Profit to be had?

[Carmaris]

From the end of Sept until now, I've made (and spent /sigh) close to a 100k, mostly on Kaladim Constitutionals at 30pp each. About a week, week and a half ago my market kinda dried up. Weekdays have always been slow for selling, with most people doing their shopping on the weekends. However, I barely moved 150 units in 10 days or so, which is just wretched for me. Then, in the middle of this dry spell, folks start cropping up selling Kaladims--I used to have the entire market. Wasn't too bad at first, couple of people each with ~50 drinks, selling at 30pp. /shrug Figure my regulars will come to me when they need drinks--and considering the volume I've sold, it could be awhile, especially if people are being careful with them.

Then, a few days ago, couple more people show up selling KC's--at 25pp each. Again, not a major concern, very small number of drinks. Then someone showed up with a couple hundred priced at 25pp....

Ah well, at least I managed to make a tidy little profit and buy some needed items (cultural bracer X2, cultural boots, MQ for epic, etc).

[Ortrillian]

Any brewed item for a quest is going to get you a lot more plat then the regular brews. I sell QAT, GLM and KC from 35 to 55pp each on TZ when I actually have some in stock.

[Mazarkan Brellseeker]

Grobb's seems to sell the best for me at 10pp each. Can usually sell 8 to 10 stacks every two days or so. Kaladim Constitutionals I sell for 25pp a piece, although usually the only people buying them are the high level warriors from a couple guilds. I sell out of Queynos Tea pretty quick too when I can find the tea leaves. Not a forager so that part is a bit of a pain.

I'd say there are about 4 peeps selling Grobbs on a regular basis on my server, and 2 selling Kaladims or Queynos...

Mazarkan Brellseeker

[Lixivia]

luckily i have a forage dealer and i can make things like qeynos tea, fizzy odus juice, and surefall rangers trail juice very easily in large amounts.

[kiztent]

There is profit, but since brewing is easy to skill up, if you start making too much money people willing to click for cash will move in and trash the market for the items.

The only way to defeat this is to deal in markets with constrained supplies (QAT has foraged component for example), but once you make enough money it becomes worth people's time to undercut you.

[Luminare]

"I spent roughly 450p on the lot, and came out with 330 drinks - that I've already sold half of at 12.5p each."

must be nice on your server. I was feeling lucky to be selling kaladim for 20pp and grobb for 9 to 10pp the last week or so and selling them at a pretty good pace. I hear about people getting 25-30pp on other servers for kaladim, but it just doesn't seem like mine will sell very well at that price, even if others aren't selling at the time.

Then tonight my favorite brewer returned to the bazaar. She pays no attention at all to what others are selling for or even IF anyone else is selling... just always sells kaladim for 10pp and grobb for 5pp. That's a crappy profit and it ruins the market for any other brewer. I've only seen one person doing it on my server. For all the rest of us, it's certainly not worth the time it takes to make the drinks for such a low price. It's very very frustrating to see someone doing that. Basically the others brewers just quit their trade in disgust when that happens too often. I'm not trying to make all the brewers stick to one artificially high price, but those prices are ridiculously low for the time involved.

[Lixivia]

i tried baking the other day, i was making holy cakes, holy cakes sell for 3-5pp each on my server, the highest i have ever seen them is 7pp.

these things are twice as hard as kaladims, the fail rate isnt as much. but **** no more baking for me, i guess the qeynos tea price of 9pp is a lot better than spending 4 hours making holy cakes just to sell at 4pp. i feel sorry for the bakers =(

[tatanka7th]

Well, it's no different than any other trade skill where there is a market for the end product - the people skilling up always price low enough to just break even, so they can clear their inventory and just make more. This is especially true for products that don't move particularly fast. It's an unfortunate thing to happen, but I get less mad at these people than the gougers: 75-150pp for foraged items, 25pp for QATs and MTPs, etc. It's the gougers that prompt more people to enter the trades in the first place, figuring to save money over buying the items, and hopefully making a profit on top of it.

[Unix]

Wrong, Brewing -isn't- an easy skill to level up. It's a very convient one, but not one you can bot or do in one night. (took me 29 hours of combining to get my 250 from 200)

I make decent cash off of Qey Tea, and GLM. 7-10pp each. Then again, most of my supply goes to self or friends. ^_^

[Freekin]

I was making some nice money on Veeshan selling GLM (10pp), QIT (25pp), and Kaladims (30pp). I was making 5 - 10K a week by spending a couple hours on the weekend making drinks. I have a second computer and it's on all night and during the daytime selling in the bazaar. When I'm playing my main, I have a forager, on a second account, at the EK bridge foraging tea leaves.

Then Christmas holidays came and my peaceful business turned hectic. Apparently people on Christmas vacation decided to take up brewing and flooded the market. GLMs are down to 8pp with 5 to 7 people selling most of the time. I stopped making them. Another person has a constant inventory of over 1000 Kaladims and is selling them for 14pp. There are a couple people selling QIT for 20pp but in limited quantities. So, it looks like I'll have to reduce prices to be competitive or be happy with the money I bring in now. I really haven't made my mind up yet about what to do. Brewing's kind of fun and a good alternative to fighting all the time. I chat a lot in guildchat when brewing and enjoy the conversations.

I don't want to start a price war, but it looks like it has already started on my server. For now, I'm going to just watch and probably make only QITs.

