Crafting to Make Gold: What Do You Sell?

Smitch_59

In another crafting discussion here, I've seen folks comment that they can make lots of gold selling stuff they've crafted. Some folks say they can easily make 500K, 1M or even 2M gold per week selling crafted items in guild traders.

I'm currently in one trading guild that consistently has a trader in Mournhold, but I generally just use it to sell junk that I don't want. Of course, I don't make much gold from such sales, and I realize I could make a lot more by selling crafted items. So sometimes I'll make a few truly superb glyphs, for which I can generally get a few thousand, enough to cover my guild dues each week.

So my question is directed to those who make lots of gold selling crafted items: what types of crafted items sell the best and what items generate the most gold for you?

Nestor

Gold Attribute Glyphs
Julianos or Hundings for PvE (Divines/Infused or Divines)
Shackelbreaker, Sloads or Mechanical Acuity for PvP (Impenatrable)
Purple Foods/Drinks
Tripots, although you just get mat cost for thise, so unless your farming, no margin

Asardes

Sales is one thing, profit is quite another. In order to have actual profit you must sell things at about 10% higher price than the craft cost, provided you bought the materials, since guild fees are 7%. But a 3% profit margin barely makes sense.

From my experience crafted items have quite low profit margins and gear sells very slowly compared to consumables. For potions that profit margin is almost nil, since Alchemy is extremely easy to level, and you'll probably do it for Medicinal Use anyway; you are better off selling the plants outright. Even glyphs have profit margins of 10% or lower, although Enchanting is quite slow to level. For provisioning Dubious Camoran Throne - recipe is a seasonal drop so some people won't have it - Clockwork Citrus File & Arthaeum Takeaway Broth - both recipes are account bound - are pretty much the few that have good profit margins, although the latter is currently bugged in more than one way. Jewelry Crafting is probably the only one that's still profitable, because it's locked behind a chapter purchase, most people haven't had time to research enough traits even if they purchased the chapter, and upgrades are expensive right now - they will decrease in price next patch since the requirements will be decreased. I expect the window of profitability on that to close quite fast over the next few months.

I don't know about furniture but more exclusive blueprints are expensive so the initial investment is high and unlikely to be recovered; most people simply learn motifs and blueprints for the sale of completion. Another category is stuff bought with vouchers and resold for gold, but the profitability of that is harder to asses due to the variable price of vouchers, craft cost, and demand for the respective item. For example I was able to make quite a bit of gold on Dragon Bones launch selling the purple Morrowind blueprints that came from the envelopes that had just been added to the voucher vendor, before people realized where they came for and the price crashed. I also know someone who sells transmute stations, but at 1250 vouchers a pop, they're quite a gamble, even for a strong guild that has had a merchant in Belkarth almost every week for the last 2+ years.

Counter-intuitively, the best profit margin is simply doing the daily writs at maximum tier - that means basically selling to NPCs - then selling the upgrade materials on guild stores. Overall that has a profit margin of 65-70% but does require sustained effort and a dozen level 50, maximum tier characters to work.

Beamer_Miasma

I sell quite a bit of crafted stuff in my guild stores. On average I make a million a week after taxes, but not all of that comes from crafted stuff, I also sell motifs and surplus mats (but then again, who doesn't).

Glyphs sell quite well if priced right, as do potions, poisons and good foods (Artaeum Takeaway/Clockwork Citrus/Dubious - the obvious ones). Check sites like Alcasthq to see what the current recommended potions and poisons are, that will give you a good clue of what will sell well. Note that the profit margins on consumables are slim so this is more for crafting farmers/fishermen. If you start buying Roe and Corn Flowers for MM prices you won't make much more than 10% profit after taxes, if even that much.

I make quite a bit of furniture too but what exactly sells well varies a bit depending on popularity, which in turn is often governed by DLC releases. People buy the new house and want to decorate it in style. Typically the newest stuff has the biggest profit margin simply because less people are selling it, but there is also 'old' stuff that is always popular. For example in my experience Dunmer and Altmer purples sell quite well, whereas Orc and Argonian purples can be hard to give away for free. CWC stuff sells good as these plans are still quite rare, and a lot of the Vvardenfell furnishings are also good sellers (I made tons on Telvanni furniture and lighting for example, Hlaalu stuff also sells quite nice). I'd imagine Alinor stuff might sell good but I haven't gone chasing down Lacquer enough to know what the margins are.

