If anyone's interested this is how I flip mats w/ TSM. It takes a decent amount of time setting up a fresh profile, but then it's fairly generic and can be used across multiple realms, and can be extremely dialed in to specific realm pricing. I recommend if you play around with this, do it on a new bank alt, give yourself a few days to figure it out, and create a fresh TSM profile just for flipping mats. Once you dial in one server, you can use the same profile on multiple realms (make a copy, and adjust it to that realm). I like deal hunting on multiple realms and stacking gold everywhere, it makes it easier for me to pay for tokens, etc, I mostly just do it for fun though.
The key for me, creating a massive amount of groups, a massive amount of operations, and that might immediately disqualify some people who don't want to put in the work. But it's not hard, just a bit time consuming, and I feel like the more effort you put in at the start, the more it pays off when you start going on other realms and adapting to pricing in other places.
Basic group structure:
Trade Goods
Herbs
Cata
...
Shadowlands
...
Metal and Stone
Shadowlands
Laestrite Ore
Sinvyr Ore
etc..
And I create operations based on Dbmarket
Auctioning Operations
Dbm 90
Dbm 92
Dbm 94
...
Dbm 112
Dbm 114
Dbm 116
etc...
Shopping Operations
Dbm 60
Dbm 65
Dbm 70
...
Dbm 91
Dbm 92
Dbm 93
Mostly I just focus on those 3 things. Groups, Auctioning Operations and Shopping Operations.
An Auctioning operation such as 'Dbm 112' would put a
minimum price of 112% dbmarket, with a
normal price of 117% dbmarket. Make as many or as few of these operations as you want, it's up to you!
So what the hell do I *DO*?
Usually I start generic. I might apply Operations to the Metal and Stone->Mining group as a whole, maybe I apply a Dbm 91 Shopping Operation, and a Dbm 112 Auctioning Operation. And that might o work OK. If I wanted to get VERY specific, maybe I bought a massive, massive pile of Sinvyr Ore and want to sell it a little faster, I could apply more specific operations to the Sinvyr Ore group. You see, I create individual groups for each item, at least the hot sellers such as current expansion trade goods. You might find that unnecessary, but I've tried very advanced custom strings with generic groups, and I just can't get the level of detail that I want.
So I take the time, going through wowhead, spreadsheets, creating individual groups, you can also browse the Top Groups page on TSM's website -
https://www.tradeskillmaster.com/group-maker/top and borrow some of those, hack it up, create your own profile that suits you.
As for pricing, how the heck do you price? I say it depends on your patience level, and level of risk, but I always check dbmarket price, TUJ 2 week chart trend, TUJ 1 month / 3 month chart trends, look at highs and lows, then use your gut and pick something. Pick a buy price, pick a sell price based off the data presented to you. You'll hit some home runs, you'll strike out sometimes.
Aim for consistent returns. Imagine you had 100k and made a 20% ROI this week, that's 120k by week end. Then you did it again next week. And the next. Your investments will keep snowballing. Then you send some gold to another realm and start there. You can buy battle pets on your home realm and sell on a target realm, you can character transfer, you can bootstrap a new character on a new realm it doesn't matter.
I look for volatility in trade goods. I love violent up and down swings, huge spikes and drops, I'm looking to buy low, sell high.
Setup generic, safe rules like buy 90% sell 110% for generic groups like Mining, then do targeted more aggressive rules for specific trade goods you do specific research on.
To be clear I don't really cancel scan much, instead I'm waiting for entire markets to shift in my favor. Sometimes that means buying then waiting 10, 11, 12 days to sell to make 20-50%, and when the market is finally at MY selling price I might cancel scan those specific items just to sell them off faster. But most of this is waiting. Hence why it's advantageous to do it on multiple realms at a time. It rewards those who are patient.
But when I'm doing "DD" analysis of a specific material, I'm mostly looking at the 2 week trend, along with the overall 3 month trend (is it in an out of control downward spiral??) and I'm looking for realistic buy and sell prices over 2 weeks. I don't like waiting 2 full weeks to sell so I try to buy at the weekly low and sell at weekly high. That's all. The bigger the spread you chase the more time it will take between sales, but the bigger the payoff. Trust your gut.
Be careful with lower level trade goods. You might need more specific strings, as dbmarket alone sometimes is insane for low level mats, it happens, don't put your entire faith in dbmarket for old world materials!!!
