Auctioneer
Scanning
Once you have Auctioneer installed and running the first thing you will want to do is to scan the auction house. Scanning the auction house is how Auctioneer builds up a database of prices - and it is this database that Auctioneer uses to give you appraisals of an item's value. This database is probably the most useful tool you will have for making gold and building it up should be your number one priority at first. To build it up I recommended choosing one of the below scanning methods and scanning the auction house 1-2 times a day for two weeks.
There are two ways of scanning the Auction House - the full scan and the quick scan. The quick scan is quicker (duh) but it doesn't collect the names of sellers on the Auction House. In addition you can only run a quick scan every 15 minutes and it can be a little buggy. With the current version of Auctioneer you might get kicked / timed out when trying to run a quick scan. There is no fix (yet) but you can lessen the chance of this happening by only doing quick scans in low population areas and during quiet times on your server (AKA don't run a quick scan during peak time in Orgrimmar or Stormwind). A full scan takes longer but pulls all of the information from the Auction House (including seller names).
Once you have a database with at least two weeks of information you can start to use the other functions of Auctioneer.
Understanding the Different Types of Searches
Probably the main thing to use Auctioneer for once you have your database built up is searches. Auctioneer searches let you set certain criteria and then searches for items that meet your specifications. This allows you to easily spot items that you can buy to relist, vendor, disenchant, etc. for a profit. The different searches are:
Arbitrage: Searches for items that you can sell on the Neutral Auction House, Cross Faction, or Cross Server for a profit.
Converter: Searches for items that can be converted into other items for a profit (greater and lesser essences, ore and bars, etc.)
Disenchant: Searches for items that you can disenchant for a profit.
Enchant Mats: Searches for items which disenchant into certain enchanting mats (this is rarely used but can be used for leveling)
General: Search for items by set criteria such as name, type, quality, etc.
Milling: Searches for herbs that scribes can mill for a profit.
Prospect: Searches for ore that jewelcrafters can prospect for a profit.
Resale: Searches for items that you can relist on the auction house for a profit.
Snatch: Searches for specific items at specific prices.
Vendor: Searches for items you can sell to a vendor for a profit.
Setting Up the Criteria for Your Search
Each type of search found under the "Searches" header on the left of your Auctioneer window (example: Arbittrage, Converter, etc.) will have it's own criteria. Below I will list all of the criteria that you can set and what they do.
- Minimum Profit: This allows you to set an amount of profit you want Auctioneer to search for on each item. For example: if you set it to 5 gold and run a search any item Auctioneer thinks you can make 5g in profit from will show up while items that should make you 4g 99s 99c and below will not show up in your results.
- Minimum Discount: This allows you to set a minimum discount you want Auctioneer to search for on each item. Example: If you want to only search for items that are at 80% of their normal price then set this number to 20%.
- Check Seen Count: To enable this you need to check the box and then select the number of times you want Auctioneer to have seen the item before it lists it in a search. This can be useful because if Auctioneer has only seen an item a few times it might have an incorrect base price for the item. This is why you will sometimes see people list things like Linen Bags for 9000 gold. They will list it at 9,000 gold for a little while and then change and list it for 4,500 gold. They are hoping that someone does a search using new Auctioneer data as the 4,500 gold Linen Bag would appear to be being sold at a 50% discount. I recommend you set this criteria to a low number like 3-5 so that you can make sure you get a decent price on some of the rarer items. At the same time you must use common sense when running scans as that is the only way to avoid being taken in by false Auctioneer data.
- Search Against: This allows you to choose what set of data (cross faction or cross server) to search against when doing an Arbitrage scan.
- Allow Bids and Allow Buyout: Check these if you want Auctioneer to list items that have a bid and/or buyout that meet your other criteria. Checking Allow bids before the servers go down for maintenance can be a good way to find some deals. (NOTE: If you select both your search window will list both items that you should bid on and items that would be good to buyout. Make that you check which you should do. It is possible to get confused and click buyout when the item has a high buyout price but low bid price - AKA don't buyout when you should be bidding).
- Enable Individual Maximum Price: Checking this box and entering a maximum price will tell Auctioneer not to list items that are individually above your set price. This can be useful if you are on a budget and don't want Auctioneer to list high cost items that you can't purchase.
- Price Valuation Method: Use Market Price - It is Auctioneer's best guess of what the price should be based on a variety of factors. If you uber want to geek out you can go here to see how all the different prices are calculated.
- Fees Adjustment: Check Subtract Auction House Fees and Subtract Deposit to subtract these things before Auctioneer figures out profit for any item. You can the select the length and number of auctions you want Auctioneer to select for. Example: If you click both and select 12 hours and 4x listings Auctioneer will subtract the Auction House fees and deposit for four 12 hour listings before it figures out the potential profit of any item.
- Regeant Price Modification: This sets the price percentage for a particular enchanting material when doing an EnchantMats scan. Because this search is used for levelling enchanting and not making a profit you can select values over 100%. Example: You need greater eternal essences to level your enchanting and there are none for sale on the Auction House. You can set the value here to 130% and Auctioneer will look for items that have a chance to D/E into greater eternal essences at a cost lower than 130% of the cost of the number of essences the item might produce.
Setting Up Criteria for Your Snatch Search
Because setting up a snatch search is such a valuable tool but a bit different from the other searches I wanted to tackle it in its own section. There are two ways to add items to your Snatch List. Option 1 is to drag an item from your bag to the box provided and to then set the highest price that you would like to buy the item at (NOTE: The price you set is per item - not per stack). Finally click "Add Item" to add it to your list.
