Armorsmith Archive
Thread: Customers Re-selling Your Items Shouldn't Be Allowed (pic inside)
DirthNader wrote:
I can see some of the frustration that the original poster feels. Yes, he has put a product out on the market at a price he thinks is reasonable, and someone else has seen a chance to mark it up to true "market value" and make some quick cash. I'm not denying that's not a legitimate practice. The rub is that the armor still has his name on it, and still reflects back on him long after it's left his possesion. If the new owner / reseller is gouging people on price, the buyers may very well not realize that he, the crafter, has nothing to do with it.
I'm probably one of the lower priced armorsmiths on Shadowfire for what I sell. There's a chance that someone could hit up my vendor on restock day, cherry pick the best stuff, open up shop somewhere else with my name on the sign and vendor, and then proceed to ramp up the prices much further than I myself ever would. The only place his name would be during any transaction at this other shop would be in the item owner section on the vendor screen, while my name would be all over everything. Who is the buyer going to think is asking some outrageous price?
Just playing Devil's advocate on this one.
Ail wrote:
Besides that is the reason I brand my armor. Most players know seeing the name of the armor ( Tera Kasi Master armor for 80% kinetic comp) that I made it and if they see it elsewhere they usually end up getting in touch with me to buy it from me....
I do the same (I have a brand mark that goes on all of my armor), and it works exceedingly well for established armorsmiths. I'm sure if someone tried to open shop by marking up my armor I'd hear about it.
This really doesn't work for armorsmiths who have yet to establish themselves. I'd go out on a limb and say that the period that the original poster is in is one of the most critical periods an armorsmith goes through concerning brand recognition. If he's assumed to be overpriced now due to someone else marking his stuff up, it'll be hard to live that down in the future.
Again, I'm just playing devil's advocate. This is an interesting discussion, IMHO. Although I will ad that I don't consider a merchant to be one who cherry picks items off of the bazaar and vendors to mark them up. A merchant is someone who makes deals to distribute crafters items, buys them at wholesale in bulk, and then acts as the front end for the various crafters.
I have a slightly different perspective than most of the other posters. Because he is reselling your armor on the bazaar, you're in a great position -- simply make more armor and offer it on the bazaar at your original price. Your lower-priced armor will sell first. So long as you keep the bazaar stocked, your reseller will be forced to either match your price or take the armor to another market, like a private shop. For such a small profit, he's unlikely to keep buying out every piece you make on the bazaar -- and even if he does for some reason, he's allowing you to grind armorsmith at a profit .
While I understand your frustration at someone who's trying to make a quick profit off your labors, I think that this situation is actually beneficial to you.
speardancer wrote:
If a merchant were to come in, clean out my vendors and re-sell everything at a higher price on his/her own vendor, I'd be out for blood. I may have my money, but I now have empty vendors to restock with no warning, customers who come expecting items, and find empty vendors instead. Alot of damage can be done this way. But this is also a pretty extreme example.
XackAttacK wrote:
Though this is an insignificant example, it does make one upset. Let me begin by telling you where I am coming from.
I've been grinding Armorsmith - for the most part - the hard way. Rarely am I grinding AUK's and Mabari Chest Plates; I'm going for all sales. I enjoy the challenge of joining a mature market; especially on the most populated server, Bria. After being in the market for awhile, I realize that the bazaar is your friend, especially in the newbie towns (Mos Eisly is the biggest). So, I've been really bringing in the money off of new players.
I was realizing crafting Tantel armor yesterday that they're the only armor [that i've seen] that has resists to lightsabers. So, thinking - hey, this could go over well, I go ahead and craft a bunch of pieces of armor to sell on the bazaar in Coronet, Corellia. In the title, I mention the crafter's name [me] and the fact that it has lightsaber resists. That should sell it right there. Lightsaber resists. Even though I'm using Tantel segments with low experimetation pts on em (made em a long time ago when I didn't have the experimentation line), the fact it has lightsaber resists should make it big, right? I was right - I was selling these pieces *big time*. Anyways, when checking what other competition I had on the bazaar, I noticed something different. The same armor I was selling was being re-sold by one of my customers for the max price of 6000 credits. Ugh, frustrates me. He buys my product, resells it so he can make profit off of my item. I personally don't wanna sell my armor at 6000 credits, b/c its just asking too much. Most likely though, it'll get bought up. My hard work and effort = his profit.
Screenshot:
http://www.swgscreenshots.com/photo/?p003418
Gosh, I can't stand it. He only will make 400 credits profit - big deal. But the fact is, he is taking my armor and re-selling it for profit. This should not be allowed. So just after this happened, I have an idea for the developers. Why don't we have an option that prevents an item from being re-sold? Possibly not permenantly, but maybe 2-4 weeks. Then we don't have as much as this "buying then reselling for profit" deal on our hands. I'm sure this happens all the time with other crafting professions; this needs to stop.
Is this person wrong for doing what he's doing? No. Why? He's allowed. Regardless, we should have an ability as the crafter to stop buyers like these.
Any comments?
Realistically what's your problem with this? If he can raise the price and still sell it, it's a good hint that you can too. If you choose to sell at under the market value in order to increase your volume, then he's helping to increase your volume.
Quite simply, if you don't want there to be a market for resold armor, the solution is to stop playing silly price games and charge what people are willing to pay. This guy has seen the gap between what your tantel is worth on the openmarketand what you're choosing to sell it for, and has decided to put in a little work and keep the difference himself. If you don't want people to have the ability to make money this way, the only real solution is to make the gap smaller or nonexistant.
