Architect Archive
Thread: 8k for a medium house! Holocrons and the State of Things
I can't believe some of you people actually buy your own lines of bs -- "woe is the architect profession, everyone is undercutting prices (but I have8 mil in the bank and tons of resources)".
Yes, some of us sell for less than you would... and do well. I'm not looking to stockpile ultra-millions of credits. I am looking for a fun game where I can make things that others want and will pay for.
Ore prices are 3 cpu from the bazaar and 2 cpu from resource merchants on Scylla. Actually, any material basically can be had for those prices except energy- which runs for .375 cpu, and extremely high quality items which can be 6- 10 cpu. Yes, weaponsmiths and the rest can command higher per resource prices for their products but they ALSO havea lot more specialty resources they need. Other than our Master level furniture, we HAVE NO SPECIAL NEEDS. I like making sales, and do it often - with no need to overprice my items. And if that undercuts your sales - well, too bad... Maybe you should realize the effect of competition.
p.s. Yes, I sell a more vauable item to my customers for the same or less price ( 90k for a heavy harvestor )than others sold the old item. My customers have noticed, they are telling thier friends who to buy from. 
And I am makinggood money from doing so, therefore I am not about to stop. Now over 80% of my sales are via e-mail. Thye dont ever look for a Master Architect anymore, they just E-mail me. Nightmare isnt it?
Too bad I am limited in lots or I would justtake over.But you cant have everything.
1) You are eroding the market for normal architects who cannot match your resource production. I happen to have 70 lots to draw upon, but you're poor business practices are still a blight on our profession.
2) Your business is not actually working very well. As stated in my post, I worked less, used less, and made more profit than you did last week. The fact that you have 2mill in "assets" is not indicative of a succesful business. The fact that if you were selling at 5 cpu (and much higher for experimented harvesters) you would have 6 million in the bank continues to escape you. I have roughly 12 mill in assets and I started 9 weeks ago.
3) The spectacular spellingin your 2nd to last post contributed significantly to my accusation of your stupidity. The forum includes a spell-checker usable by IE 5.5 or better. If you aren't using a browser which supports spell check, please switch to one. Seriously. Readingyour post was painful. Look at it!
p.s. You cannot sell bulk resources on my planet/server for 3cr a unit. That is a fantasy, there is no hard price for resources.
I might be able to make more money selling resources, but fast money is not my goal. My goal is to sucuessfully work the architect market in Buildings and instalations with a little furnature on the side. This is a chalanging goal is architect is a popular profesion and it is a dying market.
I could make more money buy dumping architect all together, and going weaponsmith. But I am not interested in that either.
So far I am doing very well againt the goals I set formyself.
4) Charging your customers more than the cost of raw resources is "gouging" them?
5) You are stupid.
Serbinator,
While I don't personally price my product the way that Dayln does I understand completely why he does it.
Like you I prefer to sell a smaller amount for a greater margin... but the only reason is that I want to restrict the work i have to do. My access to resources isn't quite as good as his, so I have to be carefull n ot to generate more sales than i can keep up with.
To call someone stupid just becasue they follow a different sales model is both rude and naive. If I sold at his prices I am certain I would make money... how much would depend entirely on wether I could obtain enough resources to keep up with the higher demand. But as he was kind enough to point out that he has over 2M creds I think it's obvious that it is working for him.
Perhaps for Dayln gathering 263K of resources was easier than it is for you to gather 81K?
Perhaps on Dayln's server (never have managed to get him to tell me which one 
) raw resources are worth alot less, and therefor readily available on the open market.
There are far too many variables for any of us to judge which is the "Best" was to do business. I say everyone should play in a way which gives them enjoyment. I don't honestly believe any of us is a big enough player to screw up the economy for everyone else.
You might consider that the "Lower" (not lowest, as dayln isn't all that low) priced Architects can be a good source of supply for you if you growyour businessenough. I have purchased over 2 million creds in structures from other architects in the last 2 days. I trust they made a good profit from the sales, and I expect to make a reasonable margin on the structures over the next few weeks. I am hopeing that I can continue to place orders with the same suppliers (architects).
Some people are good at the sales and marketing end of the business... some are better at the production end.... and a few are good at both. Don't judge others unless you can be sure you know their business better than they do.
(Hey Dayln... Im still here )
Yes, good businesses do have a tendency to drive bad businesses out of business.
You can call me all the names you want, that will get you no where. But you are right about one thing, I am teaching my customers not to accept your prices
But I don’t see that as a bad thing, I see that as more business for me as time goes on.
You could make more money by giving up Architect all together and becoming a weaponsmith, should I call you stupid for not doing that? My goal is NOT to make the most money with the resources I have, if it was I would just sell resources to higher priced architects. My goal is to make a successful and profitable business in a dying market like housing and installations. So far I have been doing very well against my goal, I have no interest in selling my resources, I prefer working for my customers to get them the best value products and a low price ( I am not the lowest price, but they till me I am the most consistent and reliable low price dealer they have worked with )
I know who I work for, I work for my customers that give me the money
Whether you think I am stupid or not is meaningless to me, I dont care what you think, it is what my customers say about me that is important to me. I know what they say by the conversations I have had with others that have been refered to me.
Posi I was getting worried about you, I have had to argue with the kids becasue you werent avaliable to argue with 
The only real argument her is perspective, They want the most money out of every sale, I want a lower profit out of every sale but more sales in the futures from that same customer and his friends.
