Just as every major corporation attempts to streamline its work through as few distribution points as possible, you too will be routing most of your operations through a single character: a bank alt.
A bank alt is a character that you will be using, while on your quest for riches, to conduct most of your business. A bank alt's main purpose is the storage, sale, and purchasing of the materials and goods you will be handling. While your other characters will be working behind the scenes, crafting goods for sale, your bank alt will be the public face of your enterprise and, as a result, is usually used much differently compared to your other characters. Bank alts will generally be low-level (typically level 1), have the best bags and banking available, and spend nearly their whole existence within several yards of a mailbox, an Auction House, or a bank.
While your bank alt will generally be a throw-away character (one you don't bother leveling, getting achievements, and so on), you want to give the selection of your bank alt some thought. Here are some important attributes to think about:
Character name
Character race
Character class
Operating city
This simple aspect of your character may not seem important for a bank alt but can have some influence on your future gold-making opportunities. Choose a name that you will be able to remember (not as important as it used to be, thanks to the advent of mailing add-ons; but worth attention nonetheless) but also one that won't stand out to your competitors (and I assure you, there will be some). Avoid pun names, such as ones with "bank," "gold," and "liquid" in them, that will give hints of your alt's purpose. Also avoid nonsensical names or names with odd letter combination as they stick out in a player's mind more easily than you think. I've had players approach me years later because they recognized my apparently unforgettable name. Remember that you will want to fly under the radar, at least in the beginning, to avoid unwanted attention from competitors.
Most players choose their bank alt's race based on which city they're going to be operating in, which is further determined largely by which faction the player mainly plays in. Each faction has its own financial hub, a place where most of the trading goes down, be it face-to-face trades or auctions. For Alliance the current hub is Stormwind, home of the Humans, while Horde is served by Orgrimmar, home of the Orcs. I mention the associated races for these cities for one reason: it's easiest for these races to get to those cities as a fresh, level 1 character. While any city with access to banks, mailboxes, and Auction Houses will do for most of your business, it helps to be in the main hub for your faction in case you ever need to meet another player for a trade.
Tip
Worgen, Goblins, and Pandaran can't leave their respective starting zones until a certain amount of quests have been completed. Typically you won't be able to leave these starting zones until you are well past level 15, so keep this in mind when creating your bank character.
Stormwind is the capital of the Alliance and the financial center for its factions' players. In Stormwind, you will find a pair each of banks and Auction Houses, one in the Trade District and one in the Dwarven District. While the Trade District's location is more traditional, the Dwarven District's bank and Auction House, having been added in the Cataclysm expansion, are preferred by many players because of their location in a low-traffic area (and thus easier on a player's computer) and because of their proximity to the portals to Pandaria and the Cataclysm zones.
As the financial hub for the Horde, Orgrimmar is a popular location for Horde bank alts. Like Stormwind, Orgrimmar has two Auction Houses conveniently located in the Valley of Strength and the Valley of Honor. Many players prefer the quieter Auction House in the Valley of Honor.
The new hubs added in Mists of Pandaria have a lot of amenities, including access to Trade Chat, that make them popular with players. There is no Auction House unless you are an Engineer. However, only basic engineering is required to access the Auction House, so if you want to put in the time it takes to get to level 5, the level requirement for all professions, it can be a convenient location, especially since the mailbox, bank, and Auction House are all just steps away from each other.
If you are not worried about having to conduct face-to-face trades (because you can get everything you want at the Auction House), you might want to consider a more strategic location, such as the bank on the Terrace of Light in Shattrath.
The following screenshot shows the location of the bank on the Terrace of Light in Shattrath City:
This bank offers both Horde and Alliance Auction Houses, mailboxes, vendors, banks, and guild bank access, all under the same roof. As an added bonus, Shattrath is almost deserted now that its expansion, The Burning Crusade, is over. So those with computers that have trouble with heavily populated cities will find it much easier to operate here, as less-populated areas tend to be easier to handle on old or underpowered computers.
This final attribute isn't as important as the others if you aren't going to level the alt, but it's still something that should be kept in mind. Many players are completists and will want one of each class; such players should opt for a class they know they don't like playing and likely wouldn't want to level.
On the other hand, if you are going to be leveling the alt or retiring a character that has already been leveled, some classes have advantages over others in the gold-making game. Mages can not only create portals to other capital cities in their faction, they can also get Blink, an ability that transports you a short distance fairly early on and can be used to shave those precious seconds off your time. Hunters get Disengage, a similar ability. Rogues and Druids not only get Sprints (Worgen Rogues and Worgen Druids get two each) but they also have passive speed increases (in cat form for Druids) to make the trips between the Auction House and the mailbox shorter.