Gold stuff can also sell well, the gold plans from Rolis and the thrones, profit margin might not be as big as on the new stuff, but since some of these have significantly higher crafting costs than the average purple, the amount of gold you make on a single sale makes up for that.

Also keep an eye on the luxury furniture merchant, if they sell stuff in style X then I tend to make some things in that style and add them to my store in Coldharbour.

It's not an exact science, you have to keep an eye on the market and jump in on fads and trends as quickly as you can, and of course chase down cheap crafting mats, but if done right it's a nice bit of income.

kind_hero

I am quite surprised to find out that people make 500k-1M a week from crafting.

How many chars do you play to achieve this? I have one char that is a good crafter (furnishings and traits/styles), and I am clueless about what furniture to sell, because the stuff I put for sale sits there for weeks. I even tried with some Alinor stuff, like dividers and plants which are popular, but they also sit there for ever. I relisted those at very low prices, just the price of culanda and resins, even then they sold slowly.

Also, it seems obvious that Julianos and Hundings or Shacklebreaker / Sload's are in demand, but these hardly sell for me. Does it matter what style you use for crafting?

Do you need to make the items gold to sell?

Wreuntzylla

Smitch_59 wrote: »

In another crafting discussion here, I've seen folks comment that they can make lots of gold selling stuff they've crafted. Some folks say they can easily make 500K, 1M or even 2M gold per week selling crafted items in guild traders.

I'm currently in one trading guild that consistently has a trader in Mournhold, but I generally just use it to sell junk that I don't want. Of course, I don't make much gold from such sales, and I realize I could make a lot more by selling crafted items. So sometimes I'll make a few truly superb glyphs, for which I can generally get a few thousand, enough to cover my guild dues each week.

So my question is directed to those who make lots of gold selling crafted items: what types of crafted items sell the best and what items generate the most gold for you?

I don't think anyone said it was from selling crafted items.

Asardes wrote: »

...

Counter-intuitively, the best profit margin is simply doing the daily writs at maximum tier - that means basically selling to NPCs - then selling the upgrade materials on guild stores. Overall that has a profit margin of 65-70% but does require sustained effort and a dozen level 50, maximum tier characters to work.

This.

Also, selling items you can buy with vouchers. For example, ebony book will sell for 250k-300k depending on platform.

I don't doubt that people can make gold selling crafted items, but the amount of gold per time spent is not good.

Starlock

I’m pretty sure that claim was BS. Then again, I don’t understand how anyone could regularly pull in those kinds of funds from anything and have much of a life outside of this game (or have insane luck on drops). The most profit I ever made from crafting was back when the writ vouchers were new and I was able to sell master writs for a hefty sum. But even that wasn’t consistent and nowhere in the range of the claim being discussed.

phileunderx2

farming and selling the materials is for me the easiest and most profitable.

Beardimus

I only craft generic stuff to sell on traders. Food (including the sort after ones - rare recipes) Purple Enchants if you have a huge stock of repora / rekuta which I always seem to.

Gear I offer to craft i chat / guilds. As its quite personal.

As people have said tho, new content stuff is the $ so right now that Jewelry stuffs

Titaniiumite

Pots is where the big $$$ is made

redspecter23

If I'm selling anything related to crafting, it's usually materials and master writs and they do sell well. Gold mats aren't worth what they have been in the past, but they move if priced reasonably. Doing daily writs on multiple toons if possible is the best way to make money by actually crafting things in my opinion.

Carbonised

kind_hero wrote: »

I am quite surprised to find out that people make 500k-1M a week from crafting.

How many chars do you play to achieve this? I have one char that is a good crafter (furnishings and traits/styles), and I am clueless about what furniture to sell, because the stuff I put for sale sits there for weeks. I even tried with some Alinor stuff, like dividers and plants which are popular, but they also sit there for ever. I relisted those at very low prices, just the price of culanda and resins, even then they sold slowly.

Also, it seems obvious that Julianos and Hundings or Shacklebreaker / Sload's are in demand, but these hardly sell for me. Does it matter what style you use for crafting?

