Who are my competitors’ secret alts?

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide


Most expert crafters have an alt that has nothing to do with their Auction House businesses.  This alt may be raiding or levelling but its other task is specifically to watch the Friends List and see when my competitors come online so that i can wait and then repost my glyphs when they leave.

However, i know my competitors are doing the same.  If i can find out the names of their secret alts then i truly know when my competitors are online or not.  And so i need strategies to flush them out.

One such strategy i employ is to try and make their secret alts buy crafting materials off the Auction House from me.  And then watch to see if they log on and off at the same time as my known competitor alts.

To do this i create an alt to post cheap herbs – and so this alt is new and hence can not be linked to me.  I don’t post too many stacks, say 5 stacks of 20 of whiptail at 20 gold a stack should do the trick.

When they are sold i look at the data on Auctioneer Beancounter to see who has bought them.  Over time it becomes apparent that certain names that i don’t see posting glyphs are appearing with regularity on the list.  I add these names to my Friends List and sooner or later i start to notice that when they log off my competitor posting alts log on.  I therefore determine that this alt is part of my competitor alts.

Periodically i disband my herb posting alt and start a new one.

Over the course of time i now know who most of my secret competitor alts are.

Of course, as a directly related observation, make sure your secret alt does not buy items on the Auction House that are used in your crafting businesses.  No point in falling for the same strategy!

All counter strategies lower profits for a while

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

It is important that one is reconciled to this fact.

If a competitor undertakes a course of action to increase their share of the market then, whether or not you undertake a counter strategy, you will be getting less profits from this market during this time.  If you undertake a counter strategy, which i strongly advise you do, then the profits coming to you will further fall during this time.

Therefore, when i am participating in a market i do so in the knowledge that at various points in time the profits will fall away and my time devoted to that market will rise to counter competitor actions.

I also operate in the knowledge that during calmer periods, time spent researching my competitors will pay off down the road.  They will be researching you.

As will time sent ensuring all end markets in a profession are researched and, if appropriate, entered.  For Inscription that means entering the off hand, certificate and scrolls markets for me.

As will time spent developing a new market.  For me, that is enchanting.

Time spent exploring all options will enhance the avenues for profits and narrow the avenues to make losses.

Start posting as soon as your competitors leave

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

Start posting as soon as your competitors leave. . . . .

 . . . . . . it demoralises them!
Quite often i will be questing with an alt that has nothing to do with my Auction House alts and therefore i don’t believe any of my competitors know who it is.  I will note a competitor come online and cycle through their alts and then leave.

Clearly they are cancelling and reposting.

As soon as they leave i wait for 2 minutes to make sure they are not going to log back on and recycle, and then i log on my posting alts to immediately undercut them.  And then i leave.

This has two benefits.

Firstly, it reposts my glyphs to be the best price and so maximise my profits.

Secondly, when the competitor next comes on they will have low sales and see that they have been undercut.  Better still, if they come in within, for example, the next 10 minutes they will see that they have been undercut without ever seeing me online whilst they were posting.  They will therefore know that i am watching my market.  That will demoralise them.

I don’t wait and complete any part of a quest, or get more xp – i immediately log off and log on my alts.  Takes 10 minutes.  But it is time well spent.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

I have a backup market which i turn to if Inscription becomes too competitive and i want to let it settle down and reset.  My backup market is enchanting.

Everyone should have a backup market – it opens up a whole new range of options that can be deployed as counter competitive actions.  The most obvious being that you can temporarily leave your main market if it all gets too much.

In fact, i often operate in the Enchanting market at the same time as the Inscription market.  I am not aggressive and i don’t seek to own it.  Merely i seek to make 1000 – 2000 gold per day from it whilst i operate in the Inscription market.

But right now one of the more aggressive competitors in the Inscription market has moved over to the Enchanting market.

By leaving the Inscription market the time i need to devote to cancelling and reposting my glyphs has gone down materially and my weekly income has risen.  Indeed, it has risen by more than i make in Enchanting and what’s more, i have more time on my hands to level alt characters.

Thus, i prefer this prior competitor of mine to stay in Enchanting and out of Inscription.

Hence, i am not competing in the Enchanting market.  I don’t want to take part is dissuading the new entrant from the Enchanting market.  In a sense, i am letting the other market participants have my 1000 – 2000 gold per day.  And given the competitive nature of this new entrant, i suspect much of it will go to him/her.

The competitive landscape has changed for the better and i don’t want to disturb this.

Let sleeping dogs lie.