Architect Archive

You can agree on whatever you want, I know for a fact whatresources cost me. I base my products on that price with a very large profit margin.

You look out for your business and I will look out for mine.

Funny thing is, there's a lot of ways outlined in here to increase your profit margin and keep your customers happy without pissing off the other crafters, but you come accross as a mr know it all that isn't about to listen. You would think that if you could increase your profit, and keep customers and competitors alike happy, than that would be the way to go. Instead your getting defensive because people that actually know buisness AND economy are giving you advice (And to others that read this thread). What are you so defensive for anyways? Seems like the only one here who has something to prove is you.

Isell my small houses for 9k, med's for 50k and lrg for 125k...

Come see me if you need a great house at great prices...

"Wrong, You are holding to a fantasy price while the market fluctuates. There are many companies that tired to do that in the real world in the last few years, they are all out of business because they don’t understand business. When you quit the Architect profession because you wont sell for less than a set price when I continue to make very large profits off my resources that cost me .5 cr each that wont mean you are successful and I am not, quite the opposite."

Dayl, I have been disagreeing with you in a couple of posts. I will try to continue to be civil with you, despite you are wrong on some things.

First off, I want to know how you are "making very large profits" off of a 3 cpu sales. There are two ways to make money. One is to sell few items at a high price, the other is to sell allot of items at a small price. You are not obviously selling few for large, so you must be selling allot for small. Considering the massive quantities, of resources to make things, and the limit of 10 lots per account, and the time that it takes to run, find, empty, maintain those harvestors, all the while with time to craft those "lots of structures", how do you make lots of items, to sell cheap, to make large profits? You have some super harvestors or something?

I really doubt you are making "large" profits, in the true sense of the word. More likely, you are making lots of minimal profits off of many sales that would add up to an average profit at best.

I agree with your comments about market price, and fluctuation, and the value of things. The price is what people are willing to pay, no matter what it cost to make. Where I disagree...

There are two values to these products.

One is what the product is reasonably worth, have been calling this the real price(but perhaps that label belongs on my second item). What I say as reasonably priced, is what an above poster mentioned about the 3cpu. Building and selling at or below that is unreasonable, you can get the same or better price by doing nothing with the resource.

The other is the price people are willing to pay. This is the unreasonable price IMO. Mostly through undercutting by grinding architects and general lack of understanding by the customer, you are stuck at this price. If the average buyer's IQ isn't able to reason out that large quantities of resource = large quantities of credits, then you are screwed. If your customer base talks like this, "(*bleep*) man.. you sux, that is way overpriced, I have a buddy that sells them for half that", then you will be selling for crap. Why? 1) there is usually no foundation or reason other than so and so sells for less.. 2) You can tell they are stupid because they are BAD liers. If so and so sells for less, why are they sending me a tell?

Basically Dayl, you are part of the problem. Like I said previously... while undercutting and the like may be profitable business, that does not mean it is good, moral, ethical business. It is cuthroat and many people don't like it, including me.

It all sums up to...

I do not like the current situation, I consider the tactics, undercutting, and customers(most of them not even old enough to own a credit card, let alone understand any business principles) ignorance, very distasteful and profession ruining, I in no way want some sort of artificial control.

If you want to sell for below cost of materials(regardless of what you say, the reality is, that currently, the CHEAPEST resources are 3 cpu), you are not doing the Architect profession any good. Other architects are going to resent your business practices, and you are seeing it here.

From what I can tell, considering you are just ONE of many opinions here(yes, your is just like an opinion like many others), you appear to be in the minority. Since I assume that you are just as intelligent as many of the other posters, and those other posters disagree with you, it is safe to say that you are at least partly wrong.

Just wait until expansions come out. Every architect will quit and go to something else. Even if you want a house you can't get one because noone sells them. Yea I know I'm dreaming, but honestly more crafting professions will help this problem. Architects will always be the lowest selling crafter because of very very few repeat sales and virtually no decay. I don't see them ever changing this and personally I don't want them to. I don't want resources spend on saving this profession when they could be spent making sure new professions don't end up like this.

Vehicles and starships mainly. Both are big ticket items if done poorly would be a 1 time purchase and the person never goes to a crafter again. If that is the case those will be just like the architect.

I just recently rasied all my prices a few nights ago. I used to charge 3.5 cpu only because I felt that was the best I was going to get. I have now raised my prices to 5 cpu for every structure.

Yes that means I sell a small house for 15k. I get many laughs, I also still have been doing well on sales. Some people compleley understand and know that I offer excellent service and run a shop that will be around and in stock until I stop playing.

Some morons just want their deal. If they are not a repeat cutsomer, my prices are firm. I don't even bother trying to explain to them anymore. I don't need to justify my prices. I charge a "FAIR" price. I will just sell the resources if i need money, which I don't. I also sell other products that I make a signifigatly higher profit margin on so I am at an advantage on that front.

I truley feel sorry for all these independant architects trying to make a living out there. The only thing I can suggest to you is stand your ground. Offer good reliable fast service and stick to your prices.

just ignore dayln,

he got no real clue about business, hes thinking he makes profit, yes he might do, but he could do way more easier, all hes doing is destroying the economy.

i am sure he quit architect just some day when he wont sell every day ahouse, and this time will come no matter what.

in my real life company a guy like him would get fired quick, cause of missing understanding of business.

and yes i run a company in real life.

daryl i dunno what you do in real life, but for sure you are not a businessman.

we dont sell as architects consumer product here, tatsa big point you missing.

your calaculation would work just fine if you would have a unlimited supply of orders each day, but you will not have that here.

