u happen to sell 500 glyphs at a 1g loss price it "costs" 500g, which can be worth it sometimes eg u learn something about your competition or drive 1 out. Critical would advise try everything only then u know for sure it will work or not, and if not why.
ReplyDelete@Mangera thanks, I did tag and provide a label link but took it down last night because it never eventuate out into a proper series (only 4 posts I think lol). I'll put it back for reference purposes tonight.
PS Al, floors are one way to squeeze competition but remember ceilings is also another. Ceilings are a hard cap that prevent markets from resetting to 200g etc.
ReplyDeleteTry bringing ceiling down to maybe 25g and see what happens (leaving floor at 15g) because 45g is still a good sell price for competitors if they can get past your floor and mid price point.