Artisan Archive
Thread: Why is it 3cr per unit?
WOW. I never paid attention to what went into an FWG5 pistol before. 147 resources? And these sell for 10-20k?
By this explanation, and Doctor should be getting 10-20k per Advanced Stim B he creates. Takes uncommon resources, and a factory to produce in quantity.
No wonder my weaponsmith friend that left the game had 150M in his bank account after 4 months of playing. And his prices were always fair on his vendor. I used to harass him telling himhis stuff was ALOT cheaper thenthe cost of other shops I had visited in my travels.
I think one thing is forgotten in the expense. How much is the time you put in worth. this will vary from person to person. but remember, all thing crafted take time to gather resources, craft, and any time invested in getting money or equipment to make you items. it isn't all about physical expenses but also labor cost. that should be included with all the money that is put into the investment. if you just cutting even, you lost a lot in time spent. so 3cpu is really not a bad set price for all the time and money invested into the resource. and when an item is crafted, you need to also at time spent crafting and any expences used in crafting said item(s) and also level of material used and amount of experment points put in. this are things that do add to the value of the item.
i am not in anyway saying to gouge your customers, but saying that you should get something in return for your efforts. your time and effort and care is also an expense, even if there is now paper showing it. an employeer pays his employees for labor performed, time to perform labor, the effort put in by the employee, and the abilities of the employee; ie: knowledge, talent, experience.
so add up all your expenses, not just the credits, but the other unseen expenses and then set a fair market price. what you feel you truely deserve for what you make is the correct price. now if you can't sell at that price, you are way to high. if you are constantly selling out of items, you are too low, and will end up with major carpel tunnal and burn out. and if the item doesn't sell for even one cred, well, don't make anymore tell there is a demand again for it. doesn't pay to kill yourself on suppling no demand.
i am not an economise or a business owner or manager or anything like that outside the game. this is just stuff i picked up in life and on the boards. ilove crafting, and i like just being a cog in the works. less stress, the happier i am. enjoy your crafting. that is why it is there.
Some interesting answers, thanks for the input.
I do wonder though if credits weren't so readily available if prices would still be the same and if the excuses that keep the prices high now would be valid?
One reason that I sell my products for 3CPU is that I buy most of my resources off the Bazaar at 3CPU.
I only have 1 Mineral Extractor, because I own a Guild Hall, and that only leaves me with 1 lot...so I have to buy my resources from people who have 10 Harvesters.
Just my reasoning.
Long Live the Emperor
Jayces wrote:Some interesting answers, thanks for the input.
I do wonder though if credits weren't so readily available if prices would still be the same and if the excuses that keep the prices high now would be valid?
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Excuses? Where are you, North Korea? In the real world what you call excuses are called market support. Even if credits were rare, people would still be whining about prices, only then the quoted prices would be some lower number.
I dare say most people with big money on any given server worked for it (in as much as there is "work" in a game). The few who may have exploited for it are in turn giving that money to people who ARE working for it.
Artisans are not a charity, we charge what the market supports to clear overhead and make PROFIT. That's no "excuse", it's the reality part of this simulation.
To be ashamed of making profit is to devalue your own worth.
I'm not quite breaking even when I charge 2 credits per unit of resource. Granted, I could be doing things more efficiently, but it takes 3 wind generators on Tatooine to power my five harvesters effectively. I make my own stuff, and I haven't bought anyone else's generators (can't find them anyway). It costs about 2k a day to run each wind generator, and 1 k per day to run each harvester. Thats 10 k a day. I sell half my mined resources for about 2 credits a unit. With a supplemental mission or two, my harvesters are paid for.
Now, I could find areas that have more resouces and mine that way, but then I have to figure in travel costs and lost time for travel (either by shuttle port or by mount).
I typically sell my things for about2 to 2.5credits per unit. Now, usually what I sell are CDEF weapons that have been sliced. The FAN's I use for slicing take 40 units and the weapons take what 20-30 units? At 3 credits per unit, that would sell for 180 to 210. That doesn't take into account the 20 credit fee for placing the items on the bazaar in the first place. I couldn't charge more than I do and expect to sell many CDEF's in the first place. There is no demand for expensive CDEF weapons.
