Architect Archive
Thread: Anyone have suggested pricing for new structures?
Dayln,
It isn't a "business advantage" buddy. I run over 100 heavies on bloodfin and pull in over 1 mil resources a day (day, not week) Trust me, I harvest plenty at .3 cpu as well. The above poster had it right. I am talking about big operations. Please also read that Chimera link so you can get my full explanation. My point is (like the sbove poster stated and you are ignoring) is if you run out of stuff and have to buy off the open market. And yes, I still fail to see why in the world you bother spending your time making things when you can sell the raw resources for the same price!?!?! Why do that?? Do you not care about the hours you spend/waste in your real life? I do.
Bah no edit anyway, to stay on track....pricing
Summary:
1. Pricing architect products is like pricing any other thing. You should be sensitive to what the market is willing to pay, and how much profit you are shooting for.
2. Prices will vary, (sometime greatly) to which galaxy you are in, as supply and demand are different. For example, on Ahazi, 2 big architect players are retiring their profession, (limiting supply) which will increase demand of buildings and structures overall. So get a "feel" of what things are selling for by asking folks, or seeing what the "big dogs" in your galaxy charge.
3. There is no such thing as "price gouging" in a free market. SWG is a free market, there are no restrictions on pricing. Therefore, market price can be defined as what someone is willing to pay for something. For example, holocrons go for 6 mil. Is that gouging? No, since that is what someone is willing to pay for one. If no one was willing to pay 6 mil for one, then the price would drop. So someone offers to pay you a city hall for 1 mil. Bang, theres your market price.
4. Inflation - Whether you realized it or not, infaltion is rampant on all servers because of a credit/resource dupe. So theres alot of money out there. SWG fixed this recently, tho. So overall, you should see a slight raise in price for resources, especially energy.
5. To figure out YOUR pricing you can use the 3cr per resource guide and still make money by selling the resource, or making something with it if you mine it yourself. You will come to a wall, however, when your sales volume exceeds your capacity to harvest your own. To counter this, you will need to borrow lots from others, or raise your prices to remain profitable, or get out of business. So for the long haul, as an architect, 3cr per guide is not really a good idea for the average player. As a general guide start with 6 per and go from there would be the best advice I'd say.
Oh no, not a contest, I am a small timer and I know it and am not upset by that, I dont want more harvestors, I want less. ( been working too hard lately )
I only butted in when people started talking aobut thier "business knoledge" as if others ( that are also very sucuessfull ) dontknow what they are doing. Some of us do it differently and we do know what we are doing. There is more than one sucuessful model.
I stopped counting units that went into my products to price at a long time ago, my system has more to do with customer expectations, I try to surpass that while still at a very large profit.
16-25 Harvesters at one time I think does not qualify as small time lol.
It is interesting, though, where the 3 cpu "standard" came from. From what I can tell it came from the beta, and kinda carried over to all the servers once the game went live. My opinion, (take it for what it's worth) is that it served well as a starting point, but to use that now is a bit outdated. Each galaxy has grown into different economies by now.
I'll throw out current resource prices on Ahazi just for fun. Note these are minerals only pretty much since all I do mainly is mine these for the architect trade:
Cost to mine:
Minerals: .2-.5 cpu (maint, energy included)
Energy: .01-.08 (maint included if you have a 25 BER fusion you can go sub .01)
Sales:
Ore (any) Low 2.5 cpu High 3.0 cpu (steady)
Metal(any) low 2.0 cpu High 3.0 cpu (steady)
Steel (900+ in all the good stats) Low 3.0 cpu High 6.0 cpu (steady)
Energy (any) Low .5cpu High 1.5 cpu (rising)
Structures
You can get 6 cpu for structures easy. 8-10 cpu is about average. People are offering to buy in the 10+ cpu range recently. Theres alot of money out there in the city market. One guy offered 1 mil for a city hall. Average is 300k . Lots of upward pressure for city structures for some reason.
Harvesters
BER 10 mediums: 60k
BER 13 Heavies: 200k
Prices for anything other than mineral slightly higher.
I've sold all my old BER 10 heavies and 11's (about 20 in all) in the past week, so there's still a demand for sub-13 harvesters. BER 10's fly off the shelf at 30k and 11's do fine at 50k
Furniture/Statues/gardens/lamps
6-20 cpu as you can see these items vary greatly.
So that's the general laydown on Ahazi. Your galaxy may be different :-)
If you're starting out it can be a little daunting at first, because the operating overhead and upfront costs are high. So it will take a little bit to get up there. If you aren't just a holocron hunter and looking to be a competitor as an architect in your world, you go from small harvesters and selling a few strutures a week to a fleet of heavies and your shop(s) and factories on your friends lots and making 6 or 7 digit sales :-) And if you sell a thing for more than you made it you are successful, bottom line.
Dayln,
Once again, I see your point about your model. You still haven't responded to the fact that it makes no sense to sell something you have to work on for the same price as something you don't. When you do that, if lowers the value of the profession. Do you see what I am saying? I know you are increasing your credits, but to me that does not qualify as making a profit. Why not just sell them on the bazaar or forums?
