Running a business in the World of Warcraft is a lot like running a business in the real world. First off, you have your farmers who produce the raw materials. Then you have your manufacturers who turn the raw materials into finished goods. Then you have the people who buy cheap finished goods and sell them at a mark-up, those are your retailers.
The common thread between them all is that in order for them to continue doing what they do, they have to profit. Now before the ignorant masses start yelling "Farming is free!" realize this one fact: by spending time farming, you are not spending time doing anything else, like manufacturing or reselling.
Profit is always and will forever be equal to revenues minus costs. In order to increase profit, you must either raise prices or lower costs. Wal-Mart is the king of cost lowering. They buy only what they know will sell, they buy at dirt cheap prices, and they have streamlined their entire operations.
Tip #1 - Buy what you know will sell
Crafters using TradeSkillMaster can set maximum quantity for each item and TSM will only queue up those items that are under the maximum quantity. Sure you have to make an invested into all the items you enable at first (so don't go enabling all items, research the demand first!) but after that you will only craft what has been selling.
Farmers and resellers can use The Undermine Journal to gauge how heavy demand is for an item, what the average price is, and for resellers they can buy below this price and fell relatively comfortable making a sale.
Tip #2 - Buy at Dirt Cheap Prices
This is probably more critical for crafters and resellers than for farmers. Buying at dirt cheap prices means buy materials and items as close as possible to the floor price. The Undermine Journal again is a great tool to help establish what that floor price is.
Once you establish what the price you are willing to pay for mats or items to resell are, add them to your Dealfinding section of TSM. What? You aren't using TSM? Then leave. Now. I'm serious. TSM is that valuable of an add-on. But for those still using Auctioneer then you can add this stuff to your snatch list and accomplish the same thing. But seriously, get TSM. It WILL change your life.
Tip #3 - Streamline Your Operations
For farmers, this means using Gatherer and tracking all the nodes you hit. Doing this can you figure out the most efficient route to run in order to maximize your gold per hour.
For crafters, this means getting TradeSkillMaster and configuring your auction groups, auto-mail recipients, and crafting queues. For a solo crafter who only uses one character, this also means maximizing your storage space in your character bank. For a network of crafters, it helps to setup a bank guild to store mats. Remember you will be buying tons of mats when the prices are low and consuming during periods of high prices.
For resellers, you guys have it easy. Identify the items you want to flip, setup email alerts on The Undermine Journal, and react to the email when you get it. Set the alert to trigger on quantity and the max price you are willing to pay. I would also recommend adding the remote Auction House to your setup to make it easier to respond to these market alerts when you receive them.
