Sell as Eternals or Crystals?

End of term work for University and Christmas has meant a slow down in posting, but I'm trying to get some more posts in around Christmas. Today I want to talk about selling Eternals on the Auction House.

In Burning Crusade you would need 10 Primals (Earth, Water, Fire, etc) to turn them into one Primal. They were found through multiple sources (mining, killing mobs, gas clouds, etc) and used for most crafting recipes. In Wrath we now have Crystals that can be turned into Eternals. Selling these on the Auction House is very lucrative and even casual players can make a few hundred gold off this weekly. Just like in the last expansion Fire, Air and Water tend to be more expensive due to their rarity and some of them can sell for as much as 50g each.

I've seen lots of posts online recently about the best way to sell them; should you sell the Crystals individually or wait until you have ten to sell as an Eternal?

In most cases selling them separately as crystals will net you more money, however there are some limitations to this. If you put ten on the market, it is unlikely they will all sell and a big chance you will be undercut due the the quantity you have put up. Often after a few hours of questing you can have enough crystals to make 2 or 3 eternals. Selling these as crystals could take days if not weeks because you have to limit yourself to only putting a handful on the market at once. On the other hand selling a few eternals will usually only take a few hours. Personally I think having a faster cash flow is far easier, instead of wasting time constantly trying to sell your crystals. If you rarely come into contact with them you're probably best of selling them as crystals but I don't think this applies to most people.

Many people are overly reliant on Auctioneer and it's exactly this type of item it will let you down with. The price of eternals are extremely volatile and it is better to use your own brain for a change. Most items fluctuate on price during busy times of the week by a reasonable amount; a stack of ore might be 40g on Friday night and 50g by Sunday, auctioneer will therefore give you a fair average price. Eternals work differently, and can change by as much as 50% in price during the week. It's really up to you to check the prices regularly for a week or two to find out what your ideal selling price is.

In Burning Crusade Primal Fire on my realm moved between 20 gold and as much as 60 gold. Most of the time they would be between 20g and 40g, so personally I would only list them on the auction house at times when the price was at least 30g. It definitely the type of item you should not settle for selling at a low price because the demand is always high.

When it comes to setting a price for them it's wise to be aware of other sellers. I'll run through a few models. You scan the auction house for the price of an eternal and find a decent supply of eternals on the auction house;

- You find that there are numerous auctions at 30g and one auction at 27g; in this scenario don't undercut the seller at 27g. Eternals are always high in demand and most people are usually buying more than one, so in this case list your item at just under 30g.

- You find that there are numerous auctions at the same price. In this case you should be looking to undercut because there are multiple sellers all at the same price.

- If you find there are only a few on the auction, you might want to risk putting it a much higher price.

Some people will ask if the prices are so volatile why don't you just sell them at the times of the week when prices are high? Well in my experience there is no set time of the week where the prices will be extremely high and it's too unpredictable. Enchanting mat prices are dependent largely on when instances are run and mining materials on when people are questing. Eternals on the other hand usually depend on other factors. Most servers have thousands of miners so there is a steady supply of metal but eternal prices can be dependent on just a handful of engineers on a realm and when they decide to go farming, meaning they can change the market price at their own discretion (with or without realising it). Due to this, I think it's best to find a price you are happy with and sell if you feel the average price is it a decent level.