Farmers

Right then, to kick off the blog I'm going to start with a post about gold making, or at least something related to gold making. And while we're on the topic here's a link to an -awesome- blog full of gold making tips, that everyone should know about! Just My Two Copper run by Markco, Prot Warrior Gladiator and creator of the 20k Levelling gold guide.

Anyway, back on topic. So, farmers huh? We've all been there haven't we? Be it to farm stuff to sell for money, or to farm stuff to level crafting, or to farm rep... Everyone knows about it. Heck, it can even be a fairly good way to make money, it's a nice steady income. The one problem is farming takes time. If I want some mats for "free" I have to spend my time going out and gathering them. Which means it isn't free. What some people don't realise is that time is almost like a currency in itself. You "spend" time, therefore it isn't free.

Okay, okay, so I can't go out and farm stuff, 'cause that uses too much time. So what do I do? Get someone else to farm for me? That's exactly what you do! You buy the mats from other people for gold! But wait, I hear you say, that costs me money! Well of course it costs money, but we're not buying off the Auction House, we're paying someone directly to farm for us.

So, what's the difference between that and buying off of the AH?

Well, the thing about farmers is, you can sometimes get them to sell to you for cheap, and often at a fixed price. If I buy something off the AH, for say 10g, the next week it could go right up to 20g because of the fluctuations of supply and demand. If I pay a farmer, I can just pay him 15g every single week, without fuss. And the great thing is, often farmers can be persuaded to sell to you at a slightly lower price than the AH. Many farmers find the possibility of guaranteed sales and no 5% AH cut attractive, and so will lower their prices accordingly. Another benefit is that for every stack of herbs or ore that you buy from a farmer, one less stack makes it onto the AH for your competitors to buy.

Right, so now we know the benefits of farmers, how do we go around getting them to sell to us?

Have a look at the AH first of all, if you see one person selling lots of stacks of a mat at once, consistently, day after day; chances are that's going to be a farmer. So what do you do? Send them a polite in game mail politely informing them that you will buy any of their materials at such and such a price (Make sure it's a fair price, but slightly below market price if possible) -all- the time. Stress that you will always buy from them. If someone knows they can always sell to you, they're always going to sell to you, it's that simple. Be tolerant of your farmers, sometimes they might screw up on the pricing and C.O.D it for too much, don't fly off the handle and send them hate mail, either send them a polite mail saying the pricing was wrong, or just take the hit, in the long term you're going to be making enough profit to compensate. Send them a reply every now and then after a shipment saying how much you appreciate their services.

Farmers are a powerful resource, use them. :)