Category Archives: General

Happy new year folks! I’m going to kick start posting for 2011 with an interesting one for you. A topic that comes up often in reader emails and in-game chats is transferring gold making skills to the real world.

It’s easy to see how this could be a frustrating issue for some. The economies of online games can be incredibly complex and data-rich beasts. Mastering the knowledge and techniques to best your fellow gamers and profit is no small feat! So what stops this talent translating to real world profit and riches?

I think the best answer to that question is that it is at once both as simple and as difficult as you think. As simple because the underlying key to making money is what you’ve already mastered online. Acquire a product at one price then resell it at a higher price – that’s it.

The complexity (and the roadblock) is in the detail. In real life product availability and pricing are much less transparent. There’s no auction house search option that instantly tells you if the price you’re looking at is the best one you’ll find.

What should you sell? Where will you source it from? Where will you store it? How will you sell it? Who should you sell it to? How much should you sell it for? How much do others sell it for? How much do you have to sell to cover costs? How much do you have to sell to profit? Is that worth your time? What’s your backup plan?

Provided there’s sufficient interest I’d like to use this series of articles to encourage discussion and promote learning around real world markets. I’ll post about noteworthy real world examples that I encounter or that people leave comments about and we can explore the mechanics behind them together.

Market Saturation and the Glass Jar Paradox

I really like this first example. I don’t plan on providing all the answers along with the examples – that’d defeat the point wouldn’t it! Instead I’d like to present information, maybe with a little direction, and get you thinking.

Leading up to the holiday break my girlfriend and I few batches of Jam to give out to friends as gifts. When it came to looking for glass jars to put the Jam in we checked out a few stores looking for the right kind of jars. After visiting a variety of stores to find the right jars the prices ranged from around $2.50 up to $5 per jar depending on the quality and the type of store. Nothing struck me as terribly unusual about the prices and we continued on to our grocery shopping.

With jar hunting still fresh on my mind, I noticed something interesting when we arrived at the condiment aisle. There were quite nice jars on the shelves there, filled with jam and various other things, for as little as $1.30!

So what’s going on? How can an empty jar sell for more than a full jar? How is it possible that the process of making a product and putting it IN the jar has lowered the sale value?

I’ve pointed toward the answer above and I think it’s a fantastic one to ponder. Let me know how you go! If anyone has similar observations to add leave a comment or send me an email.