Cooking profit at 58 >_>?Follow

I just got my fish handling, and feel your pain on the search for profits in cooking. My solution is to research prices and find niches that haven't been filled. I spent several hours last week checking AH prices and looking for opportunities, and I can tell you that there are some.(No, I'm not going to tell you what I found, because markets are competative )

Margins are very tight because there are tons of cooks and I don't make big profits at my lvl (62) unless i farm the ingredients. Farming elementals and buying mellons and berries means almost no overhead on yag juice and melon stuff. If elementals are too tough, you can garden the crystals, and also garden the ingredients. There are several good sites listed in the stickies atop this crafting board which can help you with gardening.

Also, by this time there are things which you can hq with some regularity, and that is where you will find those elusive profits. If you have a mule, you can focus on things with less margin that are popular and will sell fast, like pies and juices.

The advice I was given that has helped me most is to be flexible and patient. If the price on juice at AH goes up, make juices and sell them for less than AH price. Your profits will still be higher than normal, and you will move inventory quickly. Take juices and foods with you when you party and sell them from your bazaar. If someone is way the heck out in BFE and forgot their snacks, they will pay more than normal.

If you go for the Key Items, you can get into recipies which some cooks can't touch, but it takes a lot of time and money to get them, so don't expect REAL profit for a long time. I am going to advance my fishing skill to take advantage of the :fish handling:, and this is, I'm told, the holy land of profits for many cooks.

Edited, Fri Dec 23 20:19:27 2005 by RaefofFFXI

Edited, Fri Dec 23 20:20:50 2005 by RaefofFFXI

Agreed with the otehr 2 posters. I think a big part of the issue is what sells fast.

You can craft a tons of food that sells, but if it doesn't sell fast, you end up getting full and have to wait. So check to see what sells quickly AND what you can craft for a decent price. Yag drinks are pretty much a sure bet on any server. But after that...it varies.

Keep in mind, cooking's biggest issue is all the running around you have to do to get the ingredients. It pays to have a mule in the main 3 cities. LOL

I was skilling up on Yag drinks at that level and making some good money simply in the volume that I was moving. I would suggest to make a mule in each city (if you haven't already). This will allow you to get the ingredients for cooking at the regional vendors no matter who controls what area.

Take a weekend and just go mad with Yag drinks. Lots of people do missions and stuff on weekends so the drinks will sell like hotcakes, pretty much as fast as you put them up if you undercut somewhat. Don't kill the profit though. I went from lvl 54-60 over the weekend and made a couple hundred thousand gil in the process. Remember, with cooking, it's usually about moving volume rather than looking for the most profit per synth.

Good luck, prices are really getting out of hand on SH lately.