Architect Archive
Thread: Underpricing Archs
Dvnce wrote:
I choose to allow more people to benifet from my business than just me.. I hire Miners to supply me with the resources I need and I pay them 2 cpu to do this.. I am doing just fine in this craft..
I don't do this, but not because I'm greedy and want all the money for myself. When I started my character, I beganharvesting my own resources because I:
a. couldn't ever find a surveyor who had the kind of resources I needed when I needed them, and..
b. couldn't afford to pay even 3cpu at that time - harvesting everythingmyself was the only option to complete the grind to master.
As time progressed, I upgraded my own harvesters until I had a fleet of BER13 heavies. Now I see no point in changing my way of working. Mostly because it often takes me less time to harvest my own resources than it does to find a resource vendor that is actually stocked with the stuff that I need.
I can appreciate establishing a relationship with a surveyor who will survey and mine what you need. That is indeedhow the game is supposed to work, and had I been able to establish such a relationship early in the game, I would likely still be doing business that way. Sadly,I've never had a good experience with availability, and when I consider that,it just seems to make the most senseto keep that aspect of the business under my control, because it's simply too important to trust to someone else who may or may not consider you their first priority. YMMV.
Sevardos wrote:
lmicheles wrote:
I'm paying special attention to this thread because I'm slowly going broke as a new Architect. When I started, I zipped around to the different crafting cities on my server to get an idea of what things were selling for - I was still kinda in the dark because there was a large skew in price ranges. What helped me was that calculator thingy on the other thread. But after reading this post, I'm wondering if I'm STILL charging too little.
I try to purchase what resources I don't make myself on the bazaar or from Vendors are 2cpu, but there are times I simply can't find that and am forced to buy them for 3cpu...I rarely buy for more than that unless I"m desperate. I sell my small houses from 10500 to 11k a pop and thought that was a good price... /ponder At that price I am seeing some return on my investment, but not a ton. Now, on occassion I'll post a small house on the bazaar starting at 4k on AUCTION with an 'advertisement' for my shop in the description of it. I do this to drum up traffic since I'm SW of Keren instead of next to Theed. It hasn't worked really..at least not yet. The sad thing is none of those auctioned small houses reached the 6k mark. One sold for 5800 and the other is currently resting at 4900.
I'm right inbetween a casual player and hardcore-do-nothing-for-the-entire-day-but-play-SWG gamer. However, I hate sitting in front of a space port yelling the location of my store for hours on end. When I'm in a town and I see a large group of players around I;ll shout it out a few times as I go on about my business. (I thought about setting a barker droid out, but it turns out you have to have some high lvl skill in the Merchant tree to use it. Ah well.)
So, my question to you all is what the heck can I do to turn a profit and actually SELL things as an architect. My lil' tricks aren't working. I can't see charging what the original poster said, it just would never sell at that price. I think players would boycot buying houses until all the arch's dropped back to affordable prices!
I think I'm about 25% markup currently on most of my items at 3cpu for resources...small houses less than that of course. What do you all THINK I should be at?
There are many more qualified Architects than I who can (and I hope do) respond but I'll just tell you what I've done. Basically, I diversified and didn't put all my eggs in one basket.
I started with PowerUps and Furniture and found a close location near a starport - Theed or Coronet are both good options (I'll assume you're not in a large guild or city). I built up a good business selling that plus Factories and then moved to Harvesters. Each time someone purchased from me, I gmail'd them a Thank You note with my waypoint attached.
Eventually, I moved to harvesters (just recently) and will be doing houses this week for the first time. I have been purposely avoiding low margin products up to now. Reason I did this is that I developed a steady stream of regular repeat customers; especially from PowerUps. Now, I'm leveraging that traffic to sell Harvesters and it seems to be working with one difference, I'm probably not selling as much as other lower priced Architects because my prices are very much on the high end and they are going to stay there. I sell Harvesters at 6.5 cpu (give or take) and have been seeing steady, growing sales. I make sure that my vendors are always stocked.
The first 3 days, I sold over 35 harvesters, most of them heavy. That initial lift has slowed down to about 2 to 3 a day and I'm very happy with that because of the margin I'm getting. If it continues to stay at that level, I will consider myself to have a successful experiment and a healthy business as an Architect. Keep in mind, I'm also selling furniture at 10 to 40 cpu - again, I make sure my Vendors are always full. I've also turned down large order requests for cities because I'm not willing to do the price points they wanted. Just the other night I had someone wanting me to do 3 guild halls for 150K each - I said no but appreciate the offer. I'm sure they'll find a sucker ... er I mean ... willing Architect to make them at that price. However, thats not my business model - I'm not a high volume, low price merchant. Pick a business model and stick with it would be my biggest advice.
My shop is also decorated to fit the various themes. I've gotten a lot of comments on that. I made myself a Medium Style 2 Floorplan 2 house (for the floorplan) and decorated it as a Furniture Showroom.
