Architect Archive

But what you don’t count is the potential profit you lost selling for more money

I have sold to a single person ( to start with ).

A Small house for 8.5 K
A month later a med house for 55k
Another Med house for 55k to his friend
2 med harvesters
1 Med Chemical extractor
a month later a friend of his a PA Hall for 280k
2 weeks later another PA hall for 280K to another member of the same group.
I just got an order form the same original guy for 4 Heavy extractors for 95K each and a factory for 40k

Plus over a hundred articles of furniture.

I cant even count how much more as both PA leaders now tell me that I am their primary architect for all orders and they direct their members to me.

Did you calculate that into the extra 3 or 4 K from that original sale? The potential profit I missed?
I am not saying your way is wrong, what I am saying is that my way works for me, and works very w

I agree it is hard to predict,

It has worked for me however, and returned profit to me over and over. A loyal customer base is worth it weight in gold, especially if it is in the form of PA's that have growing ranks.

( my own PA does not add members lightly, someone had better give us a pretty darn good reason why we should let them join, but that is another topic, PA's that advertise benefits for members and PA's that are very exclusive clubs, one of the begs you to join, the other you have to prove you provide the PA a benefit )

On my server you cannot sell bulk resources for 3 cr a unit, they simply wont sell at that price. But that is beside the point, if money was the only thing that mattered then none of us would be architects as there is better and faster money elsewhere. I am not interested in being a resource dealer, I sell structures to valued customers.

You are not one of them, but you can imagine the smile on my face as about a dozen people on this board talked about how I would never make it as an architect because I had no head for business. Over half of the people that told me that have since quit the architect business because they could not compete at the current prices ( or they said they did on these boards ).

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t drive them out of business, the market did. But I can succeed in this market. I believe I can keep it up at prices even lower than mine are now when I need too. Because I don’t believe in the hard value of a resource on the market, that is a fantasy, only the hard value of a resource is what it cost me to extract it.

Not everyone quit I just hate wasting time going over the same tired points with folks who can't see the obvious and resort to personal insults rather than argue via logic.

Say you make that string of sales at a lower profit margin and count your blessings that you have been able to make that lower profit time and again. Now I make that same string of sales at a higher profit margin due to customers who return based on prior service received. Who has a more satisfied customer? (neither of us, both have satisfied customers) Who made more profit? (me)

Return business is not always price based, in fact often its quite the opposite. Customers desiring low prices will follow the lowest price. Customers desiring specific services will follow the provider of that service regardless of price. Anyone can compete on price by lowering their prices, but not just anyone can compete on service. Of course anyone can say their customers love their service, the big question is are they willing to pay for it heh.

Tued, King of Spain
Now in my third week of totally free resources!!

"Did you calculate that into the extra 3 or 4 K from that original sale? The potential profit I missed?"

No, I didn't. Good point, and I agree with that, and that is what is very hard to nail down, but I believe I mentioned it, maybe not very clear though, here is what I said in the earlier post..

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"Now that loss to potential profit could be argued that...

even though I sell a house for 7k, but the resources sell for 10k, I am making money in the end through marketing, setting up a customer base, and when resource prices drop, I have a base of buyers for houses which did not drop...

I will be gainging a higher potential profit than you.

Now, for the sake of argument and simplicity, remove that varriable from the equation(because it could be argued either way)."

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I was making the point that even if the potential profit for the single sale was greater in selling the resources, than selling the structure, it still possible that the potential profit on selling for less than resources could be greater.. ie, my marketing/customer basecomment.

So, even if it did not look like it, I was conceding that your potential profit could still be greater for the reasons you mention. I simply took that out of the equation for simplicity because that kind of extra profit is hard to nail down and predict.

Now.. I had another thought with your example, that makes me flip back to my original position(which is dont sell structure for less than sale price of materials). Ill takea list like yours for example. I simplified it a bit for the example. Also note, I purposefuly adjusted the numbers to be less than 3 cpu. See what you think about this.

Scenerio Setup:

I have 100k in resources

Pretend all resources sell for 3 cpu all the time on the bazaar.

Pretend that everything I make always sells.

Pretend small houses take 5k resources to make

Method 1:

I take 100k in resources and I make 20 houses.

I sell a house for 10k to Customer 1... Customer 1 got a good deal, and now comes back and sends his friends. Because of this I can sell another house.

I sell a house for 10k to Customer 2... Customer2 got a good deal, and now comes back and sends his friends.

Now because of the business I got from customer one, they came back, brought friends, and because of this, I gained the potential to sell all my houses. You are counting potential here as customers you normally wouldnt have without repeat business. I can agree with that. The potential for more business is not there or is less when you sell less.

I have used 100k resources and made 200k credits

Method 2:

I take 100k in resources and I make 0 houses.

I take the 100k resources and sell on the bazaar for 3 cpu for 300k

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Method 1 made 200k, while method 2 made 300k. In method one potential profit comes in the form of more business, but that more business does not change the value of the resources you are using. Whether you are serving 1 customer or 100, your resource usage stays proportionate to how much you use. Basically, if you make 1 house and sell it, you make 2 cpu, if you make 100 houses and sell them, you still make 2 cpu.

So, in a world where all houses would sell all of the time, and all resources would sell all of the time, for a set price, or close to set price, you are loosing a potential profit.

In a world where most of the houses sell most of the time, and most of the resources would sell most of the time, for a somewhat constant price(I believe this to be the case.. 8k small house, 3 cpu resources), you would be loosing a potential profit most of the time.

I believe your scenerio to be true as well, but I think it only works in a world where material costs are lower than 3 cpu, and the market for materials and houses is not that good. In that case, your potential profit is greater than the flat comparison I use, where the resources and houses would not move, unless someone like me or you moved them, with a good strategy.

In your case, your potential profit is greater, because you can sell more structures with the materials, than the materials alone would be bought.

On my server, it is the other way. No one wants houses for anything other than cheaper than cheap, but people really want resources.