Architect Archive
Thread: For you Crash and Burn Undercutting Architects
Good Luck to you Shakiel - a good and solid plan.
Actually, I enjoy the hassles that selling cheap bring. It sort of replaces combat for me.I find it rewarding to solve the resulting problems and get around the occasional catastrophys - and learn from my mistakes and try to avoid them in the future.
I am slowly building up my buisness and hope like you to have a good stock available for what lies ahead of us.
AliMok wrote:I sell for 300K and, once again, I can't help but get irritated at you architects who complain about people undercutting you. I will never charge what you charge. All of the architects in game who don't even read these boards will not charge what you charge. Thank you for your opinion on pricing once again.
As someone who charges more than you I'd just like to say thanks to you and all the other discount architects out there. The vast majority of the irritating customers refuse to pay my higher prices because of folks like you. This means that rather than having to deal with them griping about the prices and trying to weasel their cost down I can just tell them to go see you when they tell me about your great prices. I am left with not only plenty of time to provide the excellent service my nice customers are willing to pay more for, I also have the resources available to take orders such as the one I took late last night.
All night long I was told my prices were too high. I just laughed as I know that my prices are just right for the market segment I am trying to reach. If my prices were lower these discount shoppers would eat up all my resources and I'd never have been able to fill the rush large house order that came in later in the evening (he paid me 10k extra above my "too high" price for getting the job done in under an hour) and there's no way I would have been able to accept the commission for 3 larges I'll be building tonite if I had used up all my resources making cheap sales.
When you quote your low low prices how many times have you been told about folks like me asking crazy prices? That helps you make your sale if they are only interested in credits. The street runs in both directions, I hear all the time about folks with great prices who may or may not be able to deliver by next tuesday. I hear that from folks buying from me because I can build to order within hours usually anything from a small house to a PA. There needs to be a spectrum of architects to deal with the spectrum of customer needs. Count me as one boutique architect who appreciates you sidewalk discount vendors more and more every day.
Tued the Master Builder
Read the post on Duping. Now we have to wonder why people are making for so much less.
1) Its ridiculous when you hear prices that go under normal resource cost (1.1 - 1.5 per, power, maint, and redeed costs). Its also ridiculous to tell people to hand sample that many resources.
2) Anyone who has been through the process (mainly for hvy harvesters and PA's), suffered through having so very few lots, dealt with insanely rude people, dealt with crate bugs, criticaling on final deeds, and the dreaded power core problems, would never ever talk like all the lowballers I see in these posts.
3) Calculated the per resource cost weaponsmiths and armorsmiths make.
There are onlythree conclusions
1) You are trolling these boards, you are the rude customers and just want to post here cause you got in an argument with an architect and figure pretending like your one and arguing like low proces are the way to go somehow makes you "right".
2) You need the xp and don't understand the significant difference between all architect goods and those that require factories.
3) You simply don't understand how to assign value within the confines of the game.
Ok, tell you what. I've got Master Architect out of the way. I have plenty of cash, and I'm starting to experiment with other crafting professions. Since I'm moderately burned out on the whole architect thing, I will actually RAISE my prices to match whatever the group here feels is right. I will run a little experiment and see if me changing my prices SAVES the architect community and profession. So, all the folks who scream at us for charging less than 5 cr/resource, he's your opportunity to define my pricing strategy.
What should I charge? I'll start it this weekend (other than the 2 deals where I've already agreed to a lower price).
Oh, and Aramyr, I am, sadly, not required to cheat to sell for less than you guys. Sorry, its not that hard to do.
Secondly, I must obviously fit into group #3 since I'm not a disgruntled customer and I'm a master so I don't need the XP anymore. I am so frustrated with myself for not being able to understand both the how and why I need to change my style of play to better fit in with a group of people that have no effect on me whatsoever.
However, see above, I'm going to try so everyone will be happy and find something else to gripe about on the boards.
I personnally do not troll the boards - I just come here to learn. When I read posts like the one that started this I get mad.
The fact that there are no set prices ingame is what makes it fun. This is competition and I am up for it. If you want to raise price to prove a point fine .
I also btw play solo and mine my own resources to make my deeds. In rl I give my time for money. When I play games I give my time for free and get enjoyment from it.