Sorry, I know this off topic, but I had to.

For what it's worth Dalyn, I apologize for my previous post. I lost my cool and made it into a personal attack that should've never happened. There will not be a repeat. I still don't agree with your methods, but that's your choice, so I'll leave it at that. I may still debate with you on the topics, but never again will they become personal attacks like others that flame/troll. That's not me. My apologies.

Gla1ve

I appreciate that, don’t worry about it. I know that I can be abrasive and that I hold a view that many don’t understand, business reality is not always pretty. The only difference you and I have is that it does not concern me how my business affects my competitors. How much time do you think that Ford worries about their business hurting Volvo?

I would wager not one second.

That does not mean that I am not interested in improving the architect class as a whole, I do. But I draw the line at changing my business practices so other architects get some more of my customers, I wont do that, I don’t know any business that would do that.

I have nothing to prove, but there is a general resentment on these boards about people that sell for less, I am not really one of them as many people point out. My prices are not at all very much lower than others and some even think my houses are over priced ( chuckle, not on my server Posi, but I will check again to make sure, I was wrong back once in 1977 LOL ).

But I decided to champion the free open market which a lot of people here seem to be against.

I think everyone has a right to set their own price regardless of a perceived market value for resources.
I think that price fixing ( like OPEC did yesterday ) is bad for business, that is illegal in the US. Selling for less than your competition while still making huge profits is NOT illegal in the US.

It does surprise me that some seem to get that backwards.

gah.. house prices.

I hope they make more sense on your server than mine.

I have made all of 4 houses in my entire career... and they were all for friends.

The prices on Eclipse just aren't worth wasting my resources on.

I was sort of joking about your prices being too high (as i hope you realised), but on Eclipse you might well have trouble selling at them. I frequentlly see housed being sold in the 1.5 to 2 cpu range. Even you dont price that low

Jjust a freindly observation....I noticed something about your post which mightbe causing some of the friction.

You wrote...

"I hold a view that many don’t understand, business reality is not always pretty"

This makes it sound as though you think no-one else knows anything about business, and Im sure you are not that nieve. You simply have a different way of looking at some issues that others do.. which doesn't mean thattheir way must be wrong, or that your way better represents reality.

Anyway..

It seems to me that theforum has been alot more civilised lately... but maybe thats just my imagination.

Ok Posi... lets take that one point.
I responded to a post yesterday where someone said that anyone that does not price they way they do is a idiot. I don’t see you posting to that person that he is abrasive and ill manered. Why not?
I don’t say that, I do not claim that people that do not price my way are idiots.
The reason I get the heat, is because I show them reality, Business is in fact war ( I will mention Wal mart in a moment )

The problem here is that others flame and bait and call others names, when I hold the opposite view and base it on actual business ( who do work to beat the competition very hard ) and people scream at me.
I will gladly say that I do know more than many here do about business, it is obvious that I do. It is obvious to me that you do also. ( ok I flame a little too, im not perfect )

But the guy that says that selling for less than your competition while reaping vast profits and attracting more customers is bad business is dead wrong.

I know business that would make more money tearing down their offices and opening a parking lot, but they love what they do and so they refuse to just make the fastest and easiest buck. They aren’t bad businessmen, they are passionate ones, and they are successful.

I think a lot of the misunderstanding here is that most are seeing things from an economy perspective where when more buisnesses prosper, everyone prospers. You're looking at things from a buisness owners perspective where when more buisnesses prosper your buisness doesn't prosper as much as it could. I can understand that, but it can be a difficult concept to grasp. (I usually get concepts right away whereas this one I had to read 3 times lol)

Maybe with the above statement you can see my POV (If you didn't before)where I think I follow yours now. Total opposite ends of the spectrum

The more I think about it, the more I realise just how many RL companies utilize tactics like kickbacks and undercutting. I guess that's where the line is drawn for thisgameto bejust a game since there's no real risk involved other than running out of customers at the time being from saturation of non-consumables. Hard to have a price war when no one can "go out of buisness".

I think a good comparison between yourself and others is that of a conglomerate versus the mom and pops. The big CO will have no problem doing the things your doing because it's established and just furthering its hold on the share of the market it controls whereas the mom and pops are still struggling to get a share of that market. No one ever said it would be fair.

As for the ford guy worrying about the volva...I couldn't agree more. Now the chevy guy and ford guy...that might be a different story It's no coincidence when the CEOs from chevy, ford, and AMC have a yearly forray at undisclosed locations and have been doing so for the past 15+ years....too bad no videos or trascripts of the "meetings" have ever been produced.

Gla1ve,

Oh I see your point of view, I do understand it, I just don’t agree with it from a business owners perspective. I wont raise prices so you get more of my customers.

Do you know why Chevy and Ford meet at undisclosed locations? Because what they are doing is illegal, it is called price fixing.

How upset would you get ( or are ) if gas companies all got together and decided to raise gas prices, that is what OPEC does, it is illegal in this country.

The free and open market is what business should be, business competing to provide better quality products to the customers. The customers are who we work for.

I am all for experimentation by the way, we need more diversity, part of the problem is that my low cost structures are every bit as good as others high priced structures. I wish that was not true for a game perspective. I would make it more real if my products weren’t as good as the higher priced ones. I might have to change a lot of what I do and how I look at it. it would open up whole new worlds. I might change hats faster than you can blink and be on the other side of many arguments.

But I guarantee you that I will never loose my taste for competitive business.