Staying Above the AH Dog Pile
Submitted by admin on Thu, 26/01/2012 - 08:43
Markco here with another one of those fancy-smancy new terms about
the AH for you to think about.
Dog piling is my fancy term for when a player sees a great
opportunity on the auction house and they dump all their product at
once for the lowest price at the moment. This is almost always
going to result in a fail, even on patch days. Look, you may sell a
few but it is certainly not the best utilization of your resources.
Why is Dog piling not a good idea, especially since it usually
results in a few sales?
1. Dog piling results in way more supply which counters the demand
of the item. If there is one item on the auction house and you post
three more, you've quadrupled the supply. If the demand has not
quadrupled then yours and your competition's items will not sell
completely.
2. There is a psychological effect that takes hold of people when
they see a hundred of your item for the cheapest price and a
handful of others for slightly more. I kid you not, some people
will buy theirs because they feel that you are trying to monopolize
the market. Crazy huh? It happens every day.
3. The funny thing about dog piling is that everyone seems to see
it and get drawn into it, hence why I call it "dog piling." You
could also probably call it the bandwagon, but I like dog pile
because of the urgency that participants feel towards getting on
the pile. Once someone sees you dumping your items, there is a
chance that they will do the same. Undercutting wars follow.
4. Especially with items that people buy in designated stacks, such
as hypnotic dust, you're better off selling it in those stacks than
individually because of how fierce the dog piling is. What's more,
you can actually sell for slightly more than the individual price
per item and still have happy buyers. I call this staying above the
dog pile.
5. If there are a handful of items on the market and demand is
high, you can safely assume that your normal priced items (even if
they aren't the lowest) are going to sell eventually. Why spam a
bunch of items and ruin the market by encouraging dog piling?
P.S. Found this information useful? If you’re anxious about
experiencing all that WoW has to offer, you should take 2 minutes
of your time to watch this interesting video.
