Architect Archive
Thread: For you Crash and Burn Undercutting Architects
AliMok wrote:
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...
I shouldn't even get into this thread, seeing as how I no longer do deed orders...but ah well I will anyway.
Architect is a tough profession. We have products that for the most part are luxuries not neccessities. We also have products that are exactly the same as our felllow architects. Toss in other lovelies like our 55 structure mod, our two lot factories, huge resource demands, insanely costly failures... you get the idea. Not ranting. Just making a point that this is not a profession that is easy to be successful at. Oh sure the pointing and clicking is the same as the rest. But the business of making it all work and work successfully is not easy.
There are basicallyfour things that seperate one architect from another: price, availabilty, service, and notariety. Those are the things that determine how well we sell. After all, a house is a house. Generally speaking, (though not always) people with the "best" prices do not have the best service and availability and vice versa.
People who are freaking over being "reasonably" low-balled are never going to be happy as an architect. People who are UNreasonably low-balling will not last long either. But there is a BIG range of prices out there that work for individual architects and individual customers. If you want to sell at the higher range of prices, DO the WORK! What does that mean? It means HAVE the items people want and have em FAST! It means take the time and effort to explain things to your customers, follow through with them, give em your attention, run all over creation for em...do whatever it takes to convince them that your SERVICE rates your price. Get your name out there too. Talk talk talk so that in your area when people think architect your name comes to mind. If you don't want to be bothered with all of this stuff then sell low. That is just the reality.
Neither approach is wrong as long as you are not undercutting so low that you are selling for a loss. Low price people sacrifice their profit rate and get less hassle on the selling end. Higher price people have to put more time and energy into the sales themselves and get rewarded with better cash returns. The funny thing being that in the end it all evens out. One guy spends more time merrily clicking out many deeds with tiny profits...the other spends less time clicking and more time doing "the little things" for their customers while selling less deeds at higher profit. Pick which is the most fun for you. The only ones screwed are the ones that do not want to do the work involved with "primo" service but still want the primo money.
Appologies for spelling and grammer, I'm in a hurry. 
Dang, I must be playing this game all wrong.
My pricing structure's been pretty much the same since release:
Small House:
*laughs*
*shakes Alimok's hand*
*shakes Bedroxx's hand*
*leaves*
I have thought about this situation regarding the Architect trade as a whole and have come to this conclusion, It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter to me anymore if I am in Anchorhead trying to sell my medium houses for 85k anymore or for that matter my new reduced price of 65k and the architect next to me is selling the same thing for 35k or 40k. I'll tell you why I no longer care it is cause their is no way in the game to make sure that the lower price architects will go out of business. In RL that happens, not in SWG. I have decided that my time is better spent building up other skills and doing Architecture part-time.
I now only build houses for my clan and at personal request. I am not going to peddle my wares just to get outbid by invisible sellers. When I build personal request houses my prices do not waver for anyone since they came to me and in most cases I give the buyer the option of supplying the resources and I will build for free. I never cared about the xp so I am in no hurry to hit master as I said I am out to enjoy this game and I can do that better not stressing over price wars that don't matter.
This is what works for me:
5 cr per resource, and I offer to take 4cr of for every resource they provide of any useable sort.
I have more orders then time. If someone says im charging too much I refer them to several cheaper architects I know.
I just started pa halls-I charge 500K because thats the going rate. I don't even bother qouting my prices for houses-I just refer them to someone else.
To the guy selling his stuff at 3.5 cr per resource-you'd make more money putting your resources up on the bazaar. Bazaar rates seem to be from 4-10 cr per resource, and ore is almost always at 6cr per. At least on my server anyways. Sometimes a decent deal drops in at 3 but its been getting rarer.
I qouted a fusion at 138K last night...the guy was amazed...someone else had qouted him 200K. So im not even the most expensive LOL.
The number of master architects on my server seems to have reached a threshold as many people quit being architects and some new ones make it.
And some of the newer architects seem to have poor ethics. An example-one guy gave a architect the resources for a medium house, and some cash. The architect crit failed, and told the guy too bad so sad.