There are two schools of thought in the gold-making community with regard to whether you should remain anonymous or associate your bank alt with your other alts. Basically, you have the option of either keeping your gold-making life separate from the rest of the game (raiding or pvp, for instance) or to mix business and pleasure, so to speak.
Remaining anonymous simply means keeping the identity of your banker separate from the identity of your main characters; you can still build a name for yourself while remaining anonymous, though admittedly it's harder to balance. There are many benefits to maintaining separate identities or anonymity:
You can conduct business as ruthlessly as you want, without risking backlash in other aspects of the game. You're going to make enemies in this business; no sense letting them interfere with the rest of your game.
Another issue that could arise if you don't maintain anonymity is the issue of your friends / guild mates / fellow raiders, or whatever, begging and freeloading from you once they find out. People will also use your wealth as an excuse to try and rip you off, deny you of loot in raids, and more.
If you keep your bank alt out of your main guild, you're free to create your own guild for extra storage space via the guild bank (more on this a little later).
Before the advent of Battle.net and battle tags, you couldn't be found on alts unless you wanted to be found. Now, however, you can be followed not only across toons but factions and servers as well. While remaining anonymous can no longer totally prevent intrusions from your social circle, it can cut down on them significantly.
If competitors know your other alts, they can add them to their friends' list and see what you're doing elsewhere. If they see you going into a raid, they know they have several hours free of interference from you on the markets.
Keep in mind that some players might not only find they don't need anonymity, but also that it might work against them. Here are some reasons you might not want to—or be able to—remain anonymous:
If your banker is also a crafter (that is, you've leveled him and are actively using him to produce goods), being in an active guild with full guild perks can mean increased production and thus increased revenue. Your competitors are definitely going to pick up every advantage they can find; you may as well, too.
If you want, or need to be, reached at all times while you're in the game, even to those not on your RealID friends' list or battle tag, you may need to have your bank alt's name available to them.
Obviously, if you feel the need to have your identity in the financial world linked to whatever other activities you partake in, you won't want to hide who your banker is. It is possible to gain a great reputation on a server, and you can use this to your advantage.
Finally, here are some tips to keep your bank alt identity a secret. Some of these tips are more extreme than others, so feel free to follow them at your discretion depending on your security needs.
Don't give your RealID or battle tag out like candy. The more people who can track you, the less secure your identity is. Best practice here is to add only the people you actually know in person.
Don't flaunt your gold-making activities; this will only incite curiosity and potentially lead them to start sniffing around and identifying you. Similarly, don't flaunt how much gold you have.
Remember that, just because you recognize them, it doesn't mean they recognize you. Keep up your cover when doing business with players you know.
Avoid doing your crafting or other work while grouped with others, such as between raid pulls; this will tip others off that you're a potential competitor.
Don't announce when you're switching to your bank alt; this makes it harder for them to confirm who you are.
If you have a second account, place your banker on this account. If you can be logged in on two characters simultaneously, they'll have no way of proving who you are.
Break naming conventions when naming your bank alt. If you have the habit of keeping alt names similar (having "Lec" or "Morbid" in all your names), avoid doing this for your bank alt.
Start with a fresh character; don't assume people won't remember an obscure alt or won't have them on their friends' list.
Once you have your bank alt selected and run to your city of choice, it's time to get the character ready to handle your future gold-making enterprise. Since bank alts are mostly used for storage, mailing, and posting auctions, we will be focusing on ways to optimize these aspects.
Since most of your bank alt's time will consist of carrying goods around (mailbox to Auction House, mailbox to bank, and bank to Auction House being your most frequent trips), being able to carry more items at a time can drastically cut down on the number of trips needed, thus saving you time. Each character's backpack starts with a base, 16-slot bag with 4 additional bag slots. Assuming you use the Royal Satchel, a 28-slot bag, you can potentially expand your carrying capacity to 128 general-purpose slots. However, using the top-end bags can be costly; so when you're starting out, you can use the much cheaper 16-slot Netherweave Bag or the 18-slot Frostweave Bag, giving you 80 and 88 slots of carrying capacity respectively.
Players who tend to move from bank alt to bank alt (abandoning one and setting up shop on another) like to use bags that don't become soulbound on being equipped, and so can be sent from character to character, saving you the cost of replacing the bags each time. The largest of these bags are the Traveler's Backpack that has 16 slots and the Journeyman's Backpack that has 14 slots. If you find these bags during your adventures in Azeroth, be sure to hold on to them as they may come in handy.