Do you need to make the items gold to sell?

I do make 500k-1M a week, every week, from crafting.

How? Trade guilds is the largest factor. I'm in the top 5 trade guilds of my server, with excellent spots. You're not going to make a tenth of what I do if you try and sell outside the large trader hubs. That's why these traders cost 50M+ a week to hold.

Secondly, recipes. Some of the popular furniture recipes cost up to 300-400k each for a reason. But once you have them, you can make as many items as you please.

Third, you have to read the market. Some people fill up their guild stores with ugly Argonian mud furniture of blue and green quality and expects it to sell. I've seen people put up 20 identical items in stores as well. Use your brain. I'm a housing geek myself, I decorate a lot of houses, and I think to myself "would I be interested in this furniture item". If the answer is "no", then it's probably a no for anyone else. People fawn over the same pieces of furniture for a reason. Filled bookcases, for instance, are immensely popular.

Fourth, don't try and compete with everyone else. People are sheeple. Everyone tries to sell Alinor furniture right now. What happens? Culanda prices go up, and Alinor furniture prices go down, due to undercutting. I don't sell any Alinor furnishings even though I have all the recipes. I find the niche stuff that no one bothers to put up for sale. That means I can sell something for 5k that costs 500 gold to craft. That's a 10 x profit margin, even larger, since I harvest my own materials, or buy them under market price.

Fifth, check your competition. Use Master Merchant, and every now and then see what your "guildmates" aka competitors list. If someone keeps undercutting you, you're not making any profit. Either undercut them right back, or just list something else if they keep undercutting you. Relist often. If your item doesn't sell within 5-7 days, then it's either too expensive, the competition is undercutting, or there is no interest in the items. Relist for a lower price, or list something else. If something has 1 sale for 30 days, then no one wants it. List the stuff people actually buy, the stuff you yourself would buy. Keep a hawk's eye on your listings, and relist for a better price if needed.

I've shared my top 5 tips to make good gold from selling furniture, and it does make me 100-200k per guild every week across all my 5 trading guilds.
I'll take your insightfuls as compensation this time, thank you

Briggs

Asardes wrote: »

Counter-intuitively, the best profit margin is simply doing the daily writs at maximum tier - that means basically selling to NPCs - then selling the upgrade materials on guild stores. Overall that has a profit margin of 65-70% but does require sustained effort and a dozen level 50, maximum tier characters to work.

What do you mean by selling to NPCs? What do you sell?

Carbonised

Briggs wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

Counter-intuitively, the best profit margin is simply doing the daily writs at maximum tier - that means basically selling to NPCs - then selling the upgrade materials on guild stores. Overall that has a profit margin of 65-70% but does require sustained effort and a dozen level 50, maximum tier characters to work.

What do you mean by selling to NPCs? What do you sell?

He means handing in your daily writs. Which turns refined mat surplus into gold, tempers and other valuable items.

My_Treehawk

Up until they introduced the style station I made a decent living selling crafted sets of hard to acquire motifs.

Now I am making money selling gold tempers and rare components or motifs I acquire and already have.

The profit margin on crafting and selling gold sets is not a viable market and if you track your costs, you'll soon understand this and look towards other options. I can turn about a half-mil a week if I stay on top of the market and remain vigilant in my approach (what and how much I sell it for).

On a side note I earn about 50k per day just doing the writs on my 10 characters (it take me 8 min per character), and if I need more, these same ten can bring me in another 180 to 220k per day on their thieving runs (Wrothgar) which takes about 30 min per character.

Wildberryjack

My_Treehawk wrote: »

On a side note I earn about 50k per day just doing the writs on my 10 characters (it take me 8 min per character), and if I need more, these same ten can bring me in another 180 to 220k per day on their thieving runs (Wrothgar) which takes about 30 min per character.

Hang on, how are yall making gold doing writs? I mean I do them and usually get nothing of value from them, so??? Please share this info for a gold making noob.

Also, what in the world are you stealing in Wrothgar that brings in THAT much? I just want to be able to buy the special furniture from the vendor in Coldharbour and I can barely get enough gold each week to get 1 or 2 items

Nestor

Briggs wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

Counter-intuitively, the best profit margin is simply doing the daily writs at maximum tier - that means basically selling to NPCs - then selling the upgrade materials on guild stores. Overall that has a profit margin of 65-70% but does require sustained effort and a dozen level 50, maximum tier characters to work.

