Architect Archive
Thread: Hi I am a Merchant I want your business......
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Rurry
Fri Aug 20, 2004 8:15 am
#14
I don't think that I will ever do merchant business as anything but a side line. Many crafters, like myself, like the customer relations aspect of our crafting. Part of being a good crafter, to me, is dealing with the end user and working with them. I am NOT a factory, I am a master architect, who works with customers to make them happy.
ZenDragonMLS
Fri Aug 20, 2004 9:02 am
#15
I put this set of thoughts in another thread one time but it seems appropriate now.
We are asking the question about game mechanics, and that's fine. But the *real* issues at the heart of this are:
1. What is your business model?
2. What are ALL the tasks that must be done to have that business model succeed?
3. What of those tasks can be done by someone other than you (the crafter)?
THEN
4. What game mechanics would help support that division of labor?
A weaponsmith with an established name who wants to produce and sell a high volume of standard weapons (no special orders) has a radically different business model than someone who focuses on lower volume "high touch" (e.g., decorating consulting) products. The first one will pay good money to have someone place a vendor in the 5 highest traffic malls in the galaxy and keep them fully stocked. The second one only needs a "pickup" vendor for special orders to named customers.
So when people post here about the "mechanics" that they want, they are *really* trying to articulate their business model in terms of the mechanics that they think they need to support that model.
That's why looking at a simple list of game mechanics may not bring much "wisdom", and trying to prioritize that list may be impossible. When architect X says "I need an ABC and a DEF feature", it *may* be the case that they need both of those in order to make their business model work.
We are asking the question about game mechanics, and that's fine. But the *real* issues at the heart of this are:
1. What is your business model?
2. What are ALL the tasks that must be done to have that business model succeed?
3. What of those tasks can be done by someone other than you (the crafter)?
THEN
4. What game mechanics would help support that division of labor?
A weaponsmith with an established name who wants to produce and sell a high volume of standard weapons (no special orders) has a radically different business model than someone who focuses on lower volume "high touch" (e.g., decorating consulting) products. The first one will pay good money to have someone place a vendor in the 5 highest traffic malls in the galaxy and keep them fully stocked. The second one only needs a "pickup" vendor for special orders to named customers.
So when people post here about the "mechanics" that they want, they are *really* trying to articulate their business model in terms of the mechanics that they think they need to support that model.
That's why looking at a simple list of game mechanics may not bring much "wisdom", and trying to prioritize that list may be impossible. When architect X says "I need an ABC and a DEF feature", it *may* be the case that they need both of those in order to make their business model work.
Manipulative
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:36 am
#16
For a while, I tried to play a true merchant. I had master arch and master merch, and was only using 2 vendors for arch (furniture and deeds). So I decided to create a mall, and joined with several other ppl. I used3 of my remaining vendors for resources, and it was in the resource game that I played merchant. I bought resources in bulk (or my own harvested stuff), and then resold for a profit.
The problems I recognized that a normal merchant would face were #1 capitol. How does a novice merchant get a few million credits, to go buy a bunch of stuff in bulk, so that they can resell it? Would a crafter just give a merchant stuff and then count on getting paid in arears?
Problem #2 was inflation. For me to play merchant, I had to price some of my resources a tad higher than market price, because the person I bought it from often wanted market price. So instead of 3 cpu minerals, I was 3.2 cpu. Most ppl didn't really care, but some will.
Problem #3 was low margin. A crafter typically has pretty high margins. Say 3-10cpu, typically, for your "normal" stuff. My merchant was lucky to make.5-1 cpu. That's very low margin. And volume wasn't enough to make up for it. A couple dog sellers and the merchant can burn all their capitol in a real hurry, unlessthey dramatically increase the problem faced in #2 by tacking on a very significant amount of inflation.
And then the new merchant mechanics have this going against it:
New Problem #1a. Every serious crafter, due to the item limits, can practically use up a single merchant's item storage. That means we are going to have to see a heck of a lot more master merchants out there, and soon.
New Problem #2a. Many "crafting professions" get no vendors at all. I'm talking about CH, BE, Doc, and CM. These professions make stuff, and often exploited the ability to place vendors and then drop the skills. This means even more demands for even more merchants. Now, I'm not saying the exploiting was good. And personally, I have never exploited a vendor (either as a storage means, or having vendors without the skills), but I'm sure I've been the recipient of someone else's exploits, at many, many of the vendors I've used.
At any rate, I honestly do not understand how the merchant prof can stand on its own. The economics of it, within the current game mechanics just don't make any sense to me. If there was consignment, I could see it maybe working, except for the fact that you'd need so gosh darn many merchants.
