Architect Archive
Thread: pricing of experimented harvesters
jfn wrote:
Dayln....just a quick question....for someone with so much to teach about the architect business....why havent you given your in-game name so that us noobs can look you up for advice?
jfn, that's about as blatantly stupid a question someone can ask. You're just trolling there. Ingame name is not needed nor required to "look him up for advice". Grow up.
LuciferMullins wrote:
This is the biggest indicator that you have no business as I have never seen a successful business that doesn't advertise. Oh in my grandfather's day you could do such a thing, but then there wasn't any McDonalds, and the only "Superstores" were Sears. In my day you had to get advertising to supplement word of mouth. My uncle today, who runs the family business, has a large advertising budget to go along with word of mouth. Mind you he is exalted by his customers.
Lucifer, you can't be serious. I do zero advertising. I do zero planetary map registration. But yet, here I sit, over 8M credits in the bank, and rapidly coming up to 10M. None of it from missions, or anything else. Pure architect sales. And I price my profit not on how much I *could* sell it for, but on a profit model over how much it cost me to gather and make. I also have all the +3 over base spec schematics, because I take the time to hunt down a good resource when I find it, as well.
You're attacking him for his valid points and Ropek's (sp) as well. The model of basing architect prices as a derivative of how much you could sell raw resources for is flawed. The model needs to be based off of how much it cost you in harvesting, energizing and time -- to put those pieces together. Most of you architects don't bother to add in the costs, right down to the cost of feeding the factory so it can make you crates, and spread that cost around. You end up just using the 3:1 model from resource CPU, and then complain if someone goes lower.
Frankly, I could sell heavy harvesters for 30k all day long, and still make a profit. Yes, a profit.
BetaZoob wrote:
You're attacking him for his valid points and Ropek's (sp) as well. The model of basing architect prices as a derivative of how much you could sell raw resources for is flawed. The model needs to be based off of how much it cost you in harvesting, energizing and time -- to put those pieces together. Most of you architects don't bother to add in the costs, right down to the cost of feeding the factory so it can make you crates, and spread that cost around. You end up just using the 3:1 model from resource CPU, and then complain if someone goes lower.
Frankly, I could sell heavy harvesters for 30k all day long, and still make a profit. Yes, a profit.
Yes you can make a profit selling heavy harvesters at 30k if you harvest ALL the materials needed yourself. If you are realistic that is not possible to maintain with only 10 lots. Just look at the number of different materials needed for Turbines alone.
lets say it takes 30k of resources to make 1 heavy harvester (including cost of schimatics for factory crates, which are needed) and you could sell these resources on the open market for 90k. Why on earth would you spend all that time and effort to sell a finished product for LESS?
When you take into account the cost of runing a factory even if you sell at 3cpu you are reducing your profit. I sell for no less than 4cpu on Bria. I have to constantly source resources to make the end product as I dont have enough lots free to have 10 harvesters up as a factory is a must (2 lots used). I have guild resources that are cheeper but that still falls short of the amount i need to run my business.
For me this profession will never survive if people base their business model on how much it costs them to gather the resources themselves but to look at where they are going to gain the highest profit for the resources they have. I for one will sell my resources at 3-5cpu rather than sell for less in a structure or any other produced item I sell.
Xemo Stargazer (Xtreme Force)
Master Artisan / Master Architect on Tatooine (Bria)
I'll jump in here as well.... never did any advertising at all except the tag above my head... until 3 days ago.I was curious as to what effect advertising on the planetary map would have on my furniture business so i went ahead and got that merchant skill.
8 million in the bank and yes, its all arch sales and interior design work that got me there. word of mouth and good customer service. heck, i don't even tag my interior designs with my name. I rely on the fact the customer is thrilled and will recommend me to others and it works.
Pricing is subjective. you make a profit by selling for more than it costs you to get resources. Sure, you might be able to get more for those resources by selling them as raw resources rather than combining them, but you don't HAVE to do that to make a profit. If you just love building things and don't care if you're making the most money you can out of each individual unit of resource then it really doesn't matter. personally i don't sell anything for less than 3 and most structures are closer to 4cpu. my furniture runs from 8 to 15 cpu roughly even though there are those in my own town that sell furniture at 3cpu to 5cpu on a regular basis.
I personally won't sell for less than i can get for the resource unless its a special situation, but hey, if thats what someone wants to do, thats the advantage of playing a game, it lets you do things that in the "real world" might not be "the smart thing" to do.
We're about the same in credits, Ropock. I, as well, don't tag the furniture with my name. I envision it looking gaudy in someone else's home. After all, it's just a couch. I did nothing special to it.
Ropock wrote:
8 million in the bank and yes, its all arch sales and interior design work that got me there. word of mouth and good customer service. heck, i don't even tag my interior designs with my name. I rely on the fact the customer is thrilled and will recommend me to others and it works.
And Ropock that is ok with me, the difference between me an the kids like Lucifer is that I do know there is more than one way to look at things. ( doesnt he remind you of Two head? )
It is ok to use different aproaches, I am not at all threateded and therfore not upset by people that aproach it differently than I do. I aagree 100% that your aproach works for you, I also know that mine works for me.
I only offer a different viewpoint, one that is as workable and as sucuessful. I am not saying yours is not.
I agree that there is a bunch of liberal communist thinking on these boards, but you seem to be one of them. Communists would have the government set prices that everyone had to follow, capitalists would find an advantage over the competition and exploit that, which is exactly hat I do. The funny part is that my profit is way over 500% on each and every sale. It was the capitalists that came up with the idea of selling for less and making money by selling a LOT of them.
Not that I necessarily think it is bad to be a communist or a liberal, but I am not one of them. In SWG I am a capitalist in the purest sense of the word. I don’t like the idea of architects banding together like OPEC ( not communists, but they might as well be ) to fix prices, I wont accept every one else’s "reality", I use my own calculations and do what is right for my business and for the guy I work for. The guy I work for it the person that hands me the money, my customer, If I can make my customer happy, they come back for more.
I am a capitalist, and I know who I am fighting, I fight my competition.
Why anyone would sell an item that makes someone money (harvesters) based on the resources it took to make it is beyond me. You are handing people a huge profit generating center for a mere pittance.
Yes, it is your perrogative to sell at whatever you want to sell for (even at a loss if you are so inclined) but WHY you would do it boggles my mind.
You want to sell a house for cheap, go for it. Hell, give houses away to your good harvester customers if you want, but THINK for just a minute when you're selling your harvesters. A heavy harvester sold at 150k pays for itself totally off in one week's time and then generates profits FOREVER to the user after that. Why would you just choose to give that away?
Bunch of **edit** communists on this board, I tell ya.