I can settle one thing, I probably could make more money just selling the resources, not much more though, but I dont see the fun in that, I prefer working with my customers, and I enjoy what I am doing.
There are business models which are intelligent, and those which are not. The Wal-Mart concept (which Dayln is employing) is based on a premise of high-volume, low margin. Dayln is sticking to this method, and you might be tempted to consider this a viable business model-- and you would be wrong. High volume, low margin requires high volume! However, Dayln is not capable of producing more volume than any other random architect. He/she is restricted by lots available. His/her prices are so low, that it makes it impossible for him to enhance his volume by purchasing resources.
Conversely, I can match his volume at a higher margin. More than twice his margin on my basic harvesters, and4-7 times his margin on experimented models. Is his output going to be 4-7 times greater than mine to compensate for his low margin? No, it's not... he doesn't have 4-7 times as many lots as I do. Furthermore, I can afford to buy resources to meet higher demand, and he cannot. He's not taking business from me, I sell every structure I bother tomake, and like I said previously, I'm using 70 lots. What Dayln does not realize is that he's not actually taking business from other architects, he's merely taking profit from himself.
LOL MY business model is based on real world successful businesses.
Try again....
You are right about 1 thing, the one thing that keeps me ( and those like me, there are a lot of us ) form taking over, our lot limitations. However as everything we make lasts forever it sort of comes to the same thing. As there are going to be fewer and fewer customers for our products in the future, the game to me is to grab a larger and larger share of that declining market on my planet/server.
So far I am doing very well, I am please with my profits, I don’t care what you think of my profits or my model. I do know my customers are pleased.
So there isn’t a problem..... right?
Serbinator,
As I said, I don't follow Dayln's business model.
That doesn't make that model "Stupid", or "Wrong".
You are correct when you point out that the "Wal-Mart" model requires relatively unlimited supply of raw materials. As I said.. my material supply is the reason that I don't (Can't) follow that model.
However, there is also alot more to the game than just making money. Heck, if I was driven primarilly by money I would't "Give Away" the enormous number of structures, creds, etc that I do.
It looks to me as though Dayln is having alot of fun playing the way he is, while making enough money to do whatever he wants to. That sounds like exactly the way everyone should be playing.... maximise"Fun".
It looks to me as though your fun nis derived primarily from "money", and by that measure you are also having "Fun"... ergo, you are both playing the correct way.
For the record (since I changed my sig to list me as a Merchant), I am a Master Architect who started playing late (no PA backing, no 100% Factory XP etc) and sold zero structures prior to hitting Master. I have <20 lots to use (and had only 10 until Master).
Based on your post of your "Worth", I could (if I was being un-charitable) say that your business model must stink. I have cash and assets of aprox 3 times what you gave, andgot there with barely 30% of the lots. However,since I don't happen to believe in the "Mine is Bigger than yours" school of game style measurement I will simply say thatI have an alternative style ofplay which nets me more than my required amount of "Fun" per dollar spent. Money barely figures into my calculation of Fun, though it cerainly helps to entertain me by allowing me to do other in-game things that I enjoy.
ahh PosiTec thank god for you. A sensible post! I understand your points about "fun value" vs. "valid business model." They are far more clearly stated than Dayln's points (if that is, in fact, what he/she is trying to say).
Not to be rude or sarcastic, but you're sig says "Mechant" instead of "Merchant." Just pointing our your typo.
As for your considerable assets, you only further prove my point about Dayln's business model being inneffective.
As for the "fun" he has, he is either ignorant, stupid, or has no social conscience. His business "strategy" of costing himself massive amounts of SWG money for "fun" is costing many other architects on his server to *not* have fun. He's not driving them out of business; he's just forcing them to endure hours of arguing to secure even a marginally good price of 4cpu for their goods.
Posi you hit it right on the money
You are in fact the only person that has ever convinced me to raise a price on something, although you probably don’t know it. You once posted a price for a PA hall, that surprised me, I started checking around and found what others were selling them for.
After that I totally re-vamped my prices on everything and started to totally ignore the cr per unit going into a product except as to check to make sure I am still making a solid profit. You don’t deserve all the credit, but you did get me thinking one day, for that you have my profound thanks.
In retrospect my model resembles the real world even more than it did before. Thanks in part to you.
I am having a blast, and my PA is happy as can be with what I have done. 8 out of every 10 cr in the PA treasury was placed there by me. However now that one of my partners has made master weaponsmith I expect that to no longer hold true.
Serb, You are not going to understand it, I give up.
My goal is not to drive anyone out of business, but my goal is not to protect your business either. Neither of those things plays any part in my model. My goal is to continue to capture as large a market share as I can in a declining market.
However after these last few posts, I don’t expect you are going to understand it... ( srug ) I tried, and more politely then you did too.
Im going to continue to have fun at what I do, my business will continue to be successful, and I will never again sit in a town and advertise ( not that I ever did that much ). My customers will continue to seek me out
You, sir, need to study some basic economics. You cannot "capture as large a market share as I can in a declining market" because you cannot produce more goods than other architects. You therefore, cannot sell more goods. Other architects can afford to buy resources can sell more goods and thus, capture more market share.
Dayln wrote:
My goal is not to drive anyone out of business, ...
You are doing this. Please consult the threads involving depressed architects. Lowballers/undercutters (you) are probably the most mentioned item.