Freekin Alloway
59 Tunarean Preserver
"Champions of Hope"

[NeoCatET]

Making a profit.

I guess I'm just blessed on Rodcet Nife. I make 80 combines of Qeynos Afternoon Tea at once, then sell them for 20pp apiece. Last time I checked that's 9.6k PP to play with. Take away the costs, which are maybe 500pp if I'm unlucky.

[kiztent]

Wrong, Brewing -isn't- an easy skill to level up. It's a very convient one, but not one you can bot or do in one night. (took me 29 hours of combining to get my 250 from 200)

I make decent cash off of Qey Tea, and GLM. 7-10pp each. Then again, most of my supply goes to self or friends. ^_^

Took me an evening to get over 200, and with 200 I have a reasonable chance of success at most of the brewed stuff there is. It may be very annoying to click all the way to 250, but if you look at the goals (making stuff to sell) instead of the numbers, brewing is easy. In a world with infinite plat Jewelcraft is easier, but that's about it. In my book that's easy. Try getting smithing or tailoring over 200 then tell me I'm wrong for calling brewing easy.

[ChaseFV]

Not to turn this into a my tradeskill is harder than yours..

I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree. While Brewing is tedious, especially when you get to the 9-item combine from hell that is MHB's, it is one of the easiest skills to power-max. You need to realize there are people out there who have plat to blow, and nothing better to do than give it to an alt and power that alt through brewing (or JC, or one of the other tradeskills you can buy most of the supplies to get to 200 for). The problem arises when one of them decides to maliciously crash the market, but that's a whole different issue, and would best be handled in the Primal Scream forum.

Here are my current tradeskill standings:
Brewing - 250
Fletching - 200
Baking - 196
Pottery - 189
Fishing - 182
Tailoring - 158
Smithing - 115

You see which two are at the bottom (I haven't started JC yet, because I don't have the plat to waste)? They are there because they are tedious and difficult to raise. Even more so than brewing. No tradeskill is "easy" and SOE is taking steps to make them all equally difficult, but some, such as brewing, fletching, and jewelcrafting can be pushed to or beyond the 200 mark exclusively with vendor-bought materials, with no other investment than the time to make the clicks. This gets them tagged as "easy." It's certainly nothing to get your feathers ruffled over, but you'll notice folks giving a lot more respect to a GM tailor or smith than a GM brewer. *shrug* There are those who state that perception is reality, and the general perception is that tradeskills where you can buy your way to the top are easy. I'm disinclined to disagree, despite having chosen one such skill as my first to push to Grand Mastery.

Chase
Half-Elven Ranger of Tunare
45 seasons wandering the wood in defense of Her creatures
High Council member and Guild Master Brewer of the
House of Carnage
Firiona Vie

[TraxxusFV]

Chase,
I've been looking for an experienced brewer on FV to bounce a few questions off of. I hope you don't mind.

I've skilled up to 188 and started making QAT's with pretty good results. Lately I've seen some brewers trying to sell them at 40pp a piece. That price seems rediculously high to me. When I wasn't brewing I'd only pay 10pp per QAT. I don't want to crash the market, that's a big concern of mine. But I couldn't in good conscience charge that sum for my product. I set my price at 25pp last night and didn't sell any, I was still the lowest in the bazaar. Last week when I first started making them I set my price at 10 (matching the lowest charging brewer) and sold out in 20 minutes.

What's the average price you've been able to sell for while maintaining a stable market on FV? I'm trying to get a guage on the market without upsetting any other brewers.

Thanks,
Traxxus

[ChaseFV]

FV current rates

Traxxus, welcome aboard!

Here are the prices the market seems to be supporting at the moment on FV:

QAT - 9-15 (I sold these the day after the patch that fixed stat beverages at 40, and things have slid steadily south since. Ever since Prudence and a few others insisted on selling for 10 when people were still willing to pay 15, that has set the expectation of the customer base. They *know* if they wait, sooner or later, they will find some for 10. They will only pay more if they are out and they are desperate, and even then they will buy only enough to get by (1 or 2 at a time). I sell for 10; this is far and away the most popular stat beverage on our server).

KC - 20-40 (I stick to 25, and have seen 1 or 2 others sell at 20. The Johnny-come-lately's of the world sell at 35-40).

SRTJ - 9-15 (due to the abysmally low yield on this recipe, and the lack of reasons for older foragers to hang out in QH long enough to get any Surefall Sap, you see these sold only rarely, and most often at the high end of the range. I typically sell for 12).

GLM - 5-10 (This was selling steadily at 10-15 until some jerk fired up his Gnome alt, power-brewed him to 200, and started selling about 500 of these at 5PP each. I stopped making these except by request at that time. They *are* a popular item, but the profit margin is much lower than most other stat beverages.).

FOJ - 7-10 (I have never seen anyone else sell this item, but I've had to price it lower than the QAT to get it to move).

Demi-Sec 175-200 (When I first hit 250, this was selling at 250. Once again, some jerk and their alt tried to crash the market on this (different jerk by the way). In an effort to prove that I, at 250, could better survive a price war than they, I chased the price down to 150 until they quit playing 1-under (please see the "You want it? You got it punk!" thread in the Dead Horse forum at the FV boards). As soon as I no longer saw that person selling, I moved back up to where the rest of the market was, around 200. Within the last few weeks, things seem to have slipped down to 175, but still a great item for profit.).

Hope that helps,
Chase