Architect Archive

Some of you folks need to go back to Economics class. The cost of the resource is completely immaterial. If it cost you 0.5 credits per resource to mine it yourself, or if you paid 100 credits per resource on the bazaar, means NOTHING!! The VALUE of the resource is what you can sell it for, pure and simple. If you could put the raw material on the bazaar and sell it for 3 credits per resource, and instead you combine it into a harvester and sell it for 2 credits per resource, then you are a fool. You took the chance of a critical fail just so you could lose money?!!

The day I can't sell my products for more than what I can get selling the raw materials is the day I give up architect.

Cheldin Droidtinker, almost-Master Architect

Droid Engineer, retired

Far as I'm concerned the entire issue comes down to time and effort. If I'm willing to spend the time and effort I can easily get 3-5cpu for all my resources. Let's say I don't want to spend any time, I could sell everything for 3cpu without blinking if I sold in fairly large lots (1k-10k) and had a couple shouts I made while doing other business in town.

So if my time's worth nothing, I'm still getting paid less for selling any of my structures at 3cpu than I would just selling the materials

(3cpu - failures) is less than (3cpu).

What I need to sell at then is 3cpu + 3cpu*%failure + (my time)

Now of course my time can be measured either in a sense of 'my time is worth so much per hour' or 'my time is worth a certain percent'. Most people work the latter and charge an extra cpu for it. That's the simplest way since it factors in the time spent gathering, crafting, skilling... everything.

But those two factors, failures and time, are the key. Even if I never sold a thing I'd still never sell below 3.5-4cpu. If I did, I'd be making less money for more effort, and I can't understand that at all.

-Corri Agir; Sunrunner

I laugh at you all!! (Mua, hahahahahahaha!!!)

Seriously tho, I sell my heavy harvs for 180k. I sold 6 yesterday, and I have another 15 in confirmed orders that will go out over this weekend. That's 6.5 cred/res +.

When the demand for arch structures is dead, I'll be the one with the fat bank balance enjoying the game, laughing at those of you that sold are minimal prices.

Congrats. You sold a bunch of structures at low profit, not realizing that there was only a limited need for those structures. Joke's on you.

This is like initation for all new architects. Everyone ofnovice archtiectgoes into a phase of either "I must charge lower than others" -or- "wut de hell! why is everybody charging so low?"

To the original poster, I don't care, charge whatever you like. It's your freedom to do whatever you like in the game. Lowball the market standard. Sell small house for 3k. Whatever...it's your own freedom.

To others, giving the kid a lecture won't make him aware of the problem. For crying out loud, he's only been dealing with small time harvestors stuff. Wait till he reaches large houses and heavy harvestors. Wait till a CF really really stings.

Talks and discussion are pointless. Original poster, come back here and talk about 2 cr per unit rate when you are master. For now, be quiet andgo make some structure modules.

From an economics standpoint I find all the discussion of resource costs and values to be beside the point. Sure you need to figure costs to determine break even points, but other than that it has nothing to do with setting selling prices. Well I guess if you are into slicing your profit margin as thin as possible it may be more important, but that doesn't sound like good business to me.

All that matters is how the market will respond to a given price and how that either brings you closer or farther from your volume goals. Look at real life markets. Do you think Coke prices a can of soda based on costs or on what they can get for it? My prices are set up to prevent me from either having too few or too many orders based on resource production. I have customers who've come to depend on my very fast turn around times on orders, so if business is so good that I risk running low on resources then its time to bump the prices for a few days. If I have resources coming out of my ears it might be time to have a fire sale to keep inventory under control.

Production costs are only one factor of pricing in any business. Marketing also has a lot to say on the subject.

Tued the Master Builder

I'm a recent architect, but I am also a Master Artisan.

My main business, at this time, is ranged weapon powerups. Let me tell you what the market can bear on my server...

I make Couplers....and almost ONLY couplers. These take 6 Metal and 4 Chemical per item. A total of 10 resources.

With experimentation and the right resources I can get +32/+16 powerups.

I sell these at the bazaar for 1500-3000cr PER POWERUP depending on the specific improvements. I sell out of these items every 1-2 days. Now that powerups work in factories, I've started to lower my prices a little, only because it now takes less effort on my behalf to create these items. In other words, I lowered my labor costs due to less labor involved.

I don't worry about how many credits per resource to charge, I look only at what the market can bear. That is the ONLY measure that counts.

