If you have been around the Diablo 3 gold making scene long enough you have surely stumbled across Diablo3GoldGuide.NET by now. Before I go on I will address the crickets here as of late. In the past week I havne't had a chance to post here much due to some pretty big things going on in my real life. I am hoping to post here as often as I can, but the summer is a busy time for everyone and I am sure you understand. Now, that being said I want to talk to you about the site I mentioned. The sites writers Markco has a cute little slogan that he uses. He used it in World Of Warcraft when he played as well trying to fit it into his new endeavor with Diablo 3. The slogan he uses is "Buy Low, Sell Normal."
Does that saying sound a bit silly? Don't worry, your instinct isn't wrong, it is silly. Actually it's just plain old stupid and really nothing more than a sales tactic (Par for the course however for Markco). You are all intelligent folks so I'm sure you have heard the real saying. The one you should be following and living by. The one that goes "Buy Low, Sell High." The one that has been tried and true; proven by millions of examples of economic success by those who have used it. Yeah--I'm talking that one. Buy low, sell high is a very simplistic concept to grasp. You buy a commodity, or anything really, when the price of it is low. You sit on it for a while. When the price rises you sell and walk away with a profit. Rinse and repeat until you are a millionaire will offshore bank account in Switzerland.
Now I will admit I bag on Markco a lot on this site. I do it because I fundamentally disagree with the vast majority of the things he does. I won't get into that today and not to mention I've got more than one post here explaining that. Today's post is because his mantra of Buy low, sell normal is just bad practice if you actually follow it. In the context of Diablo 3 it makes no sense. Diablo 3's markets are fluctuating second by second which means there is no such thing as "Normal." So right there his policy is flawed. His policy is identical in every way to Buy low, sell high except in name. He is telling people to purchase an item. Wait for the price to rise and then sell it off. Pardon my language, but how the fuck is that not "Buy low, sell high?"
Ok, Ok, Ok--you're right Markco has a little bit to add to an already existing, time-tested, tried and true slogan for making money. What he is saying is you should sell, get this, sooner. You need to sell your items before they go higher in value so you sell them faster. Makes sense right!?--Oh, you don't get it either? Don't worry, because you aren't alone at all. Since beginning this site I actually have had both e-mails and DM tweets from people asking me to elaborate on what the hell he is talking about. What I have told all of them and I am now telling you is that it means nothing. It means nothing except Buy low, sell high. It means the exact same thing it is just being used as a sales tactic to have you get out your credit card. I tell them that using this strategy with yield you less profits because he is under this belief that we as individual players are able to function exactly like WalMart. Doing what WalMart in real life in Diablo 3 is not physically possible. You cannot control an entire market and even Markco admits this in his sales pitch for his guide. Telling you to take less profits more times on a game that limits the amount of things you can sell is just stupid and I question the intelligence of anyone who would suggest it.
I'm not a fool, I understand the concept of selling things at a lower price and faster. That too is an economic strategy that has worked well. Just about all big name stores do it, but I have to emphasis that none of you are a big name store in Diablo 3. You may control one specific market for one specific block of time, but you will never be at a place economically in Diablo 3 where you can regularly undercut people to the point where taking less profits is more beneficial.
No matter what way you spin it and no matter what small little twist Markco thinks he is putting on his saying it is still, in every single way you look at it, the same strategy that has been used for decades. So what is the reason behind Buy low, sell normal you ask? To me I think it's easy. Everyone wanting to gain attention needs something unique. They need something that no one else has. They need that one thing to draw people in, get them reading and in Markco's case hopefully purchasing his guide. So in comes this Frankenstein saying of his to fill that role. It is little more than a tagline to garner attention from people who are looking for answers.
Continue reading about this money losing strategy at ColdsGoldFactory.
Does that saying sound a bit silly? Don't worry, your instinct isn't wrong, it is silly. Actually it's just plain old stupid and really nothing more than a sales tactic (Par for the course however for Markco). You are all intelligent folks so I'm sure you have heard the real saying. The one you should be following and living by. The one that goes "Buy Low, Sell High." The one that has been tried and true; proven by millions of examples of economic success by those who have used it. Yeah--I'm talking that one. Buy low, sell high is a very simplistic concept to grasp. You buy a commodity, or anything really, when the price of it is low. You sit on it for a while. When the price rises you sell and walk away with a profit. Rinse and repeat until you are a millionaire will offshore bank account in Switzerland.