I really don't want to come off as attacking you, and I enjoy this discussion. I didn't list my harvester count to get into a pi$$ing contest. I just wanted to show that I harvest plenty myself, but I still run out of resources. I really just want archs to be all they can be (ask people on my server, I send referals to other archs all the time).
Unfortunately the only thing decaying is the number of people playing SWG anymore. But there are a few new players eveyday.
I have just broken through, so to speak, now that I am finally well almost "master" @ 4.4.4.4. Luckily I'm just in time to take advantage of the Player City market spike though most mayors do seem tohave an architect already. But anyway back to the topic, as I stated already once in this thread, the price for me is not going to be the right price for you. 3cpu is not going to work for an item that you experiment heavily on, most times you are using or trying to use the best sources you can find, lately on Shadowfire there has been some killer steel and ore available in abundance.
So for now I charge 35k for a BER 10 med mineral/moisture vap.
60k for each Med BER 10 chem/flora/nat. gas
if the availability of qualityresources becomes much less my prices maygo way up, who knows? If people don't want to pay them, my stuff will sit the vendor, I'm not about to sell myself short. But for now I can't keep my vendor stocked. In the last week since I finally have my factory up and since I have tried to keep at leasta coupleof each type factory/harvester/home in it, I have been making credits hand over fist over a million credits made since thanksgiving alone.
Everyone has to find their own niche, do what works for you, price your own way, those that have no idea what they are doing, or are just plain greedy are going to price themselves out of business. Who is to say what is the proper business model, hell the "proper model" for me is whatever is going to make money for me.
so basically a a player that is in the game a few hours a day and has no PA to use lots for there mining or doesn't have multiple accounts or swap lots on other server can't compete as an architect in this game, thats just a little sad.
Regardless of what price resources are mined at, an architect will have 7 lots available if he just has he's 2 factories 5 lots if he has a house - so with 5 lots it is going to take him/her alot longer to mine the required resources to make anything yet this same architect is being forced to sell at prices that won't keep him in money to make his way as an architect. I have to buy resources from miners that are currently charging 3 to 4 cpu, yet i find it extremely difficult selling at above 2.5cpu, because people want it cheap all the time, so i either sell to get credits or go broke. lol i still have to run 1800 cr survey missions everywhere i go just to make ends meet.
Just because some people exploit the game system doesn't make it right, or 'good business', I hear so many people using that term, yet they don't know the first think about business practices beyond I'll sell mine lower or I cover my costs.
Until a framework is introduced this problem will continue. Those that exploit the game system will be the only ones able to work as architects and make decent money. Maybe lots should be increase for master crafters, and dropped for those that don't follow a crafting profession as they progress in there advanced career.
Yet if I didn't want to be an architect, i could mine the resources and sell them for between 3 and 10cpu take up a gun and run dant missions at 40k for 30 minutes or playing, i'd be buying towns in a week never mind the 85k large tatooine house 
Face it the game economic system is unbalanced and the changes that are currently being made are making it worse, now an architect can't even sell any of his harvesters unless they areBER 10(20k)and even then a master architect can only hit that one in 4 tries with the current experimentation. Oh yes and as to making schematics - whats the point unless you have millions of the resources used in it, which a person just mining with his/her lots doesn't have !!
I have to say say richflair i'm in agreement with you on this matter.
I am in the game a very few hours a day, if that much. I could do the same thing I do now with 10 lots as I do with 20. Becasue as a low price dealier I dont need to be on-line to make a sale. Once you have a name as a low price dealer the bulk of your orders come in via e-mail. Large PA's and playing non-stop is not the ticket, at least not the way I play it.
My way is not the only way, but I could do it with 10 lots too, it would just take me a little longer. The point is greed, it is greed that kills a lot of architects in my opinion. By doing a very good job and delighting your customers with a low price, you dont ahve to work for your sales, you dont even have to be on line all that much.
I am not saying that my way is the only way, it isnt. There are a lot of sucuessful architects out there that do things very differently than I do. I am just saying that my way is one way that does indeed work, and work well.
I guess that's why I mine mainly, because I like to run around and shoot stuff too.
You don't need a PA to use lots, just ask a combat friend if you can use a few of his for a lot and a struture factory. That frees up your own lots for harvesters, and a house if you want to be in a city.
You can make good credits being a freelance architect, like any crafting profession, you have to build up and take time.
Oh I am sure you model works well for you. I have never claimed otherwise, and to be honest most of my stuff sells for more than 3cpu also, some jsut barely above that however. Most of the srtuff that sells for less than that are smaller itmes ( small houses and such ) that I dont sell much anymore anyway .
But the only point I am trying to make is this, You cant really sell bulk resouces for 3cpu, I certainly cannot sell large quantities of bulk ore at that price on my server. 3 CPU is a fantasy, it is not any kind of hard number. I know I can buy bulk ore for 2cr a unit on my server, but I never do, not when I can extract it myself for less than .3 a unit.
