Tuesday, July 8, 2014

For the Record: June 2014 Glyph Sales



Back down to a sensible total as I carried out an experiment aimed at documenting the decaying nature of glyph sales over time.

Stats:
  • Total Glyph Sales: 69389g
  • Total Glyphs Sold: 984
  • Average Price: 70g52s
After having a extremely profitable month in May, I decided to address the concern of many in and around the glyph market. The idea that you have to camp the auction house to make coin from glyphs.

Now, I'm sorry to interrupt the flow of the post, but I have to get in my disclaimer for the trolls. My analysis is of my data from my server. Why? Because that's the only sales data I have access to. Anyone that says otherwise is guessing. I felt so sorry for The Undermine Journal, when despite well written and articulate disclaimers, they had to hide away their best guesses at sales data behind a logged in user's options... because apparently people can't read, let alone comprehend. I have my data, on my server and I have confidence that it is accurate. If you have issue with my numbers, could I suggest that I'm possibly the last blogger you want to take that up with? Also, if you want to use 'that could never happen on my server' as your excuse for mediocre gold making, be my guest, but leave me out of it. I'm guessing you also tell all your friends that, 'Hearthstone is about nothing but luck, and is totally pay to win, dude'. To each their own. (Please note, it is entirely possible that my results may absolutely not be replicable on your server (but it takes more than anecdotes and whining to prove it))

The graph above marks the first month of a two month project to observe completely different posting habits. Instead of posting once (maybe twice) per day, I would post a maximum of once every 48 hours. The idea is to allow the glyphs posted to have a full 48 hours to be sold without undercutting myself or my competition. That way I can see the number of glyphs sold drop off over the maximum auction duration. In order to see just how many glyphs I could sell in any 48 hour period, I changed the number posted from 2 to 8 of each glyph. The upside of posting more glyphs is that if a couple are bought in the first hour, I'm not forfeiting the chance to sell another at the 7th hour, and then again at the 38th hour depending on demand and the servers posting habits. The downside is each time you post it's potentially 1000+/- glyphs to post... and then collect from the mail 48 hours later. The sacrifices we make for data.

The 48 hour restriction is also problematic in that I can't post at the same time of day every two days. If I miss the opportunity to post again over my morning coffee, I might not post again until the afternoon, or even the next day. There's a time gap, anywhere from minutes to a day where my glyphs aren't on the auction house. The lost sales aren't a big deal, but waiting until glyphs expired before I could post more was a little painful.

Next up will be my graph that shows the distribution of glyphs sales over a 48 hour window. I was pleasantly pleased with the results, but then, maybe my server is just a little special. ;)