Why Liquidate Now?

A few of the other gold blogs have been posting about getting rid of your stockpiles now since cataclysm is on the horizon. Some have even suggested restricting what you sell so you don't get stuck with items that don't sell or you end up taking a loss.

Don't Liquidate Now

I don't agree with most of these ideas. Why? You still have 2 1/2 months till Cataclysm comes out, I'm going to assume Thanksgiving week will be the release like they've done in the past. That is plenty of time to make a lot of sales and there will still be plenty of demand. I would even speculate that you could maintain a stock pile up till the final month then start to unload then. But here's the thing, what are you unloading? There should be several items in your stockpile that you should be maintaining for the launch of Cataclysm anyway, ore, cloth, inks, herbs, etc.. Sure, you will have to unload your epic gem stockpile if you're a jewelcrafter but you should have no problem unloading the remaining gems in the finale month before cataclysm launch.

Profits Still To Be Made

If you happened to have read the post on this subject over at Capped By Cata, he talks about how jewelcrafting with epic gems isn't worth it. His point is everyone already has all the epic gems and will no longer be needing to buy them so in turn, demand falls. I think this is a narrow minded assumption to think that there will no longer be players receiving new upgrades via raids. As of today trade chat on my realm is spammed all day with pug raids looking for members. There will still be plenty of players receiving upgrades all the way till cataclysm launches. I've had fellow players on my realm this week tell me they wanted to gear up on their dps sets so they could level faster.

Think about this, some players only have one good set of gear, whether it be healing, tanking, or dps gear. Depending on leveling style they may want fast queues and need a healing or tank set. Others may want the best dps set to grind through all the quests. What ever it may be they will be upgrading their sets and buying the best gems to put in them. Markets may have crashed but it's foolish to think that there will be no profits to be made. So let's look at some basic economics, demand falls for cut epic gems so as a result demand for uncut gems falls as well. Both prices fall accordingly but a profit margin remains between the two. This profit margin is what is key all the way till cataclysm. Whether it is 10 gold or 30 gold you will still make a good profit depending on the quantity that you sell. I can still sell 15 to 20 gems a night while I sleep at a margin of 20 to 50g each. So twenty gems at 20g is still a 400g profit just for an overnight posting, that doesn't even include working the auction house during the day.

So if you really want to be like a furniture store going out of business and sell everything then go for it. In my opinion I think that you end up limiting your gold making significantly if you do this right now. Plus there is several items that you should be stocking up for when Cataclysm launches.

Questions for Comments

Are you liquidating everything now? What time frame do you have in your mind before you unload unnecessary items?