Luck Favors the Prepared

With the release date announced for the Mists of Pandaria expansion it is a good time to start thinking about what to stockpile in preparation for Mists.  In the spirit of disclosure I haven't done an in depth study of everything that is changing in Mists, but I have some suggestions that have proven to be beneficial during the launch of Cataclysm.  

When a new expansion goes live on the servers there are a few markets that will have a resurgence due to an increased number of employees leveling characters.  The easiest market to prepare for, and one of the few sure things in this game is the bag market.  All characters need bags to carry around their stuff.  And anyone who has already leveled a character will chafe at having the few bag slots that a new character starts out with (save for the Death Knight) and will buy bags off the Auction House to equip their new alt.  

What bags to stock?  My first suggestion in the netherweave market.  The bags are the perfect balance between size and price.  And with the popularity of Burning Crusade dungeon armor the cloth is often fairly cheap and prevalent on the auction house.  The one drawback to this market is crafting the bags themselves.  I swear this pattern takes the longest to make for one of the simplest items in game.  I typically empty my bags and queue up several on my tailor and walk away.  This is a good time to go do chores while your character crafts.

As to other bags, this is determined by looking at the price and availability of other types of cloth and the sale price of the bags.  Again I would suggest looking up your server on the Undermine journal.  While I mostly sell netherweave bags, I occasionally sell other bags when the price of materials drops low enough to make it worth it.  

With the wide variety of heirloom gear available to characters to speed up leveling, another market is enchants to go with this gear. Since Heirloom gear is officially considered level one the enchants have to be ones that do not have a level restriction on them so they can be applied.  My personal favorite is the Crusader enchant.  I constantly stockpile materials for that enchant and post a low number of them at a steep markup.  I also use this enchant when leveling my melee characters.

The next market to consider is further along in the leveling process, but should be considered if only for your own leveling experience if not for sales is Wrath era Epic gems.  The gems from Wrath do not have a level restriction, so I often would get gear on my characters early on in Outlands that would not be replaced until late Wrath when the gem slots were filled with the appropriate epic level gems.  I have been stacking transmutes on my alchemists to prepare for my monk in the next expansion.

These are just a few markets to consider there are definitely others to prepare for.