Option 2 is used when you don't have the item in your bags and so can't drag and drop it. First you need to go to Wowhead and search for the item you want to add. Click on the red "link" button on the top right of the page and copy the link that pops up.
Once that is done simply copy the information into your chat window and click on the item link that will appear. The item will appear in your snatch list - then set the maximum price you will buy at and add the item just like in option 1.
Filters
While you can set up criteria for each individual search there are also a set of filters available where you can limit what you are searching for across all search functions. The filter choices will be on the left of your AH window and you can choose to filter your results based on auction history, item level, item price, item quality, and time left.
- Auction History will filter your results based on the success rate of selling any particular item.
- Item Level will filter based on the level of the items.
- Item Price will filter based on the price of the items.
- Item Quality filters based on the quality of the items. This can be useful for keeping gray items out of your searches.
- Time Left filters based on the time left for auctions when you scan. This can be useful if you want to limit your bids to auctions with only a bit of time left.
To filter based on the item's auction history first choose this filter in the left hand menu. Then click the box at the top of your AH window to enable this filter. On the right hand side of you AH window you can check what kind of searches you want this filter to apply to. Lastly you can use the sliders to set the minimum number of data points Auctioneer needs on any item to include it and the minimum success rate of sales Auctioneer needs to include an item in your list.
To filter based on item level first choose this filter and enable it by checking the box at the top of your AH window. Then choose which searches you want this filter to apply to. Lastly go through each type of item and choose the minimum level of item you want to appear in your searches.
To filter based on price you first need to run a resale search. Once you have your list of items up you will see two buttons "Ignore Price" and "Ignore". Ignore Price will ignore that item at the listed price in the future while Ignore will ignore the item at all prices in the future. You can then click on the "Item Price" filter to enable the filter, choose the searches you want the filter to apply to, and adjust the items you are filtering based on price.
To filter based on Item Quality simply click on the filter and enable it by checking the box at the top of you AH window. Then choose which searches you want the filter to apply to. Lastly choose which item qualities you want to ignore by item type.
Lastly to filter based on time left select the filter on the left side of the AH window and then enable it by checking the box at the top of the window (you should probably also only filter for bids as well). You can then choose to filter out auctions with more than 30 min, 2 hours, or 12 hours time remaining.
Running Searches
In order to run a search you simply set up your criteria and filters. Then choose the search you want to do in the left hand column and click the search button at the bottom of the column. This will search your LAST SCAN of the auction house data for items that meet the standards you have set and produce a list for you. Because the search is run on the information contained in your last scan it is important to do searches just after you scan. If you scan the Auction House and then do a search 3 hours later almost all of the information will be outdated.
You can, however, set it up so that anytime you scan or browse the Auction House
Auctioneer will automatically scan it. In order to do this click on "realtime" under the "Options" tab in menu on the left hand side of the window. This takes you to a set of options where you set up your real time search.
Search While Browsing: Click this box to tell Auctioneer to search the Auction House while you browse (duh.)
Enable Automatic Last Page Refreshing: Checking this box will mean that Auctioneer will refresh the last page after you stop scanning. You can also click a box below to have it refresh the first page as well. Checking these boxes will help in that while you are reading through your search list some new auctions will be posted. With these boxes checked some of these new auctions will be searched as well and added to your list. You can also set the reload interval (the period between each refresh) and tell Auctioneer how long to pause from refreshing after you do a Manual Search.
Alert Settings: This is where you set up how you want Auctioneer to alert you when it finds an item during a real time search.
Power User Setting: One Click Buying: Normally when you do a realtime search a box full of search results will appear. With this box checked instead of a list of search results every item will appear individually with a yes/no choice to purchase it (I don't recommend checking this box unless you are very comfortable with Auctioneer and know what you are doing).
Searches To Use: Just click the box next to the types of searches you want Auctioneer to use while you scan/browse the Auction House.
Post
While I usually post auctions in TradeSkillMaster automatically there are times when I use Auctioneer to post them. Generally I use Auctioneer to post items which are quickly increasing or decreasing in price or rare items whose price I am not to sure of.
In order to post an Auction you first need to click on the "Post" tab at the bottom of your Auction House window. Then drag the item you would like to sell from your bag to the box in the top left of the window. At this point information about all the other listings for the particular item will appear in your window. This information comes from your last auction house scan. If you haven't scanned the auction house for a while it is quite possible that the information is out of date. In order to make sure that the information is as up to date as possible simply click the "Refresh" button in the bottom of you auction window.
Once you have all of the updated information on the other auctions already listed you can set the settings for your auction. In the left hand side of the Auction window you can choose to use:
- Match my current - This will use the current market price as determined by Auctioneer for the item.
- Undercut Competitors - This will undercut ALL competitors who currently have auctions up. You can change the amount you undercut by clicking the "Configure" buttom in the top right of the window.
- Remember Fixed Price - This enables you to manually enter the price you want the item to be sold at and have Auctioneer remember the price for the next time you list the item.
You can also choose if you want the auction to last 12, 24 or 48 hours. Lastly you set the number of stacks you want to sell along with how many items you want to sell in each stack.
Now simply click "Create Auction" to list your auction!
BeanCounter
Click on the BeanCounter tab at the bottom of your auction window to see at what price you have bought, listed, and sold any item in the past. This is simply a function that provides data that you can check to see if an item is profitable for you or not. Right now there are better ways to do this (MYSALES, ETC) so I don't use it. I have, however, used it in the past in conjugtion with other addons that exported the data into a spreadsheet (which made it much more valuable) currently there are no working addons of this nature that I know of but it is something to keep an eye out for.
The Power Word: Gold Guide Free is Copyright © 2011 Jim Younkin. Guide contributors include Bangkok Bill and fluxdada.