There are more successful Architects than I here on the boards so I'm sure you'll get more ideas. Trust me when I say, you can be successful other than just the lowest price.
Hey Sevardos, thanks for the tips...let me respond to 'em!
Icharge:
40k for medium harvesters
120k for large harvesters (130k for gas)
115k for fusions
10k for small houses
65k for medium houses
125k for large houses
40k for factories
I will not go lower than that ever. If some newbie arch wants to sell his lower thats fine by me. See how long he can hold up his/her stock at that price.
I carry 1200 harvesters and have enough resources and components to make 50 more of each harvester- i am not threatened or scared of a newer architect selling low. But that person ruined his chance of making millions by doing that. Why sell at cost or near to it? We are crafters to make profit and i do not see profit in selling for 2cpu or less.
Architect has fallen due to a few reasons:
1) Holo grinding is over............
2) Most master crafters either have harvesting fields or they have friends or guild members that do and buy real cheap.
3) New architects coming into the profession with no clue what so ever destroying the balance of our sales and profession.
Message Edited by KRONOS1974 on 06-04-2004 01:36 AM
Message Edited by KRONOS1974 on 06-04-2004 01:38 AM
Too much to respond seperately to all the posts, but let me explain my current business plan.
I began with myself and a friend going into business. We built up a stock of minerals while I was grinding Architect. A guildie runs possably the largest power farm on my server, and is able to supply me radioactives of any type at 1.5cpu. I began production, and placed a vendor in my city, and a major commerce city where the guildie also has a vendor.
Sales were moderate. I got a large order from someone who also farms minerals in large quantity. a PA requested 30 homes, and 30 heavy mineral harvesters. I worked a deal for a discount in exchange for cut rate prices on ore from them. I am getting large amounts of ore from them and my friend and now others in my PA. Currently between guildies and friends I am useing personally 36 lots for harvesters, and the other PA has 90 of which they sell me any metal at 2cpu, and ore at 1.5cpu.
My current pricing structure is Heavy Water 90k, Heavy anything else 120k ALL BER 13.
Because of incressed demand I have upped my Fusion Generators to 140k, and have sold 60 in 3 days.
There is currently one vendor on my server selling heavies at 95k, and I am buying his BER 13's when I find them, but he mostly stocks BER 10 and 11 heavies.
I produce 20-50 harvesters a day using 4 factories. 1 factory for GT's and when it's done with 1000, SM's till I run out of GT's. 1 Factory for SSM, and when 1000 is finnished SM's till I run out again. 1 factory for WM's, and 1 factory for final products and harvesting modules (Ore mining unit, Turbo fluidic, etc) My vendors never have a total of more than 100 harvesters at a time. Not because I don't stock them, but because my runthrough is equal to my production ability.
Key to all this is connections and relationships.
Pawlin wrote:
lmicheles wrote:
...(I'm currently at 2/2/3/3 on the tree.)...I believe this is only my 3rd week in the profession, ...
Ok I think these are important pieces of data.
If you've only been at it 3 weeks and are half way to master then I wouldn't be expecting to making much money. It took me a good 1-2 months before my business really started to make any money. So I don't think anything is necessarily wrong right now. You just need to keep at it and build up customers and establish your reputation.
At your current skill level there aren't too many demand items that you can make. You can't make medium or heavy harvesters that will have high BER (least I don't think so). You'll need more structure experimentation points to max the BER. I don't think there is much demand for less than maximum BER rating harvesters.
Factories might sell OK for you. But they don't often get much of a premium cause there is no quality concern for them and they are low level items. But they still might sell ok. Market varies but I've seen them anywhere in the 30-75k range.
Basic furniture items might do ok. My recommendation would be to always keep a well stocked vendor and to sell for a relatively high CPU. People don't seem to mind paying 10-20 cpu for basic furniture items as its a lot easier to pay 2k for such an item.
City structures don't move much. Most cities have a resident architect and/ or just aren't growing.
If you can I'd go for merchant skill to get your vendor on the planet map. That helps.
Yeah, I doubted that city structure would move, I'm just building them for my guild/town. And thanks for the tips, I do seem to move furniture when I put them on the bazaar - not much from the home vendor yet of course.
Yes, I'm new to the prof, but someone earlier said they moved 3 harvesters in the first day - that's what has me so boggled. lol But, I will give things time and hope biz grows. Thanks again for your input!
Oh - and to the person who's on Valcyn - I hear you and feel your pain. I've been buying so much darn ore lately at 3cpu....and it's still somewhat hard to find.../grumble I think a seller named Ellmar Blacksomething or another must LOVE me. I snap up so much of his ore in Theed, he may as well just sell directly to me! LOL
I gotta tell you guys - I am getting fricking sick of these pricing discussions. I understand that that is *my* problem - I just wanted to share my frustration.