The reality is that I dont count what people buy and sell resources for in my calculations at all. I use that as an advantage, I can price where I need too without worring about the market price for resources. Some ( not all ) other architects worry about it a lot, it is thier limitation.
My goal is not really to make the largest ammount of money that I can with my resources on any one sale. My goal has to do with maintaining market share in a declining market like architect is. I do that by having my characters name be known ( it is not Dayln ) on my server as a good quality low price architect.
I am not running down what you do, or what you are saying, I am sure your model works for you. i just want you to know that my model works for me as well. My character has passed the 7 million mark this weekend and it is showing no signs of slowing. I started my character over a month after SWG was released and didnt get to cash in on the inital boom. Too many architects remember those early days and think that people like m are to blame, what it to blame is the lack of decay.
I do realise that without decay this will eventeually all end. I am a strong supporter of decay in the form of rising pay mantenance either by the age of an extractor, or by how many times it is re-deeded.
My point is not to run down what you do, but I would like you to realise that there are other ways of looking at things. A delighted customer that comes back to me for all thier needs and sends thier friends to me so that I never have to sit and hawk my wares is more important to me than extracting the most cash I can out of a single sale.
( excluse my spelling an typos, Im at work and it is a busy day )
Lol I find it hard to believe you can build the same number of structures with only half the amount of resources coming in, that just seems such a preposterous statement. How do you fill orders with no resources?
If i do not buy my resources, i can not do orders for city hall etc, i do not get repeat business as i couldn't provide in the first place. Sure I can use multiple accounts to get them, i can ask other people in the game to use there's, at the end of the day no resources no orders are made and in business that is bad.
An architect more than any other profession is a slave to the amount of resources he can lay his hands on, my only way of doing this is to buy at 2-4cpu, unfortunately a number of architects beleive it's greedy to charge more than 2-3cpu for there labours, why, i can't explain, common sense and logic has missed them maybe, i wish they would become weaponsmiths and armoursmiths. That way i would get a good weapon or suit of armour for less than 100-200cpu.
Combat professionals can make upwards of 80k an hour, and mine 1000's of resources which they sell at 3-4cpu and if a good spawn maybe 10-20cpu. If greed really came into it I would do that instead, the money is out there in the game so why devalue you time, labour and all other architects in the game. Yes by setting your prices that low it creates an expectation in the game environment that, that is what should be paid for an item. The demand is there, and where demand exsists, then prices go up. (Good Business)
It is not greed to sell at above what resources can sell for in the game, otherwise every other crafting profession except the architect is the devil incarnate. It is economic sense, and believe me it's not good business to sell at below what the market value for resources are. It devalues the game system and makes it harder for all other Novice Architects to work in the profession, unless they sell at below resources costs.
The money is out there, in the pockets and banks of everyone in the game, maybe these low price architects came about from people moaning they have no or little money, well they are probably the ones that stand around asking for everything for free and complain if they have to actually run a mission to buy something. They add nothing to the economy, they help to devalue it, along with anyone that supplies to there demands. You know the type, they can't be bothered to run a few survey missions to buy there training, instead they will spend 3 hours asking other for it. what a waste ! The type that don't tip, etc. etc. We should be giving these people something to work towards in the game not giving them everything in the first week of playing for a few hours a day - is it any wonder people are leaving due to having nothing to do, they already have it all - and nothing else to work towards.
If your way suits you, works for you, thats good, all we ask is that you see the bigger picture, because thats the way its really like out there. By setting a standard, which is what you are doing, it lowers the architect profession and the whole game system.
What I said is that it would have taken me longer, you have to read the entire post.
I control the number of orders coming in by how often I have the title Master Architect over my head. The most interesting thin you said was me seeing the bigger picture, I DO SEE IT, I am not sure others do.
Busines is competitive, the architect business is a declining market, there are fewer and fewer sales for a larger and larger number of architects. This is becasue of a lack of decay, everything we make lasts forever.
Although I do have friends that are architects, do you think I worry one moment about how well their sales are going? Are you kidding, we are competing for a shrinking number of customers.
How much time to you think the people at the Ford company worry about how well the people at Volvo are doing? Do you think they say " hey lets raise our prices so we don’t hurt the people over at Volvo too much".
I am not brining down the professions, the ones that know what business is and how to take a competitive advantage and exploit in on my server are doing very very well ( I know, I talk to them too, and some of them are small 10 lot guys that are doing great! ) others ( even some huge PA types ) are complaining that they cant sell a PA hall to save their lives while I am taking orders for more than 2 a week.
I know I am affecting business, I am not alone, I know others that are affecting it too. As the market continues to decline who do you think will be left standing? Although eventually without decay I know mine will also fail, there is always someone out there willing to compete at a level even lower than I will.
When that day comes I wont complain. The market drives the price, supply and demand, right now demand got a boost because of player cities, but that wont last long. I can feel the wind changing, and am starting to hear the first whimpers from the highest priced architects now.