Quintessence at Perks N Peeves recently wrote about trading and selling non-combat pets. She talks about which pets should be able to be traded, or sold, as well as which ones Blizzard is making available to do so in Mists. It’s a great discussion, but it reminded me of a bigger issue when it comes to said pets and that’s when to sell.
When Mists of Pandaria goes live, I personally think the pet auction market is going to plummet compared to where it is now. Let’s face it, few people are going to buy a Lifelike Mechanical Toad for every toon, since they can share it across their characters. That means selling one instead of four to that person. That pets are account-wide literally means less need to buy. As a seller, that’s a literal translation. Less sales, less money.
But, you can have more than one of a pet on your account from all Beta reports. Whether that sticks or not remains to be seen. If it does, then some pets will still have appeal but it will be based on what they can do in the pet arena. If they’re labelled a “go-to” pet, then people will want them and they’ll have some value.
So, the question is “when do I sell my extra pets then?” I’ve honestly been debating this for quite some time (hence why it took so long for me to post it). Just recently I started putting up things like the Snowman Kit, not only because of the time of year but because I know my window for profit is fading. Based on what I’ve said here, you should start selling off some of your extra pets now, right?
Erm, not so fast. The flip side of this gold coin is what players do when something new goes live: jump all over it. That means some players are going to be looking for pets when it launches because they won’t have collected very many. Or, they’ll fight a pet they’ve never seen and want it. So those players might actually pay more. Actually, I can guarantee you some will.
After all of this, my advice is to get a feel for your server. If you have an active pet market, I’d do any flipping now. Crafted pets I would list now as well. Argent Tournament pets, rare pets like the Whelplings or the Hyacinth Macaw should be hung on to. This is just my perception on the pet market. If you want to continue making money off non-combat pets then this is something you’ll have to use some instinct on. The end result is you will get some right and you will get some wrong, much like with any speculation and risk. But if done right, you’ll still profit regardless. The important thing is you need to start thinking about it now.
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