Anyways for me at least those guys selling dirt cheap haven't seemed to affect me horribly.
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).
ROFLMAO
so gracious of you to acquiesce to the whims of the community now that your a master architect!!!
translation: ok - i'm a master architect now and i no longer care about XP. now that i've spent weeks ruining the economy by lowballing my prices, i would like to start charging more because now money is the only reason for me to continue to do this.
LOL
moron
Bandlero wrote:
...Honestly, the game can survive completely without architects. They only added guild halls and factories to our list of items to make our trade a little more useful. Without guild halls and factories our trade would be pointless. ...Remember, people DON'T need our products to play the game.... , but I don't think anyone's time is worth a 600% profit. You are just mad that we are making the sales.
The game surviving without architects is an interesting comment considering that all the resources for those weapons and armor suits come from architect made mediums and heavies, powered by architect made solars and fusions. Where do you suppose all those crafters get their factories? Add to that that a huge part of this game, PA cities, will be primarily created by architects, both the resource oriented ones and the housing ones. I think you need to look again, architect is absolutely critical to the game. So much of what will be SWG will hinge on the profession. In fact I would say architect is the keystone profession to the entire SWG economy. Not required, I think the designers of the game would disagree.
As far as you making sales I am hardly jealous of people that have to crank out 100 or more stuctural modules in a night. I often make no more than 10 or 20, and that is when I am even making buildings or medium harvesters for friends. I sell less, but make more on each sale resulting in overall less work and more time to hunt down great resource spots the part of the game I currently am most interested in.
It does make me wonder why people leave money on the table when they sell items, but that is their game.
I consistently sell torches for 1200 on the bazaar, some guy wanted me to beat 250 per torch cause some other architect was selling 50 at that. He probably got them and then turned around and sold them in his shop for 1000 a pop. Why would I sell 50 at 250 each when I only need to sell 8 on the bazaar or 10 on my vendor.
He did not get back to me which was fine, I went back to serving my current customer as we decorated his small house and for which I recieved a fair price in hides and credits for the work.
I understand if architects intentionally want to have lower prices than average, I just hope that the 250cr/torch architect was not just a new guy who did not know any better and was being taken for a ride.
Honestly I think we should be helping each other and develop some standard pulished prices for everyones benefit, including customers. Particularly if it helps up and coming architects with their pricing so they can advance at the same rate some of us old timers (if 1 month can be called old) did.
It is really a shame this has become such a devisive issue where there seems to be no common ground in this profession.
Shakiel wrote:Here's the deal, XP was never a factor when leveling to master. I sold all of my products on the way to master and did so at a fair profit. I have been master for a few weeks now and have made a couple of choices. First is I have my harvesters out and grinding away with plenty of credits to keep them running for a good long time. I am stock piling some of the best resources I can find. If I get someone that wants a stucture, I shoot them a fair calculated price of what my time and resources are worth. Either they go away and find another seller, or I get the order. Those that give me the order get top notch service, and delivery whenever possible. I make a comfortable profit, and fill my orders instantly, and have plenty of time to explore and do other things to enjoy myself with in-game. Second, if my prices are out of line, and I dont believe they are, then I will continue to stock pile resources, as they will never decay and always retain their value. When player cities come available to us, I will be able to handle any order thrown at me and there will be no wait time other than construction time. If there are those out there that want to continue to flood a market with cheap prices and work your a***** off for a few credits and constantly struggle for resources, then I say more power too you. In RL I manage a very profitable store, I hold my prices and we cator to those that appreciate our services and product, sure i may not be as busy as XYZ store across town, but then again, I dont have half the grief he has, and I make a confortable profit, same principles work here, even if it is a game. I am very certain of one thing though, my last breath before I die will not be "I wish I had worked harder".
Amen....this is exactly the model I follow and it results in a rewarding and fun game. Stick to higher prices and you work less and get to enjoy more aspects of the game. I would much rather compete on service than price.
As to the stockpiling, absolutely. Understand the other professions needs and fill them. Learn something about your customers and you will be able to have more fun and meet rent plus some extra fun money for a droid or two.