Casual Crafting - For Profit

What follows is a series of guides to making a ‘reasonable’ amount of gold without using gathering professions (Mining/Herbalist/Skinning). The quickest way to make gold while levelling are still the gathering professions. It isn’t a guide to making thousands of gold a day, however when you do reach the end level content you should have a character with level 425-450 skills in a couple of crafting professions without having a huge hole in your gold. It is primarily aimed at the more time restricted player for whom the option of spending a couple of hours a day gathering isn’t really an option.
With recent changes to WoW, taking gathering professions to make gold as you level is no longer as time effective as it used to be. Using gathering professions if you are levelling through questing makes a lot of sense because it is something you can do without putting in too much extra time. However if you choose to level mainly through instances/battlegrounds you won’t be able to level those skills very quickly let alone gather enough ore/herbs to make an acceptable amount of gold.
For those that are looking to make thousands of gold a day they should check out these sites, but be warned they are largely aimed at L80 characters with level 450 professions;
http://justmytwocopper.blogspot.com/
http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/

Basic Principles
I have made around 900g a character on my level 35 characters without doing much farming of materials. At the moment I am doing an experiment on a high population realm using just Inscription, at level 12 I am making around 30-60g a day despite tough competition and spending around 30-45 minutes a day online overjust a couple of sessions. In order to do this you need to understand some basic principles behind the Auction House(AH).

Knowing the value of an item – I use Auctioneer, it is mainly useful in giving an idea of what the average selling price of an item should be. This is important when it comes to deciding what to craft and what to avoid. Simply put the cost of the materials to make the item should be less than the average selling price of the crafted item.
For Example, a leatherworker can make 3 Ruined Leather Scraps into Light Leather, if the average price on the AH of the scraps is 3 silver and the average selling price of Light Leather is 12 silver then you can make an extra 3 silver (less 5% charged by the AH) on each Ruined Leather Scrap. Not only this but if you buy the scraps on the AH for less than the average price you make a larger profit. While these are small amounts of money the principle should be applied to anything you craft.

Know what you can sell – It is no good making lots of items with a good profit margin if no one wants to buy them, I learned this the hard way. Make a few of an item and get a feel for how many you can sell over a week or so. I know I can sell 2-4 Strange Dust during each week day, and probably twice as many at the weekend.

Buy Low Sell High – Commonly known as flipping. Simply put buy any items that you know there is a demand for when they are sufficiently below the market price that you can make an acceptable profit. I buy all my materials below the market value; all you need is a little patience. Here is a good example on a high population realm I wanted to make golden pigments which needs particular herbs to make. For a whole week I noticed the price of these herbs was very high (2g each) however eventually I was able to buy several stacks for just 50s each.
If materials are overpriced sell materials – Don’t turn all your materials into crafted items straight away, if you sell 2-4 items you don’t need a lot sitting in your bank crafted. I have over a thousand herbs of various types (some of which I have no use for) in my bank. However if there is a rise in their value I can sell them for a nice profit.

Don’t flood the market – It’s better to sell 2-4 of 5 items than to list 20 of one item, you will sell more items and have less gold tied up in stock this way.

Invest in your business - While you can start from almost nothing and make money, it is better to have some gold to start with, this will allow you to buy mats when they are cheap as well flipping items that are underpriced. 200-250g is good but you can start with less. Bottom line is the more gold you start with the quicker your progress will be. To this end try levelling some gathering professions up to level 10-15 and you will soon have enough gold to start with. You can then drop the gathering professions and switch to crafting. If you are levelling mainly through the LFG tool (which my bank alts are doing), you will have to get to L15 first anyway.

Personally I have a couple of questing characters with gathering skills (for the bonuses they give) and bank alts that I level crafting professions on.

Next time I’ll look at Tailoring (up to level 150) including some items that have sold well for me.