Man Adune, I wish the demand was that good on Starsider. I have the resources right now to make at least ten of any heavy harv, but I've got an order for a fusion gen, and that's actually darn incredible. I sold a few flora harvs, a fusion gen a couple days ago, and that's been about it lately.

Everyone will notice that the guy who started this thread is a NOVICE. The 10k he got for the one harvester will pay his maintenence for days. He doesn't understand yet. He will once he gets to Master and has to pull harvs because he's killing himself.

You are right, most people in SWG don’t get it, but they will soon, it takes time for competition to properly be felt.

If you want to know what good business is, look at successful business in the real world.

Wal Mart has a frightening share of the retail market, they are probably the best success story. How, simple, they put the goods in the neighborhood of where they are needed ( not harvested ) and they sell at extremely low profit margins, in fact some things they sell for under the manufacturing cost as an incentive to buyers.

I don’t model them exactly, butI come close. I generally sell resources for 1 - 2 cr per unit. I sell manufactured good for 2 - 4 cr per unit of resource to create it. Items that I am using to grind for exp I often sell for MUCH less than that.

My customers repeat, and repeat often, and they send their friends. I am constantly asked for custom orders for things. I have no problem taking time out to crate a very small item that I get little or no profit for just as a courtesy to my customers. They come back later buy others things.

Business is good.

Heh, another retard using Walmart in relation to Architecture. I'll just let you chew on this: I sell out daily. I have my next 3 days of crafting planned out with buyers already. When was the last time you walked into Walmart, and saw the shelves bare, because everything had been purchased? To correct your example:

Walmart gets into the car business and moves into hicksville Utah, population 350. They sell new cars at $2500 each, because hey, that's twice the cost of the raw materials, and labour is free! Business is great for a month. For some bizzarre reason though, after a month, nobody wants to buy a car. Why? BECAUSE THEY ALREADY HAVE ONE, SMART GUY. You're selling a product that never decays, that has a finite demand, at cost. You have 1-5 weeks before demand dries up. Then what do you do? Sell cheaper? Yeah, that's the ticket.

There are a myriad of successful business models. What's the best business model? The one that makes you the highest profit. In a game like SWG, your greatest profit is found at the pricing structure that keeps you nearly sold out, every day.

Far be it from me to tell you how to run your business though. Feel free to work for free, you don't affect my business anyways. I just wanted to get the point accross that you're stupid.

I think what the orginal poster failed to realize is that he didn't need to undercut the other people. I sold plenty of personals at 1200-1500 when I saw some ont he bazaar for 1000-1100. Why? Because those sell out fast and they come and buy mine.

Thats the demand there. If you want to sell at 3c/unit that is fine. I'm perfectly happy selling my resources for 3-4c/unit and saving me half the time making the building.

O love people on my server selling mediums for 10k or anything too cheap. I buy em all up and then put them on my vender for 30k. Sure they may sit a few days but when people come to our public selling house - we have 10 vending machines all with stuff on em.

They see a medium or large harvester ready to go and without waiting buy it for 30k. So do what I do, see somebody selling to cheap - buy em all up. I used to do this with water when i first started. I would sell 400 units of water for 3000 credits. Was great for two weeks I was the only one on tatooine selling water. This gave me plenty of money. Some others saw and dropped water into the bazaar. Whenever I saw somebody selling for too low (like 800 units of water for 2k) I would buy it all up - split it up and resell it for 400 per 3k. Their water was all gone and only mine was left. Mine sold and I made extra money.

I did the same thing as Forceten2002 did with bone armor when I was a beginingcrafter. People think they have to undercut everyone over and over. It has to stop somewhere and it usually does when you dont have enough credits to support your network.

I never have or ever will charge less than 3c/pu. Usually I charge around 4c/pu. It cost me 44k credits and 39k power units per day just to maintain my resource network. I charge 120k for large houses still and people are starting to charge as low as 90k now. I still have more buisness than even my network can keep up with. I bring in 50k units of ore alone per day.

One day the economy will balance out and prices will adjust. Hell even Russia is still struggling and its been years since the wall fell.

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GoddessofDeath wrote:
One day the economy will balance out and prices will adjust. Hell even Russia is still struggling and its been years since the wall fell.

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There will be no balancing out. There is no balance.

There's a finite demand, no decay. The speed at which "the end" is reached is determined by the number of archs & the rate at which they produce. Balance is only found with consumables, where the rate of production would equal the rate of decay.