Market Watch: Arctic Fur, Not So Chilly After All
Market Watch is a weekly column that takes an in depth look at individual items inside the World Of Warcraft. Have an item you would like to tell us about? Leave us a comment!
Found a crazy market trend this week after stumbling across it by accident. I was ready to have my [Mechano-Hog] crafted but I needed two [Arctic Fur]. So, I open the box and freak out. Why are these things 70 gold?! So I go back and pull from my scans and find some interesting data.
Now, the chart above is only over a week. As of last check, the AH on my server is empty of any [Arctic Fur] available for buy-out. As you can see, in a week’s time the maximum buy out has went from hovering around 50g to just a hair under 100 at a respectable 95. That’s close to 100 percent markup. I checked some other servers to make sure this just wasn’t a wise investor playing the market and it appears it isn’t. Prices on other servers are similar. So what is causing this? My guess, it’s the weakness of skinning as a profession. The only people out there doing it are die-hard farmers, and even then they probably see mining as a better time investment. Thanks to sites like this putting out awesome guides to make your professions work for you, a lot of people are jumping ship from these weaker professions to the more lucrative ones. So how does this help you? Well, in two ways. If you don’t have a bank roll to get your hand in the Auction House market, then you can pick up skinning (which by the way has to be the quickest profession to level) and make yourself a nice little profit farming these guys when no one else is. Moreover, you could try to get in on this market. It is obviously rising, and at a quick pace because demand has stayed the same and supply has dipped off tremendously. But is now the best time? Enter Patch 3.1
With patch 3.1 a lot of new things will come into the game. Out of everything that will be introduced new sets of gear and the addition of duel specs will be the most profitable. Especially for the [Arctic Fur] market. People will be obtaining new leg pieces as well as making a real effort to use their off spec. This means off spec gear will start getting enchant love too. [Earthen Leg Armor], [Icescale Leg Armor], and [Frosthide Leg Armor] all require the use of two [Arctic Fur] to be crafted. This means a sharp increase in demand and no real increase in supply. That means you, the wise investor, will be able to make a healthy profit off of your smart pre-planning.
Either way you look at it, the price on Arctic Fur is going up, and currently there is no end in sight. This may be the best time to jump on the [Arctic Fur] bandwagon.
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The thing with this is that the [Arctic Fur] has a high deposit cost. Sure you can make a lot of money if you KNOW it’s going to sell (as with the approach of 3.1) but other than that you risk losing a lot if it ever didn’t sell.
Other than a random anomaly in the market, I wouldn’t say it’s worth directly investing in until you’re sure 3.1 is launching the following day.
Your trend sort of says it’s too late. Arctic furs should have been bought a week ago.
It’s no secret they will spike up hard in 3.1, and a lot of ppl may be stocking up, driving up the price.
I was fortunate enough to be on a server where they sold for 20-30g, and transferring to one where they sell for 40-50g. But I’m holding the 200 or so that I bought for 3.1.
Hi,
I was interested how u collected the data for the chart.
Since I had the professions of skinning and leatherworking, I realized how valuable these skins where since day 1. The drop rates for them are not very good either. Because I dropped skinning for JC, I always buy the furs on the AH when they are around 50g each. Prices have steadly increased, however no matter what happens on patch day, it is still a win/win situation for me personally.
1. If they jump up to 100g+, profit can be made off them
2. If they fall to very low prices, I will buy them to craft leg armor kits and Ulduar epics.
Number 2 seems unlikely due to the increasing demand and decreasing supply. If leg armor kits increase in price, then I will have no problem buying these at higher prices either. I will certainly look for flooding of the AH on patch day to see if I can get any good deals on them. There are a lot of people, econ bloggers included, stocking up on these. We will see what happens on patch day.
Looking at this site s mostly an intellectual exercise. As a player on Earthen ring the auction house is so competitive and so many people play it, it honestly looks like a case study for Wealth of Nations.
I am going to take a look at this for 3.1, hopefully I can make it work
I wouldn’t necessarily say that the trend says it’s too late. It just says that I definitely didn’t get in at the right time. It’s starting to level out, at least on my server anyhow so I still believe that even if you buy in or farm in now before 3.1 you’ll be in fine shape.
