Enchnating Scrolls: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (pt.1)

As many of you already know, I've been selling Enchanting scrolls on the Auction House. I will publish a two(perhaps three) part on how I do it, the problems I've encountered, and my attempts to fix them.

I first leveled enchanting in the early day of TBC, and it always seemed like a dead profession. The disenchanting part was great, and was probably my main source of income, but Enchanting items always seemed futile. Advertising in trade for the hope of getting a tip was never my idea of fun. Inscription introduced the ability to make Vellums, which allow you to turn an enchant into a scroll, but only a few people read patch notes, and it was too late by then anyway. Even now, 5 years into the game, those receiving enchants feel entitled to them, and rarely tip the enchanter. Those leveling enchanting are no better. Not only do they advertise free enchants in trade, but they also PAY OTHER PEOPLE for each skill-point they level. Enchanters that know about scrolls don't bother to calculate the cost of each enchant, and just dump in on the AH undercutting the next person.

The scroll market got so bad that when I looked into the market on my server, what Auctioneer was showing as 'Market Price', was usually 80% below the cost for mats. To illustrate why this is a problem, imagine a scroll costs 25g to make. You want to make a profit on the scroll so you factor in 5% AH cut, then you add a markup price on top, so you decide to sell the scroll for 35g. Now you come a couple hours later to find someone dumped 7 scrolls using auctioneer for 12g each. You think 'what an idiot' to yourself, buy out those scrolls and re-list them for above mats cost. Next day you find out that there are 5 more scrolls at 12g again. After a few cycles you get so frustrated that you dump everything yourself and never make scroll yourself. Except that I didn't quit, I stuck it out and attempted to fix the poisoned data in Auctioneer. (I've mostly been successful, but more on that next time).

I took some screenshots for they naysayers who were complaining about scrolls not being a good seller, so I'll use them here as well.

The enchanting market itself is very similar to glyphs, and could be especially appealing to campers(there is no deposit cost for scrolls, and only 60-70 scrolls to deal with). Once you get past the auctioneer problem, the enchanting scroll market is very interesting and brings in quite a good daily profit.
The other problem this market has is the extremely high cost of entry. I added up all the scrolls and it would cost anywhere between 8-10,000g to make 1 of each scroll. Obviously the market is not for the beginner. The high entry cost, combined with the difficulty of fixing/babysitting the market makes it only something a challenge seeking, rich goblin should even attempt.  Also, remember that once you make scrolls a profitable niche, others will quickly jump in to take advantage of your hard work.

In Part Two I will write about my attempts to fix enchanting scrolls and identify the profitable ones, and Part Three will be about the tools I've found work best for making, tracking and selling scrolls.