What do you mean by selling to NPCs? What do you sell?

NPCs are great for using excess mats for foods and drinks no one uses and vendoring. Problem is, without a couple of addons, mass production to vendor to NPCs is a Time for Gold miss match, in other words you will make more gold per hour grinding certain public dungeons. And, even with the addons, your going to want to have some outside the game activity to pass time.

Best money makers are CP150 Green Food and Drink, and Poisons. Remember, use up ingredients that are not for in demand items.

My_Treehawk

DjinnRa wrote: »

My_Treehawk wrote: »

On a side note I earn about 50k per day just doing the writs on my 10 characters (it take me 8 min per character), and if I need more, these same ten can bring me in another 180 to 220k per day on their thieving runs (Wrothgar) which takes about 30 min per character.

Hang on, how are yall making gold doing writs? I mean I do them and usually get nothing of value from them, so??? Please share this info for a gold making noob.

Also, what in the world are you stealing in Wrothgar that brings in THAT much? I just want to be able to buy the special furniture from the vendor in Coldharbour and I can barely get enough gold each week to get 1 or 2 items

You are paid 660gp per writ at the upper levels, times 7 skills and 10 characters that yields about 50k, once the ornate rewards are then sold off I always yield 50k per day just from the work itself.

The money comes from fencing the items stolen in Wrothgar (each character easily brings in 15k, sometimes up to 25k on this run). I did not include the money that comes from selling things in the trader that are picked up (rare recipes, etc) since I cannot give a accurate number on that per run, but it is another source of income, one I just have not bothered to track in addition to the fencing income.

TBH - This is how I have financed my entire group, most of Breggan's career (motifs, and gear) was financially supported by this - silly thieves run - and I still use it when I need to grab some quick cash. It is also where I get all the decon material that I used to level up all the other toon's crafting skills (which I then upgrade to green before decon). All the members of my guild are familiar with this run, and we, as a group have even held "guild runs" here, where everyone donates what they fence that day into the bank for the guild. It keeps us in good finance and gives us something casual and rewarding to do as a group.

@Nestor is correct as well, if you like to grind dungeons, a lot of cash can be made there as well. For me and my group though, we are mostly players that can have the game interrupted at any time and have to go AFK, so dungeons and trials are not commonly used for grinding and we enjoy the slower, relaxed pace that the thieve's run provides. You will need to complete the appropriate skill lines for thieves and assassins, as well as picking up a Champion skill (increases reward of containers) to maximize your return, and learn to NOT waste time picking up whites along the way if you want to approach this method.

Gallagher563

This is kinda crafting related. But if you farm tel var you can buy alchemy satchels for 500 tel bar. Use the alchemy ingredients to make potions. Sell the potions and profit.

rumple9

No one has mentioned training gear. Make it for levels 10, 20, 30, 40 in white. Costs hardly anything and sells well. Use the free low level mats from daily writs to do this

Popular sets like Julianos and hundings is best, light armour and staves daggers and bows for fastest sales.

Sell nirnhoned weapons and armour for research

If you get a good traited drop from a chest eg green briarheart infused dagger or blue necropotence staff upgrade it to purple for a bigger profit and quick sale (people on pc with add-ons often filter out green and blue item searches)

Otherwise crafting doesn't really make much profit , furniture doesn't sell well and can take weeks to shift.

Doing writs is best way to make money and hirelings for free stuff

Carbonised

rumple9 wrote: »

Otherwise crafting doesn't really make much profit , furniture doesn't sell well and can take weeks to shift.

Definitely -not- true. Last week I made 1.2M selling pretty much only furniture. You just have to do it the right way, like I outlined above. Any joker can list 20 pieces of green and blue Argonian or Bosmer stuff and never make a gold piece.