It's recommended that you stick with using Frostweave Bags until you find that your storage's carrying capacity has reached its limit. Generally, this will happen once you've started using your third or fourth profession to full effect.
The following screenshot shows the bag bar:
If you find yourself tight on space but storing a large amount of a certain type of material, you can opt to use profession-specific bags. These offer increased space in exchange for limits on what items you can place in them. Currently, the largest bag for most professions has 36 item slots. The bags for each profession are as follows:
Of all the primary profession-specific bags available currently, only the Leatherworking Bags do not have a 36-slot variant. The largest Leatherworking Bag, called Trapper's Traveling Pack, has a capacity of only 28 slots. So if you do a lot of leatherworking, it would be most beneficial just to stick to the Royal Satchel, which has the same capacity but lets you place any class's item in it. Additionally, the only Cooking Bag, the Portable Refrigerator, has only 32 slots to store your cooking materials in.
Beware that not all items involved in a profession can be placed in the bag dedicated to that profession. There are items, either by design or by omission, in several of the professions that cannot be placed in their proper bags. This, however, is more of an inconvenience than anything since the items are usually vendor items or other parts that you will not need to keep in stock anyway.
As the name suggests, a bank alt does a lot of banking; this in World of Warcraft means holding items until they are needed (either for use or for sale). Every character gets a bank accessible from any city that features a basic 28 slots of storage; this can then be expanded with up to seven bag slots (each unlocked for a relatively small fee). Assuming that you opt for the largest all-purpose bag, which is the Royal Satchel with a 28-slot capacity, and fill all seven bag slots with them, your bank capacity is expanded to 228 slots of general-purpose storage.
Note
Banks as storage are an excellent use for profession-specific bags since they are typically used for the long-term storage of multiple items. Consider arranging your storage system so each character takes on a different class of items; this lets you fully make use of the extra storage granted by profession-specific bags.
It's not uncommon for players to make use of every single character on their roster for extra banking space and, in fact, it is recommended as it is an excellent, cost-effective storage solution. Many players have alts that they don't do much with anyway, and thus they have smaller storage requirements for their day-to-day activities; this means more storage space is available for your gold-making enterprises. Assuming that there is a maximum of 11 characters per server, this means you can store 2508 items in banks alone.
When you find that one bank can't hold you any more, you can seek alternative banking options, mainly guild banks. For a bit of gold, you can quickly get enough signatures to form your very own guild. If you are unsure about the process of forming a guild, you can find a guide at http://xsinthis.net/guides/creating-a-guild-in-world-of-warcraft, which will walk you through the process of creating a guild.
From there, you can immediately start buying bank tabs; you can buy up to 6 tabs without unlocking guild achievements. Each tab has 98 slots; so with 6 tabs, a fresh guild bank can expand your storage capacity by 588 item slots, bringing your grand total of storage capacity to 816 item slots of general storage on one character—certainly a fearsome amount.
When worse comes to worst, you can resort to leaving items in the mailbox as a pseudo-storage. Standard mail will wait in a character's mailbox for up to 30 days before it will be returned to the sender, at which point it stays there for 30 days before finally being deleted. This means that, in a bind, you can store items in a mailbox for up to 60 days before you have to do anything with them, and usually you can just mail them back and restart the 60-day process. Since the mailbox has infinite storage (you can only see the latest 50 items), you can theoretically make use of unlimited storage for next to nothing.
Things to be careful of when using the mailbox as a storage solution:
It's easy to forget about mail on a derelict alt. So make sure you check your alts at least every 30 days! Certain add-ons, such as Altoholic, have features that will remind you of expiring mail.
There have been reports of items (in mailboxes) being lost, usually on patch days. Try to get all your items into proper storage whenever you can, and use the mailbox only as a last resort to avoid any mishaps with disappearing items.
As in any business endeavor, chances are if you do well you're going to tread on some toes, intentionally or otherwise, and make a few enemies. These enemies will, obviously, take a dislike to you and will, from time to time, express their displeasure with you via in-game mail or even whispers.
When this happens, it is suggested that you remain cordial with them at all times. These players are angry; if provoked, they can be problematic for you. While it's a big server with lots of players, certain individuals will take it upon themselves to try and destroy you. Just remember to stay calm and in most cases you can go about as usual.
Remember these guidelines while dealing with competitors, at least at the beginning as you're getting your bearings straight:
Be as polite as you would be in the office
Don't wage your own wars against anyone
Avoid any malicious actions against the market
Be humble
If you stick to these guidelines, you should have no trouble dealing with other players.