Lordartex
Fri Aug 20, 2004 11:49 am
#17
Manipulative wrote:
........
At any rate, I honestly do not understand how the merchant prof can stand on its own. The economics of it, within the current game mechanics just don't make any sense to me. If there was consignment, I could see it maybe working, except for the fact that you'd need so gosh darn many merchants.
I have always viewed the merchant profession as a secondary profession. Much like Scout. There is nothing insulting or wrong with this. I simply view merchant as a way for me as a crafter to sell my items to the public. Get them out there and create my own business. Much like any small businessman would do.
To be a full merchant I agree with problems cited in this thread already. I have 5 vendors and probably about 1500 items on them. How can a Master merchant handle this and other accounts as well? How will they be able to maintain my pricing and service? They can't. Not unless I seriously drop my profit margins, agree to sell less product so they can take on other crafters, and moniter them to make sure they do "business with a smile". And even then timely orders have to be taken 3rd party.
No, merchant is a complimentary profession. A valuable one, but not a stand-alone one. And neither should it be in my opinion.
Artex
Damaleon
Fri Aug 20, 2004 2:21 pm
#18
In general, the Merchant Class needs an overhaul, including more class specific abilities and perks, to be a desirable. The following, in no particular order, are some ideas I have had, or seen others post and agreed with.
1. Give architectsa new schematic, a Mall, that only Merchant's can place, and do not allow ownership to be transferred to non-merchants.
2.Planetary Vendor Listing - see below
3. Wholesale Market terminal/System - description below.
4. Re-crating/Super-crating
5. a consignment system
Detailed Description of above points:
1. This should have multiple (say 5-8) separate rooms, each with its own outside access and permissions terminal(think strip mall). It would always be a public structure, possibly even a civic building, only usable inside a player city. The merchant could negociate "rent", whether he/she would provide a vendor or furnishings, etc., or if he would give admin permission to a tenant to place their own.
2. A new terminal, craftable by architects and for placement in static and player cities, thatwill allownovice merchantsto advertise their vendorsfor a limited time for a fee (say 10k for 30 days), kind of like a planetary yellow pages.
3. Similar to the bazaar, but limited in scope. Only large quantity items can be listed for sale, like resources > 1k stacks, factory crates, deeds. Minimum of 6k or 10k sale price. Only those with Novice Merchant can bid on items. For selling, each level of artsan business skill allows listing of 5 items, novice merchant and each level of an appropriate merchant skill would add 10 more items to your max (if this is bad code wise, artisans can list 10 items, merchants 40). A possible tie in with Jump to Lightspeed would be to require that anything bought on this would have to be "shipped" either by a freight capable PC's ship, or by paying a NPC "delivery service" a flat fee.
4. Have merchants or architects able to create a consumable tool that will create a crate for items with the same serial number and/or take multiple crates and combine them into a higher capacity crate, a "cargo container" if you will, that has a max size of 100 or 250.It could bea containerwhich would only allow items, with a serial number identical to the first item placed in it, to be added and a radial button to activate, turning it into a crate. For architects, adding an optional component to factory craftingthat would allow 100 or 250 item crates would be nice. You could even make the "cargo containers" increase the cost of spaceport tickets by scanning the inventory before using a ticket and charging an extra 1000 credits per container as a frieght charge (after JtL comes out). You could avoid this charge by having a cargo ship like the YT-1300or astarfighter with a cargo component add-on (like a Tie-Bomber with a converted weapons pod).
5. Allow a crafter tooffer afactory crate (and possibly an item) to a vendor for a flat cost, like a down payment, and a percentage of its sale from that vendor, at a price the merchant and crafter agree too. It could even be similar to the secure trade screen, requiring that both vendor, merchant, and seller be in the same building, with 3 fields, one for down payment, selling price on vendor, and percentage going to crafter when/if it sells. Some way of deciding who gets the item if it doesn't sell and how much the merchant would pay for it, if he gets it, would need to be determined as well, possibly as a couple of radio buttons and another field.
Obviously I don't expect to see this (at least not in the near future). Until something changes though, I will be shouting in the streets of whatever city I am in when I have goods to sell.
Bandola
Sat Aug 21, 2004 4:11 am
#19
Dvnce wrote:
So I ask you again .. What would the merchant profession have to offer you to get you to actually seek out a merchant to sell your wares???.. Because ultamately the goal is to make using another player to be our merchant the most favorable solution.. so .. lets tell SOE what we want ...
Merchant would simply have to be able to offer me the same price as I can get from my own vendor sales, and be able to handle at least the same volume sales as I do today 
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