NordSwordnBoard

Bathtubs and bottled gardens

newtinmpls

Interesting suggestions.... this is a lovely thread.

mattlayton1986

This is by far not the BEST way to make gold, and certainly takes more time than other methods mentioned above, but as a noob who isn't high CP level and hasn't unlocked enough armor and jewelry traits yet to profit much from crafting or max level writs, here's one of the best ways I've found to turn close to 50% profit (note I'm on NA PS4 server, so prices on other servers may make this method not as effective):

When I visit guilds, I always check for Worms under Other > Bait. On PS4, 200 Worms has been selling recently for about 10k gold (some sell for more, but I don't buy them unless they're in the 9.5-10k range). As a completionist, I'm working on completing Master Angler so I'll be fishing a lot anyway. They're pretty hard to find on guild traders, so I check a lot of them when I'm nearby.

I've found that with 200 Worms, I can usually net myself 2 Perfect Roe (not including the fishing I do at rivers and lakes with other bait). 2/200 matches the rough RNG odds for Roe drops of 0.8-1.0%. Now, on NA PS4, Perfect Roe has been listed lately for 9.5k-12k. Let's say I undersell the ones trying to sell it on the high end, so I list my Perfect Roe for 10k gold each. I've spent 10k on worms and that gets me 20k gold, doubling my investment. Take 10k and reinvest in more worms and repeat. Obviously, if you combine the fishing you do in non-ocean spots as well, your profit margin goes up, since you can pretty much just farm insect parts, guts, and crawlers in the world without too much effort.

If you're looking for a super quick way to bank gold, this isn't it (and especially if you're farming mats on multiple characters, since fishing and filleting take a long time), but if you're trying to get Master Angler anyway, this will kill two birds with one stone.

md3788

I recently had a ton of AP. I purchased some regional coffers from Cyrodill for Stonefalls looking for Silks of the Sun weapons. I ended up pulling a ton of Silks of the Sun gear in Divines. Being a set that is still in demand, I upgraded them to purple with elegant lining I get from refining mats and sold them for like 10k a piece.

slumy

Gold Glyphs and rare dolman jewelry (purple) sell fast and make a decent amount. Motifs do also. Another suggestion, check out popular build videos. They always contain a crafting set. Craft the gear and sell it. Make sure the traits pertain to the build. The last option, they sell fast, but not for much is the furniture Diagrams.

Syncronaut

The secret is in advertising. Just puting items on store doesnt help.

For example:
Sick of playing in bad gear and you got gold. Then visit a *guild name* store in *location* and get yourself a new armor in rare looks and perfect stats. Like *item name here you are selling*.

MythicaLMeddLer

AP is a good way to make gold if you keep track of which gear is hot..I recently spent my AP on ravenger and the regional coffers in cyrodiil from deeshan..got five ravenger daggers..four of them with undesirable traits..I sold them all at 75-100K a piece..all ravenger weapons have sold well for me...also got 2 mothers sorrow inferno staves which sold for 100K a pop..

nextmrbig

honestly I go for materials that can be farmed, such as flour, corn flower, clothing matts, ect But my biggest money maker is creating gear and purple items for higher players, make 20 to 30k off hundings rage, (depending on the level) plus ive been selling tons of jewelry dust at good prices. which sells alright.

DaveMoeDee

One thing to keep in mind when reading all these comments is that:

1) the platform you play on will matter since mats are acquired at the same rate from hirelings and farming on all platforms while market prices can greatly differ
2) the location of your guild store will make a big difference. You can sell for way more in top locations, but you need to have a large enough volume to not lose the increased margins to weekly minimums. More people pass by those and they don't want to waste their time going zone to zone, so if you are going to sell a lot to make tax minimums in premium locations, make sure you sell in one of those.

For most consumables, I'd rather just sell the ingredients. I can sell multiple nirncrux mats in a single store slot instead of crafting multiple items and people are selling those items for barely more than the cost of the mats. The same with perfect roe. There is also no risk in selling the mats. If it doesn't sell and the market price decreases, I can always just stash the mats away after they fail to sell. A crafted item that doesn't sell can't be transformed back into all the mats originally used and it doesn't take many unsold crafted items to erase any margins gained from sold crafted items. Even worse is making a mistake while crafting, like going to a set crafting station but crafting a non-set version by mistake.

The main reason though that I don't sell crafted stuff is that it takes more time. I already have close to 5m gold so I'm not trying to get every penny I can out of each sale. I'd rather do low effort volume.