Glyph Walls - are for teaching lessons

There's been some talk about glyph walls lately. As one who frequently uses glyph walls I'd like to share my views on them.

In particular I'd like to address some of the comments and assumptions made by Croda of the marketsforgold blog. Recently he made the following series of posts regarding glyph walls.

The Glyph Wall – what is it and what is its purpose?
The Glyph Wall - how to combat it

In the first post Croda says "The ultimate aim of this strategy is one of two", then goes on to say it's either to permanently reset glyph prices or it's to force others out of the market.

Actually there's at least one more reason to use glyph walls. The reason I use them. To teach obsessive campers a lesson.

In the second post Croda talks about how to fight glyph walls. He says "The aim here is to bring all glyphs where there is a Wall down to just above cost price and let the glyph wall competitor undercut me and so make losses on each sale. Eventually they will become dispirited at crafting, posting making a small loss and repeating time and time again."

Awesome! When I post glyph walls that's exactly what I want the camper to do. Waste his time, effort and materials obsessing and stressing over undercutting me for very little profit. I will find his real threshold, post just over that and let him be the one to "become dispirited".

Croda assumes the purpose of a wall is to sell glyphs and that's not necesarily true. In fact in my experience the exact opposite is usually true. Walls and especially glyph walls often aren't intended to sell at all, they're there to cap the market at very low profit margins and teach someone a lesson.

When I use glyph walls I don't use them to sell glyphs, I use them to teach obsessive glyph campers a lesson. I'll keep the wall (or walls if they try buying me out) up for as long as it takes. Months, years, it doesn't matter, it's not costing me anything to keep the wall up and as long as they keep undercutting the wall, it doesn't take much effort to keep it up either. When the camping finally stops I raise my prices until the next obsessive camper comes along.

Doing a little simple math it costs 1s to post 1 glyph for 48 hours or 1g per 100 glyphs. If I post 5 of each glyph that comes out to approximately 20g to post 5 of every glyph in the game. An insignificant amount, easily covered by selling just 1 or 2 glyphs a day. Even if no glyphs sell, which virtually never happens, losing 20g a day won't make me go broke anytime soon (it'd take over 800 years).

I guess the moral of the story is don't assume the other guy thinks the same way you do. Doing so increases the risk  your plan to combat his strategy is exactly what he wants you to do. You're doing all the work tanking the market for very little profit while he's just posting once every 2 days and laughing at you.

Glyphs - Popularity and Stealth for increased profits

Like Stokpile used to say "I have a personal fleet of dedicated campers".

They know my posting and crafting alts. All my important alts are on their "friend" lists so they can watch me constantly and try to undercut everything I post as soon as I post it. I still sell a lot but sometimes it can be difficult making much profit especially in the glyph market where there are several persistent campers and a long established cartel all trying to dominate the market.

Low enough priced glyph walls will chase pretty much everyone off except the cartel's 3 main guys and 2 or 3 of the independent campers. The independents will usually stop when prices get near cost. The cartel will keep on undercutting by 1c with their own walls no matter how low the price goes until they decide to try another buyout and price reset. Multiple walls at progressively higher prices stops buyouts but maintaining multiple walls takes a lot of time and though it is profitable it isn't really profitable enough to justify the time it takes. And if I'm busy posting glyphs I'm not posting other more profitable items.

I wanted a new glyph strategy that would be more profitable, take less time and fly unnoticed under the competition's radar.

I've been using my new glyph strategy for several weeks now. I'm selling more glyphs than ever at much higher profit margins while spending far less time at it. The majority of my glyphs are now selling for 119-200g rather than the 15-20g I usually got with a wall strategy.

Popularity and stealth are what it's all about. Here's how it works:

Inscription - How herb prices affect Glyph and Ink costs

I haven't been working Inscription for very long. I started two or three months before the end of Wrath and wasn't even very serious about it at first. All I really wanted was a secure supply of cheap velum for my enchanter (naturally a few days later the word came out that velum would be sold by a vendor in the next patch). Since then I've gotten a lot better at Inscription. Recently I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter very much what the current prices of herbs are. I can follow the market through it's ups and downs buying herbs in complete confidence I won't lose gold by using simple math and rules of thumb.

There are basically 2 tiers of Cataclysm herbs. First tier herbs, including Cinderbloom, Stormvine, Azshara's Veil and Heartblossom, give on average half an Inferno Ink and 5 Blackfallow ink per stack. Second tier herbs, Whiptail and Twilight Jasmine, give on average 1 Inferno Ink and 6 Blackfallow Ink. 10 Blackfallow Ink can always be traded in for 1 Inferno Ink meaning we can consider Blackfallow to be worth at least 1/10 of what Inferno goes for (note this will always be true though the opposite will not always be true).

To keep the math simple I consider all glyphs to cost 10g each to craft and Blackfallow Ink to be worth 3.333g each.

This means I can buy the top tier of herbs (Whiptail and Twilight Jasmine) for the going price of one Inferno Ink + 20g. If Inferno is going for 40g I can spend up to 60g per stack.

For the lower tier of herbs, I can spend half the price of one Inferno Ink + 20g. The Blackfallows are actually costing 4g each since I only get 5 of them per stack but using 20g here too keeps things simpler. Assuming the same 40g price for Inferno I can spend up to 40g on tier one herbs. A 20g difference between herb tiers.

Inferno Ink 30g then 30 + 20 = 50g and 15 + 20 = 35g for a difference of 15g
Inferno Ink 50g each then 50 + 20 = 70g and 25 + 20 = 45 g for a difference of 25g

Obviously the difference is half the price of one Inferno Ink. This leads to a simple rule of thumb I follow when buying herbs to mill. The difference in the value of the herb tiers is equal to 1/2 the value of an Inferno Ink. If I'm selling Inferno Ink in bulk for 40g then I'll buy top tier herbs for up to 60g a stack and lower tier for up to 40g a stack. If I'm only getting 30g for bulk Inferno then I'll pay up to 50g for the better herbs and 35g for the lesser herbs.

Of course these are my maximum prices, I try to get the herbs at least a little cheaper and only go all the way to the maximum if I'm short on materials and really need to make more glyphs right away.