Monday, July 7, 2014

Are We Inflating Transmog Prices?

So thanks to TheExile, a Wind Trader at the Consortium forums, I've recently gotten the bug to revisit my transmog groups, and I'm currently in the process of creating an additional list of items that I'm going to (at least try) and do something pretty "revolutionary" with, and have people 'beta test' it out before I release it as my default list. The method I'm using to do this is not for the feint of heart, and will take me at least a week (mostly because of work time constraints), but I'm really excited on revamping and adding many items to my transmog lists, and having all your feedback on it, but that's for another day (PS you can follow TheExile on Twitter here).

Inflating Transmog Prices
While going through this process of revamping my transmog lists, I had a bit of an interesting thought. That is, with many of us using region wide pricing, and marking prices up above 100%, are we artificially inflating prices for super rare transmog sets such as Jade/Exalted etc.?

We see this effect very often if we are the only sellers of a particular item on our realm and we use a % of realm price to sell it. A sort of "compounding interest" problem. Unchecked, the price for this item will grow exponentially until it hits gold cap and errors out. The question is, is the same sort of process happening for these rare xmog items, and the answer may (or may not, gasp!) surprise you.

The Samples
So of course I went to data to see if my hypothesis checks out or not, here's the selection of what I looked at to try to determine if we are having an adverse effect on the prices (which actually benefits us, but may inflate prices too high):

Jade Breastplate
Exalted Harness
Bucaneer's Vest
Elemental Mage Staff
Lofty Breastplate
Bloodscale Breastplate

What I gather from this data is that my hypothesis is clearly incorrect. Prices have gone up and down over time, but have never gone up a considerable amount.

On the other hand, fairly regularly across the board, the quantity available has risen over time. This is most likely due to the pricing, that takes levelers out of the purchasing market (and rightfully so), but also leads to unbought items on certain realms that will be looted again before they sell.

I cannot say that it's been an issue on most realms, but I'd imagine that over time supply will outpace demand and prices hopefully will compensate so that we get more sales, and don't get inundated with inordinate amount of xmog gear, and can still sell at a fair market determined price that's profitable for us. HORRAY FOR FREE MARKETS!

Cheers,
Phat Lewts

@PhatLewtsGold
  PhatLewtsGold

5 comments:

  1. Most of those look like they are trending up in prices but it may also have to do with an increase in demand as transmog becomes more popular. One way to test it is to take your own sales data and create a ratio of listings/sales for some sample items. If it is inflation due to sellers, items with higher ratios would tend to see a larger percentage increase in region market price. If inflation is due increased buyer demand then lower ratio items would see larger percentage increases.

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  2. Quantity is up because more people can run the content at higher gear levels and there is less demand for transmog gear. People can obtain gear with a few friends rather than pay extortionate prices for items listed on the AH. Transmog is a gimmick that has run its course. It was big for a while after it was introduced but people have what they need now.

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  3. Boosted 90s and the coming Merge of Alliance and Horde AH mean mog will see a resurgence for WoD, and the weeks leading up to it as people return.

    That aside, it hasn't really died, it just slowed down. I still make @20k a week at it doing nothing but a flip scan and post every morning and evening. I stopped really farming most of it myself a while back, other than weekly AQs on a toon or 2.

    I'm holding a guild bank worth of reserve on both factions at the moment. I was considering a "sale" where in I mark down my prices for a 48 hr period and announce it in trade now and again (I've had a lot of success in clearing out some inventory doing this in the past, marking down anything I had more than 3 of), but with that announcement I nixed that thought. I only ever did it to save space, and hated doing it, lol.

    With the return of players coming with the next xpac+ the merge, I'm looking forward to higher sales on certain items, however, and certainly a lot more of them. Alliance side, I can't keep enough Ornate set and it's recolors up, but on Horde side I can't get rid of them (slutty draenei, I'm sure). Conversely, on Horde side, something like the Grunt set and it's recolors sell fast, and Alliance doesn't touch them (slutty belfs, I think). [OK, the slutty draenei and belf may be me. Maybe.] Jade set Horde side, the Chest is only 9k, whereas Alliance it is 14k. Etc yadda blah whatnot and the rest.

    I'm not certain we NEED to inflate the prices. I think the influx of demand MIGHT do it for us before we see any results from an experiment, making the results inaccurate.

    But me, I know nothing. I only dabble in the AH, don't really spend much time on it outside JC and mog.

    Which are what brought me to your blog, Phat Lewts, and I thank you, so very very much. :-D

    -Casual Gold digger

    And I don't know how I deleted that but ok. Glad I typed it in word...

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  4. With merged AH it will drive transmog prices down with access from all the auction houses. Saves the cost of tranferring items between factions. I spose the next thing Blizzard will do is allow Horde and Alliance to que up together for quests, dungeons and raids!

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