Architect Archive
Thread: Price Check =)
Shop around, get an idea for your local prices.
Sneaker based research is about the only way to get real numbers.
When you're selling so much that stocking your vendors isn't fun, raise your prices.
When stuff isn't moving fast enough, lower them.
Other than that, the Architect calculator is a good tool to have. You can get extremely complicated, or just charge a flat cost per unit, which is also included.
On the cost per unit, there's two schools of thought.
1) Since most resources will still sell for 2-3 cpu, and rares even higher, there's not much point in selling at this price or lower than this since you could just sell the resources without bothering to spend any time crafting on the resources. (My humble opinion)
2) Since you can haul almost every resource out of the ground at .2 to .5 cpu, you can still craft and sell at 1 cpu and still make a decent profit. (A good point, to be fair.)
guidone wrote:
mastered Architect last night on my alt, not usually a crafter but ive found it relaxes me
but ummm anyway...
could i get a price check on pretty much everything ? dont wana get ripped off or rip anyone off
There is no 'rip off'. It's more of what do you want to do. High volume or High Profitability.
Pricing is what the market can bare. If I charge 150K/160K for a Harvester and you charge 120K - am I ripping people off?
Anniversary paintings are selling for 250K to 500K on my server. Is the person selling it ripping people off? Players are buying it.
Furniture adhesive and components are selling for 250K to 1M credits. Is the person ripping people off? Players are buying it.
Pricing is based on what the market can bare and what the customer is willing to pay. It's not a matter of ripping people off or not.
First thing is to understand that you are free to price whatever you like ... low, high or something in-between. No matter your decision, you do not run risk of 'ripping people off'
Q-5.3: What should I charge for a building/harvester/piece of furniture??
A-5.3: Short answer: Specific prices that you choose are going to be very server dependent. No price is too high if your customers will gladly pay it and no price is too low if you make a good enough profit.
Copy/paste from ZenDragonMLS -
"Find the vendors for many of the Master Architects on your server. Go visit them. Copy down the prices. Talk with miners and ask them where they get their harvesters and how much they pay. Check the Bazaar for furniture prices. Check the Trade Forum for your server.
Then sit down and figure out what kind of business *you* want to run. If you want to be a low-cost / high-volume guy, then figure out how you can keep your operating costs as low as possible and yet pump out lots of stuff (high-volume means you will need extra lots and/or people to mine for you). If you want to focus on furniture, then you need to make sure that your vendor always has a large selection on it and you need to advertise a lot. If you want to only service miners by making high-end heavy harvesters, then figure out the economics of *their* business and charge for your harvesters based on their payback (e.g., selling someone a money-making machine that never decays for an amount that they can earn back in 2-4 days is not a recipe for long-term success.)
You get the idea: price is only *one* aspect of your whole business model. Think through how you want to play and pick your prices to fit that model. Whatever you do, don't take some "rule of thumb" like "charge X credits per unit of resources that it takes you to build it" and call it a "business model". Take more control over your business than that."