Auctioneer is the backbone of most every merchant’s tool arsenal. In short, it is a convenient ingame addon that build an information database of the auctions from a player’s server. In just a few minutes, Auctioneer can make a complete list of items available and prices at which those items are being sold. As a player performs more scans, this information gradually becomes more and more accurate.
If a player regularly scans their Auction House at least once per day, Auctioneer will virtually be able to predict any given item’s accurate market price.
Let’s rephrase that–if you can scan the Auction House once per day, Auctioneer will virtually make your gold for you.
So how do you actually use Auctioneer to make gold?
There are a lot of different ways to use Auctioneer–it’s amazing what this tool can do. Back in olden days, players had to put a lot more thought into their auctions and have a pretty good eyeball for prices. By using Auctioneer, most experience merchants can post items up quickly and efficiently.
Because Auctioneer is built into your tooltips, you can get a pretty good estimate of any item’s worth by just rolling over it with your mouse. This can be done from anywhere–you can see the worth of items in trade chat, in your bags, or in your bank before ever even going to the Auction House.
If you’re out farming somewhere and a fancy new blue drops, you can readily check how much it’s worth. This is also useful when you run out of bagspace (although you shouldn’t) by letting you see which items are cheapest to delete.
Batch Posting Makes Your Life Easier
Because who has time to post a hundred auctions manually? I have done 1000 auctions per day easily!
If you have a regular selling routine, this feature will really save you time. Using Auctioneer, a player can easily post items in convenient sets instead of having to sell manually piece-by-piece. These sets are highly customizable, too. With a few simple clicks, you can sell a few hundred items at 7g/stack with 10 per stack.
You may not see the ingenuity right away, but merchants quickly discover that certain stack sizes are more preferable than others. This can make your auctions move much quicker in the long run.
Customize Your Searches
Some players go as far as to call using Auctioneer “cheating” because if its ability to perform customized searches (don’t worry, they’re just jeolous). Custom searches are the single most beneficial feature of Auctioneer, and you will quickly wonder how you ever did without them.
Using Auctioneer, I can easily search for bid/buyout items that meet a certain criteria. These can be items that can be resold to a vendor for a profit, items that are posted at a below-average price, and even items that can be disenchanted or prospected for profit.
These custom searches are the backbone of success, but they can be a bit difficult for the first time user to understand. In fact, I’ve seen a lot of players download the addon and immediately delete it.
If it was easy, everyone would be rich!
I wouldn’t exactly call learning Auctioneer hard. It’s one of those addons that you open up and it looks like a jumbled up mass of confusion and you just want to stare at it until it tells you its secrets.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work quite like that, but I promise that it’s not an exclusive club.
ANYONE can make gold with Auctioneer as long as they’re willing to put forth the time that it takes to learn a few simple terms and keep up their daily scans. As you grow into being a better merchant, you will naturally understand how to use this program better.
Eventually, you will develop your own tips and tricks, and make the program yours. Custom searches, custom niches, and a vigorous will to dominate the Auction House are all it takes to wrestle the secrets from its ominous GUI and become an Auctioneer pro.
Just kidding. I read a crapload of guides when I started, and most of them were almost as whimsical as the addon’s interface (it’s improved a lot since I first used it, kudos to the Auctioneer team).
For a great starting guide that will help you understand everything you need to know to start making gold with Auctioneer, check out this starter’s guide!
Good luck!
Pro tip: When using Auctioneer advanced, use the command:
/aadv getall
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Good tips. I use Auctioneer and love the versatility.
Another key feature is the Bean Counter tab. It lists the history of every item you have bought or listed for sale–even if it didn’t sell.
I store goods all the time–buy materials when cheap and put them away for later. It is easy to forget what I paid for an item. As an example, I bought a bunch of Rugged Leather when it was selling for 90s per unit. I sent it to a storage toon and it sat in his mailbox for a week.
When I finally wanted to list it for sale a few days later I was quickly able to check Bean Counter to see what I paid so I could list it at a margin that made sense–in this case, 1g 90s each, a profit of 1g per unit.
I love Auctioneer.
Ah! I knew I’d forget something important, the brilliance of Auctioneer is too much to be covered in a single post.
The Bean Counter is something that I think more experienced Auctioneers value as opposed to players who are just getting started with Auctioneer. I have things sitting on my warehouse toons that I don’t even know where it came from, much less what I paid for it ;]
Update: So I wasn’t using QuickAuctions3 to post, I was using Auctionator prior, I set it up and found it doesn’t work It scans and then queues the aucoitns. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong and found it wasn’t actually me according to comments on wow.curse.com for the addon it’s been broken as of 4.0.01 because Blizz felt it was facilitating botters/gold sellers. >_> Auctionator isn’t as quick but it works. Someone suggested Trade Skill Master as an alternative.