Let's boil some things down to the real basics. I'm going to make a number of statements. If you disagree with a specific statement, then just say so and why you disagree.
1. As an architect I have a number of "operating costs" that I have to pay. This includes credits for harvester maintance, credits for any resources that I purchase, credits for vendor fees, tickets to other planets to survey or conduct sales, etc. Let's call these "expenses".
2. As an architect I sell my products and services and get some tangible exchange for them. Let's call this "income".
3. On fundamental operating rule is that over the long run "Income" needs to exceed "Expenses". Note that if it doesn't, I go broke OR I count on a subsidy from somewhere else - guild, city, friends, etc. Obviously if you have subsidies then you can stop reading right now - none of this applies to you.
4. At any point in time I can choose to liquidate my assets. If we focus on just the resources that I have not yet turned into product, then the *value* of those assets is simply what the open market would pay for them.
5. As an architect, I use my skills, my time, and my capital plant (factories) to convert a pile of raw resources into products that people will see value in.
6. The customer buys based on the ***VALUE*** of that product to them. If they percieve that they will get more value out of the product than they would by spending their money on something else, then they will buy it. If they perceive that they will get better value to them by buying from someone else or on another product or just foregoing the purchase, then they will do that.
7. If the raw resources to make a product would fetch X credits on the open market, and a customer is willing to buy the product for Y, then the difference between X and Y reflects the value the entire marketplace puts on that product. If Y is greater than X, then the market is saying "converting raw resources into that product *ADDS* value." If the Y is less than X, then the market is saying "there are better uses for those resources than using them to make that product."
Thats why I think that any ****PRICING**** discussion that uses the term "credits per unit" is inherently flawed. Credits per unit is a valuable calculation to understand *part of* my operating costs. Credits per unit is a valuable calculation to understand a "floor" in the marketplace, where selling below that floor reflects that the market regards my efforts as *reducing* the value of those resources.
But the customer doesn't see the number of resources. Quick - off the top of your head - do you know how many resources are used in a Scout Blaster? How about a Gunman's Duster? Or a StimB? A Scout Blaster sells for Y credits because the marketplace says "we value that pistol more than the other things that we could do with Y credits". Same thing with the StimB or Gunman's Duster.
A business model is MUCH MORE than a pricelist. The VALUE that my customers see in my products goes beyond a simple pricelist. They look at: prices, availability, reliability, attitude, convenience, added services (e.g., consulting, decorating), etc. Two architects can sit next door to one another and have very different business models, attract different groups of customers, and have different prices. It's fine - the marketplace accomodates all of those niches.
Nordstroms and Wallmart can exist in the same town. Lenscrafters and Binyons serveone group of customers while independent eye doctors serve a different group.
And some products are absolute "commodities" and people will just buy the cheapest because there is no value someone can add on top to cause there to be a premium. And other products are all about service. Or quality. Or a number of other things.
So "cost", "wholesale price", "retail price", and "markup" vary all over the damn map, depending on the product and market conditions. Does jewelry have the same set of markups as cheese? What about buying hardware (e.g. a cable) and software at your local computer store - do they have the same markups?
I just think that ANY "pricelist" that is based on "cost" is crap. I think that ANY "pricelist" that ignores value-added features like convenience or reliablilty is crap.
Architect A can say "I charge X for a small house" - but do they advertise like you do? Do they have the same type of location as you do? Do they have the same group of customers that you do? Is their server economy the same as yours? *IF* you believe that all of those answers are "yes", then by all means use their pricelist as a starting point. However, if those answers are "no" or "I don't know", then I suggest that blinding taking *anyone's* pricelist is NOT in your best interest.
When I was just starting out as a Master Architect, way back, well, let's just say it's been a while, I made my Heavies and sold them for about 80k or so. I did undercut some of the already established Architects out there, but for good reason, they were established, I was trying to get established.
Once I did that, I raised my prices more in line with theirs. They charged 120k for Great Heavies, I charged about the same, give or take maybe 5k at the most. Sometimes 125k, sometimes 115k, but always around that area. Why? Because, I had repeat business from alot of my clients and I also had them sending other people my way too. That's what got me started, and it worked for me. People came to trust that the items I made for them were as good as any of the other Architect out there. Now, that seems like so long ago, because every single Architect can build identical items and not have to put as much effort into it as they once did. You had to know what you were doing back then, and not so much now. If you have the right resources, bam, you have great products. IF YOU KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR. I remember back when you could experiment on Structural Modules, lol. It actually affected WALLS. haha.. why don't we do that again?
Anyway.. as I've semi-retired my Architect, I don't need to worry about money. The influx of new players is somewhat limited, and an Architect seems to be on every street corner. So, it really isn't to rare or hard to find one and get what you need. And as was stated in another post, finding a vendor with 100's of Heavy Harvesters is not un-heard of either.
Oh well..