Now I will admit I bag on Markco a lot on this site. I do it because I fundamentally disagree with the vast majority of the things he does. I won't get into that today and not to mention I've got more than one post here explaining that. Today's post is because his mantra of Buy low, sell normal is just bad practice if you actually follow it. In the context of Diablo 3 it makes no sense. Diablo 3's markets are fluctuating second by second which means there is no such thing as "Normal." So right there his policy is flawed. His policy is identical in every way to Buy low, sell high except in name. He is telling people to purchase an item. Wait for the price to rise and then sell it off. Pardon my language, but how the fuck is that not "Buy low, sell high?"
I'm not a fool, I understand the concept of selling things at a lower price and faster. That too is an economic strategy that has worked well. Just about all big name stores do it, but I have to emphasis that none of you are a big name store in Diablo 3. You may control one specific market for one specific block of time, but you will never be at a place economically in Diablo 3 where you can regularly undercut people to the point where taking less profits is more beneficial.
No matter what way you spin it and no matter what small little twist Markco thinks he is putting on his saying it is still, in every single way you look at it, the same strategy that has been used for decades. So what is the reason behind Buy low, sell normal you ask? To me I think it's easy. Everyone wanting to gain attention needs something unique. They need something that no one else has. They need that one thing to draw people in, get them reading and in Markco's case hopefully purchasing his guide. So in comes this Frankenstein saying of his to fill that role. It is little more than a tagline to garner attention from people who are looking for answers.
Continue reading about this money losing strategy at ColdsGoldFactory.
And with a limit of 10 auctions at a time you want to maximize your earnings per slot.
ReplyDeleteDon't get hung up on his slogan, what he is saying does make a lot of sense: that is to put some value on churning your auction slots. No point pricing high if there is a risk it will take 5x longer (if at all) to sell. There's clearly a balance to be had to maximise earnings and one way to achieve that is to price well below the market (i.e. relatively low, or as in this case; not high). The trade-off in lost profits, from price discrimination, is more than recovered through volume sales.
ReplyDeleteI completely understand what you are saying; however, the reason that is it silly is this. There is this belief, and I don't know where it came from, that if you price your items at the market price they will take 5x longer to sell and that just is not true. They do sell slower I admit that, but it is not slower to the point where it is more beneficial to take 15-20% less profit on them.
DeleteThe second thing about that saying is that it is a lie. Markco will argue tooth and nail on this, but his idea is just buy low, sell high reworded. I do not care where you put your pricing point after you purchase any item. If you bought something for 50K and resold it for 100,000K you are still utilizing buy low, sell high. Catch my drift? If he would have written an article explaining how you an sell items for less for more often I would have read it and moved on, but when he makes claims like hes invented a slogan like buy low, sell normal I have got to speak up. Especially if his article takes the chance to try and sell his guide on the idea.
If you look back I have left Markco alone for quite a while at this point. Yet I am still receiving almost daily comments from him doing anything from bitching to accusing me of stealing content. I wrote this because what he is writing is a lie based on an economic strategy that has been tried and true since people were trading rocks in caves. Buy low, sell normal as a theory is just a way to get people to his site. As a practice it is the exact same thing as buy low, sell high.
I appreciate that, although I think your issue is that he's used the word 'normal' instead of 'high'. Literally, you are correct it makes sense (in most cases) to sell for a price higher than what you paid for a particular item. In that sense it is higher - but this goes back to your first point: it is not easy to establish what a market price is. Sure, you can look at the other items on the market at that time but that provides only an indicative value - they may for instance be over-priced and the fact that they are still on the market means, by definition, they are not at a transacting market price.
ReplyDeleteThis is why setting a significant discount to what you perceive to be available in the market may be a more reliable approach to avoid clogging up your auction slots.
By the way I have no idea who Markco is - I'm only just interested in the economics of the AH.
Agreed. What I have found is that in Diablo 3 there really is no such thing as "Normal" The prices are changing minute to minute.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNot at all. I fundamentally disagree with your entire premise for buy low, sell normal.
DeleteAs a blogger why would I not strive to achieve maximum exposure for my work? I was writing a post about your strategy the day I read it. As one point and time when I was new to making gold in World of Warcraft I too thought it was a genius strategy. Then as I got better at it I realized it was just the age old practice reworded. I felt that I was very polite about disagreeing with you in this post. I explained my position and entertained a guess as to why you swear by it.
I'm not doing this war stuff anymore. If you would like to comment again and explain your position in a constructive fashion I will be happy to let it go up. If you can't do that then don't bother commenting again.
Marcko is a smart-ass who sells smoke to clueless players. Keep talking about him and you will drive more people to his site. Stop talking about him and give +200% quality to your blog.
ReplyDeleteI only write about him when I am either provoked or if I disagree with something that he is spreading around. Banjo I also allow for guest posts if you are ever interested in submitting your own content to help out people.
DeleteThank you for the comment though.