Contents:
Introduction
Ok, you have your mining and skinning skills together and you're working
them hard. Maybe your opther alts have all the crafting skills, maxed.
You've got a ton of sellable stuff, at leat you hope it'll sell,
and it's time to get the stuff onto the Auction House. So do you stop
what you're doing, run back to town, hope on the nearest bird-like
thing, and fly to the capital city, hit the mailbox, and then the Auction
House, and then travel all the way back to your looting fields?
Or do you just dump it all into the nearest mailbox and send it to
your mule (banker alt) and get right back to the looting/crafting/raiding?
 Yes, there is a better way than flying back to the big city after every loot run. The mule. No, not the four legged kind, which isn’t available in WoW anyway. This “mule” is just another character that you don't bother to level up much. It can also be called your Bank Alt (Alt = Alternate Character.)
The Mule
Simply put, you create the character, level it up to 5 or so, and then run it to the nearest AH where it’ll spend the rest of its career. Why level 5? Because then you can get Enchanting which will allow you to disenchant low level items, which can make a nice cash flow by itself. Or just keep it at level 1 and do the disenchanting on your higher level chars.
Select a name for this character that is easy to remember and type,
because you will be sending mail (items and money) to this character
from all of your other characters on the same server and you don't
want to send your stuff to the wrong character by mistake! Names full
of special characters make mailing stuff to that character awkward.
Names like "Phredd" are good.
I recommend not naming this character something silly. Skip names like, "Bobsbank," "isellstuff," and so on. Just give it a regular name, the random name generator in the character creator is great for this, and don't connect it to your main character at all.
Then add this mule character’s name to the friend list of all your other characters, which will avoid all future miss-sending of mail.
The Big City
Once your character is ready then you run it to the nearest capital
city, such as Stormwind or Orgimmer. Stay on the main road, keep your
eyes open for things that will kill you, and you should be safe enough.
Any big city will do, but Storm and Org make it easier if you want
to buy/sell through the trade channel.
When Cataclysm hits keep in mind that if you want to have Goblin or
Worgen banker you will need to get those characters out of their instanced
starting areas, first. This means that yes, you have to do the starting
stories/quests, and that, yes, you will past level 10 by the time
you make it to the bank.
When your mule arrives in the city you should station it by the mailbox nearest to the AH. Now, whenever your gathering character's inventory is full of good loot to sell you only need to travel as far as the closest mailbox, instead of travelling to the AH.
Horde-side I actually like Silvermoon city, at the west Auction House,
instead of Orgrimmar. There is a mailbox about five feet from the auctioneers,
the bank is nearby, and the crowds are nill. Alliance side I like Stormwind
for the same reasons, except the crowds. Feel free to use whichever
city you prefer.
Send your mule enough money to get started, as it costs money to list items on the AH, and send it everything that isn’t grey. (Grey items are almost always sold to a vendor.)
Usage
 Log into your mule when you're done looting/playing/raiding/PvPing,
etc., and post your items for sale. This allows you to pay attention
to selling when it's AH time and to pay attention to the game when
it's "hack
and slay" time.
Here's your banker after your other characters have sent him all their
sellable stuff =>
One mule can be the central banking station for all your characters on that server. They all send loot to the mule/banker for sale and most of the cash is kept on that character. Need an item? The banker buys it and sends it to the appropriate character. This is my banker/mule character. All the cash stays in one place which makes it easy if I need to send gold or items to one of my characters or to a friend.
This particular character has four 32 slot inscription bags,
though if you're not doing glyphs that won't do you much good. Buy
16 slot bags as soon as you can afford them and then the 20 slot Frostweave or
the 22 slot Glacial bags when you can.
All other gear the mule character might have is then sold or banked (if you ever want to play that character again, perhaps in order to level Enchanting or another skill.)
Extras
Need more space? Consider making your own private guild, with just your banker. Offer gold for signups and then kick everyone when the guild goes live. Buy a couple more guild bank tabs and you will have lots of storage space.
Or buy your guild. Every once in awhile someone sells a guild in the
trade channel, which is where I bought mine. It's easier than running
around and collecting signatures. Well, since you only need 4 signatures
these days just offer 20g for a signup, with the understanding that
you will kick everyone after your guild is official.
Addons for Your Bank Alt
Auctioneer - See our Auctioneer page. Not as essential as it once
was, especially with Tycoon out there, but still pretty nice.
Auctionator - Create shopping lists, easily cancel auctions where
you've been undercut, and more. Pretty nice.
Postal -
makes mailing stuff back and forth easier
Altoholic -
store stuff on your alts and this addon helps keep track of the stuff.
Guild, Bags & Inventory, Mail, Professions, and Quests & Leveling.
Got lots of alts? Then check it out.
Bulk
Mail Inbox - Bulk mail reception made really easy. This addon
allows you to selectively pick mails to open from the inbox, open
all mails with money or open all items. It displays up to 50 items
in one window, with info on each item. This is very nice
if you've made a lot of sales, the window is filled with gold print.
Tycoon - This slick addon is more important than all the others put
together. It'll scan the Auction House, research the economy
on your server, and tell you just exactly what you need
to do to make a ton of gold. It will alos save you a ton or
research end work. Get
yours here.
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