I will go around outbidding all my competitors and if they take it bad then they need go play a game with no competition in it.
I could give em away for free if I wanted (of course I don't). I sell med houses for 45k and large for 85-90k. If people don't like it, tough. Me adjusting my prices to some standard will not save the SWG economy. Stop blaming other architects. If you want to blame anyone, blame SOE for their horrible set-up of the economy.
AliMok wrote:
Um... in real life, I can go to burger joint 1 and get a cheeseburger for $1.99. OR, I can go to burger joint 2 and get an IDENTICAL cheeseburger for $6.99. Which one's gonna go out of business again?
Interestingly enough, there was a burger joint chain for a while that undercut everyone.. they are the one that eventually went out of business while McD's, BK, etc all got more expensive... go figure eh?
I think 500k is a fair price for a guild hall, i remember in beta they were saying that it would end up costing 1mil.
The time and effort, not to mention the maintanance costs is sure worth 500k imo
Hmmm... I was hoping someone would comment on my pricing. I think it's reasonable (3.5 cr p/u), but would have liked to hear other's opinions.
>> Interestingly enough, there was a burger joint chain for a while that undercut everyone.. they are the one that eventually went out of business while McD's, BK, etc all got more expensive... go figure eh? <<
Burger Chef? I loved that place 
They had the whole "fix your own burger" fixing's bar (tomato, pickle, onion, etc.), long before Burger King "did it your way."
I don't think they went under due to pricing. I think it had more to do with advertising.
Kristi Morningstar, Master Architect, Chilastra, Tatooine, near Mos Eisley, House Arcanum
I have been a master architect for some time now. I do not have a guild providing my resources and don't use dupes or cheats. Now that that is out of the way I think you people who want to fix the market at some overinflated price should get a clue.
Collecting my own resource and factoring in risk most housing should be sold from between 2 credits a resource to 3creds/resource. No I don't care that weapons and armour can sell for 20 because quite honestly they are the demand items in this game - not our products. I have always based my prices off of cost of materials and risk - not how much resources sell for but cost to ME. That means that my prices started high when I started out and dropped progressively as I got more efficient - just like the entire architect community should have been doing. I have more than enough credits in this game to pay for my operations for months if need be without selling anything - and I only sell planet specific guild halls for 170k. Yes that is right 170K is all they are worth to me and not only do I sell them consistantly because others want to charge 500k for them but I have customers that walk away satisfied - for once feeling like they haven't been gouged on something.
Now some of you might say - What about the cost of your time? Honestly besides paying up my harvesters and getting my factory running again my time invested is4 to 5 hours a week in this profession. I spend my times in the cantinas socializing or exploring other aspects of the game. Yes this is possible believe it or not. And then for the other most common reason you guys spout for overchargeing - lack of repeat business. This is completely untrue - what most of you fail to remember is there is furniture in the architect tree. This tree is greatly ignored because everyone focuses on the big ticket itembut if you start selling furniture you will see customers coming back to you when they feel like their house needs a new look or when a new living room set has been added to the game and they want to try it out.
So in conclusion instead of coming here and trying to inflate prices (which will never work) go do some math and make a real pricing model based off of your own costs and what you feel is a fair markup. I have done this already and can guarantee I wont be going bankrupt anytime soon and my customer base is getting larger by the day. If you want to compete with me then figure out a way to match my prices and stop whining about how I ruin the economy because my prices wont be changing.
PA halls = 170k => generic = 195k
Large houses 120k
Here's what I charge:
small - 10K
medium - 60K
Large - 100-125K depending on mood
PA Hall - 300K +
I don't sell harvesters at all.
I don't see how those prices are totally unreasonable. I don't think I'm lowballing or trying to drive anybody out of business. I see a lot of people selling for less than me. I make a fine profit on that. The guys selling heavy harvesters for 25K sounds a little fishy, but if they're willing to take that much (and not be cheating) great. I'm not gonna go club them over the head mafia style because they're not listening to what I told them to charge. Hmm... that gives me an idea. Perhaps you guys should band together and call yourselves the Architect Cartel. I know of other "successful" cartels that have banded together to control profit and supply. I wonder if this is how they started?
interesting...