Oh, and as for Earthen Ring, I can only imagine what it is like to be immersed in that economy. That place is its own little world
Still at 30g each on my server (Elune) so I’ve bought about 20 of them in anticipation of at least a slight bump at 3.1.
I’m testing the high-risk business of direct AH business. One of my enterprises appears to be failing miserably. I bought about 8 ‘white kitten’ pets so far at 125g each trying to sell at a new set price of 250g. Whelplings are usually at 2000g. Figured it was a rate limited item so I’d be able to stay ahead of the game. Nope, there are at least five more posted today by five different people and I’ve sold 0 at 250g. I don’t think I can keep buying kittens forever so I’m going to have to take my losses soon.
Sometimes you may have to wait it out. Instead of cutting your losses on the White Kitten, maybe look at it as a long term investment. It may even sell for more when there are none in the AH. However you may have to wait a while before other sells give up or run out. For example, I have sold Cured Rugged Hide for 40-50g when the market price is only about 5g. I just waited till there was none on the AH and sold them, hoping for the desperate buyer. It has worked a few times, but when it doesn’t I dont just sell it back at 5g. I just keep it there in my inventory till the time is right again. Who knows, maybe a few months from now you may be able to sell those for a nice profit. People are still working on the 75 non-combat pets achievement and the Argent Tournament will introduce about 5 new pets for each faction.
I’m sorry if this is a stupid question, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around the complexities of Auctioneer. How are you able to go back and view all of the times you have seen a particular item? For example, you were able to make a graph of the prices you saw this last week on Arctic Furs–how did you view that data? In my case, I’m looking at a Chain of Latent Energies that my Auctioneer is telling me is selling for 42% of normal cost. However, to be safe, I’d like to see all of the other times I’ve seen this item for sale.
They are holding steady at around 50g on my server.
Terra, I don’t know if there is a way to find exactly what you are looking for without doing some manual recording. I personally just have a spreadsheet that I input into everyday. The day I noticed the spike in Arctic Fur happened to be the day I needed some, but I had been watching the Arctic Fur price along with numerous other items. (How I recorded item price before the market spike.) I then followed Arctic Fur more closely for the next few days to see exactly what it was going to do.
However this still may not be the best way to go about things, there may be an automated feature that I don’t know about. Auctioneer and it’s capabilities are massive, so it could be in there, I just don’t know how to use it
Skinners on the WoW forums are reporting low drop rates. I noticed this lately as well. I can spend several days skinning the Hodir area and not get one arctic fur.
This is by far the driest fur run i’ve had since release. I seriously suspect a nerf on the drop rate.
@Kestre: Be sure to drop the little white kitties off at the neutral AH for the Horde pet collectors! Keep an eye open for Black Tabby cats that are Horde-side only. It is extremely rare to find those on the Alliance AH, at least on my server.
@Jagg: This could really be a possibility. Which only means even more of a price spike when the demand goes up and skinners aren’t able to produce enough of these for the market. I would be interested to see if there was a true drop rate nerf. I wouldn’t put it past Blizz though, and that is something they are really going to go around announcing either.
I’ve also heard rumors on a stealth nerf on the drop rates of Eternal Earth from mining. The price has gone from 5g to 10g now. I know that a lot of people are doing the Prospecting/DE thing, but the supply of earth seems to be really low.
Hi, anyone know if skinning will be good for 3.1? or in Ulduar?
Dropping it for JC tomorrow if something doesnt comes up!
need help
Not much has changed for skinning in 3.1, unless you like farming for profit, JC may be a better solution. Since there are still no signs of epic gems in Ulduar, it is almost safe to say the blue/rare gems from JC will still be profitable. JC is also a good min/max professiion as well as a money making. It seems like a lot of people have taken up JC so there will be come competition on the AH, but then again most professions are no different.
ty mate for the answer, I am fucking tired of skinning, had it since vanilla, both skinning knife and enchant, so got 480 skinning or so.
SO think I will go JC before patch and make some nice gems, I love the JC only gems<3 the dragon eyes once! they look so sexy!