How to: Make Money by an Ancient Mind Control Technique!

[ElcyionLacar]

Skip to the end if you feel this is TLDR;

A tip for would be millionaires out there;
You see a guy trying to control the market, force a specific item to remain a single high price. What do you do? farm that item an post it a silver below his/her price.
This item will be purchased everytime as the seller wants to maintain their monopoly.
Instant sale for maximum profit.

The problem with a monopoly is that you ignore the rules of supply and demand.

You set a price and by purchasing everything under that amount your creating a false demand for that item (atleast under that amount). This in turn will provoke other sellers to fill that demand (thus supply). Now the average ones, which your guide attempts to take advantage of, will just sell at the market price and you will still manage to profit off their items if the items sells at your adjusted price. But the smart ones, those who actually spend time every day doing this, will see what you are up to. They will gather all their stock and post it slightly under your own amount with the intent that *you* purchase the items to fuel your monopoly. The items you buy from them will be filling your with inventory with items you cannot profit from and they will have made top dollar from the transaction.

In a real world situation gaining a reputation with customers is important, consumers have been proven susceptible to advertising. In WoW however you have no way for your name to actually be remembered amongst the population. Advertising is one thing, but customers will just hear the advert an ignore the name. how many people actually pay attention to the seller in an Auction? And once the item has been purchased there remains no way to tell the difference between the item purchased from yourself or one from a different seller. All in all, it is near impossible to create consumer confidence in your work.

The scenario you have posted makes little fesible sense. In the real world a monopoly can control a market; by creating sole purchasing deals with all/most producers of the product, by physically forcing non-compliant groups out of the market, by having an incredibly large store of cash to deal with rogue sale groups. But this is illegal in the real world.
In world of warcraft, your dealing with a world where *anyone* can pick up the trade an be fully skilled in a day, and they will then also begin gathering the unlimited resources. Supply in wow is infinite, but demand (due to there not being infinite players) is not. What you find in a monopoly is that those skilled in the AH will aim to fill your demand until you are out of money and filled with inventory you can only make a loss from. The market itself will be only slightly put out as your reign of the AH will have lasted only a day or two. You will then be in need of more money, and hopefully have learnt your lesson.

Bottom Line:
Monopolies don't work, but please try. I'd love to have your money

[dragoonman]

Skip to the end if you feel this is TLDR;

A tip for would be millionaires out there;
You see a guy trying to control the market, force a specific item to remain a single high price. What do you do? farm that item an post it a silver below his/her price.
This item will be purchased everytime as the seller wants to maintain their monopoly.
Instant sale for maximum profit.

The problem with a monopoly is that you ignore the rules of supply and demand.

You set a price and by purchasing everything under that amount your creating a false demand for that item (atleast under that amount). This in turn will provoke other sellers to fill that demand (thus supply). Now the average ones, which your guide attempts to take advantage of, will just sell at the market price and you will still manage to profit off their items if the items sells at your adjusted price. But the smart ones, those who actually spend time every day doing this, will see what you are up to. They will gather all their stock and post it slightly under your own amount with the intent that *you* purchase the items to fuel your monopoly. The items you buy from them will be filling your with inventory with items you cannot profit from and they will have made top dollar from the transaction.

In a real world situation gaining a reputation with customers is important, consumers have been proven susceptible to advertising. In WoW however you have no way for your name to actually be remembered amongst the population. Advertising is one thing, but customers will just hear the advert an ignore the name. how many people actually pay attention to the seller in an Auction? And once the item has been purchased there remains no way to tell the difference between the item purchased from yourself or one from a different seller. All in all, it is near impossible to create consumer confidence in your work.

The scenario you have posted makes little fesible sense. In the real world a monopoly can control a market; by creating sole purchasing deals with all/most producers of the product, by physically forcing non-compliant groups out of the market, by having an incredibly large store of cash to deal with rogue sale groups. But this is illegal in the real world.
In world of warcraft, your dealing with a world where *anyone* can pick up the trade an be fully skilled in a day, and they will then also begin gathering the unlimited resources. Supply in wow is infinite, but demand (due to there not being infinite players) is not. What you find in a monopoly is that those skilled in the AH will aim to fill your demand until you are out of money and filled with inventory you can only make a loss from. The market itself will be only slightly put out as your reign of the AH will have lasted only a day or two. You will then be in need of more money, and hopefully have learnt your lesson.

Bottom Line:
Monopolies don't work, but please try. I'd love to have your money

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Man, your that .1% that I love to hear from! The people who arent retarded :P. Yes, you have to realize with UNLIMITED supply, the demand flops around. When you try to control the supply and you get the small percent that puts their own prices... oooooh i don't know 1 copper below yours you have 1 option, and that is abandon that market. You can NEVER have a complete monopoly on WoW, this is absolutly true. The thing you MUST do to continue to make money (no, your monopoly doesnt always end in 1 day, could take a week) is abandon the part of the market you did control. Yes, you will temporarly lose money because your products are now worthless since the supply just increased tenfold, so you have to hang back and wait. Thats one thing you left out, as the demand does flop around, your monopoly will fail after some time, but in just a small time afterwards the supply has dropped and you can start over again.

You also stated that a monopoly in the real world is illegal, in America that is, and this is for the most part true. But since we are a federal country now (UCC code law) we almost completly exist through foreign countries and that is why many of the companies in America have established themselves into foriegn countries. Its cute to say that the world is full of moral and well balanced people who are law abiding and want to make the world a better place. I myself wish this were true but unfortunatly it is not . Wal-Mart, was a company started in America as a small time store, and of course it has "grown" into a corporation who is now the 9th largest ECONOMY on the planet. When a country is a huge economy it isnt a monopoly because each nation has individual people in it, but when a corporation becomes an economy this is not the case. Wal-Mart branched out into foriegn companies to escape the law of america and came under maritime admiralty law which places it out of our constitutions juristiction. Tell me Wal-Mart is not a monopoly when they buy up foriegn companies and gain near sole control of other country's economies. Wal-Mart was just an example, serveral other exist and form joint monopolies in other companies under different laws, go figure.

But I digress, this is a WoW forum and not one about economic principles and loopholes to escape through. Point being that this is a game and since people can grab supply everywhere it makes control of the games economy impossible, thank you for helping me regrasp this as I wrote this late at night and was a little crazy so to speak. I shall explain with greater detail how WoW's economy works that all can see after the post is edited. Thank you.

[wig44]

I love it when people do this. A tip for people trying to control the market; unload a ****load of what the person is trying to cotrol e.g epic gems at what is 120% of the usual AH price. The person will be selling the epic gems at his own price which is usually 140% or so the usual AH price. He will see the 20% profit, buy all your gems which makes a nice sale for you if you have any spares or stockpiled loads of them by buying them whenever you saw them up cheap.

This also works to combat the 'controlling the market' technique. People buying the gems to sell with their 20 EoH will undercut you if you try this also, so be prepared to fork out a lot of gold. Way more than the previously stated 10k. Especially for the epic gem market.

Edit: noticed that someone posted this further up, still you can see I'm not alone here

[dragoonman]

That is another way to make money, when someone is controlling that part of the market, you put your gems up 1s less then what they have up. That = profit.