Selling Glyphs Scares The Hell Out Of Me

There was a time back in Wrath of the Lich King when selling glyphs was my number one source of gold. Now it's a market I cringe away from. Why?

What has changed over the years to turn something I loved into something that scares me to inaction? Read on past the jump to find out.

To The Entrenched

I want to start out this post with this disclaimer: If you are currently making good amounts of gold in the glyph market then this post isn't aimed at you.

You've fought your way to the top of the heap of bloodied bodies of your glyph competitors and you are in a position to reap the rewards of your (likely) hard-fought success.

This post is from the perspective of those of us either in the pile of carcasses and dashed hopes for profiting from glyphs or new-comers looking to start the ascent up the pile in search of riches.

If you have no problems making gold from glyphs we don't need to hear you say "I don't have any problems making gold from glyphs.". We all know *somebody* is making gold from glyphs on our servers. Those people just don't happen to be us.

Trouble In Paradise

In Episode 60 of The Power Word: Gold Podcast I mentioned the WoWuction Global Top Professions tab. I did so in reference to the oft asked question "What is the best gold-making profession in the game?".

WoWuction Top US Professions. Source.

The fact that globally Inscription is the top profession in gold volume belies the fact that in almost all cases the glyph market is very very difficult to break in to.

A new player seeing the above chart would assume that leveling Inscription would be a natural way to make large amounts gold in the game and they would be write but with a few huge caveats.

Why Selling Glyphs Is A Pain In The Ass

Below are a few of the aspects of selling glyphs that a new-comer may not initially be aware of:

• You will be undercut multiple times a day, sometimes withing an hour, sometimes immediately.
• If you're not cancelling and reposting often almost none of your glyphs will sell.
• There are entrenched glyph sellers what will pull every trick in the book to force you out of the market.
• You can spend lots of time, materials and gold and end up with nearly zero profit.
• You are susceptible to people (often pissed off by the stress of selling trying to sell glyphs) crashing the prices in glyph markets on a whim.
• Effective selling of glyphs requires large amounts of storage, crafting time and often an alt devoted specifically to the task.
• Once you are entrenched in selling glyphs you have to constantly defend your "turf" from competitors new and old.
• Glyphs can be one of the most complicated gold-making markets requiring knowledge of how to set up and utilize complex addons to run the market effectively.

All hope is not lost. Obviously someone has to fill the roll of the glyph seller on your server and faction. The question you have to ask yourself is are you willing to gird your loins for the long fight.

If so than the glyph market may be the market you've been looking for. It seems to satisfy a few really dedicated players on each server and faction.

As for this "old man" I simply moved on to greener pastures (just like my glyph competitors likely wanted me to).

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