3cpu is easy price, your power supplier will get his cash, maintenance traveling expenses and time used to survey are covered and You still get some profit. Also you have to think future if you want to be successfull miner then you need to update your harvesters to better maybe first to mediums then large's. That costs quite much.
There was one fella reasoning that why B stim isnt worth as much as fgw5 for example... well even crate of stim B's isnt going to last as long as fgw5, if you had stims costs up to 10k-20k no one would use them.
Jayces wrote:This post really stems from a post I saw where somoene said they buy items sold at the wrong price and put them back on the bazaar at the right price.
If I'm thinking of the same post as you are ... that poster went through a rather elaborate explanation of how in a free market economy there is the person who gathers the raw materials, the manufacturer, the distributor and the retailer. He broke down the typical distribution of profit on each and showed what the "right price" should be for travel packs according to real world economic theory.
In that post it stated that in a free market economy (which SWG arguably is) the raw materials merchant is entitled to their profit ... i.e. selling resources at 3cpu. Now, since that is the "going rate" for resources ... if the manufacturer is also the miner, they are entitled to the profit of maintaining their own raw materials business as well ... i.e. selling resources to themselves at 3cpu and then manufacturing items from that and charging accordingly to make a profit on top of that 3cpu cost.
But ... you ask what I think of someone that's happy with less profit? Knock yourself out. I worked in retail many years ago at a store that had higher prices ... but better service. Some new fangled little store came along with much lower prices and took away some of our customers ... but not many ... and most not for long. Why? Because the new store couldn't afford to offer the service we could. Because in order to make a reasonable profit at the prices they were charging they had to hire minimum wage people who didn't care at all about the job ... instead of well-dressed, professional, knowledgeable sales staff.
What do I think? I'm happy if you're happy ... because I'm going to be the one that people remember as knowledgeable and selling quality items.
Someone here nearly touched on it (with the discussion on "time expense") but unless I missed it, no one has brought up the concept of opportunity cost.
Assumptions:
- I have 2000 units of resources that I mined at 0.5 credits per unit (cpu) - my cost 1000 credits
- Market value of resources on bazaar are 3 cpu
- It takes me 30 minutes of time to craft certain set of products and list them for sale
- I can complete one of missions (1500 credits each) in same amount of time
Scenario 1:
Sell resources: 6000 credits gross
Run Missions: 3000 credits
Total Profit: 9000 - 1000 = 8000 credits
Scenario 2:
Craft Products and sell at 3 cpu: 6000 credits gross
Total Profit: 6000 - 1000 = 5000 credits
The Opportunity Cost is what it cost me by spending time crafting and NOT running missions to earn money.
Bolehcim wrote:WOW. I never paid attention to what went into an FWG5 pistol before. 147 resources? And these sell for 10-20k?
By this explanation, and Doctor should be getting 10-20k per Advanced Stim B he creates. Takes uncommon resources, and a factory to produce in quantity.
But there is a huge difference in perceived value of each product. In the case of the Stim B, you have, at most, 45 charges. The gun? Many thousands of shots. Additionally, a Stim-B that heals for380 less is generally (the exception being PvP) a perfectly good substitute for the Stim-B that heals for 400. A gun that shoots for 380 is not a good substitute for one that shoots for 400. The stim difference has almost no affect on my gameplay, while the gun difference slows my killing down by 5% (a combat player spends far more time shooting than they do healing).
No wonder my weaponsmith friend that left the game had 150M in his bank account after 4 months of playing. And his prices were always fair on his vendor. I used to harass him telling himhis stuff was ALOT cheaper thenthe cost of other shops I had visited in my travels.
Yep. For the best return on resources, weaponsmith is the way to go. Medics can do very well though. I sell for 7 to 9 cpu and clear 100K a day in profit on a 2 factory operation.
The people who struggle on margin are the professions that have no useful experimentation. For them, the prices do tend to approach the 3 cpu cost of resources since everyone with the schematic can turn out identical product.
Weaponsmiths are a bad exemple, yes a FWG5 requires 145 resources, but a lof of different ones. A master weaponsmith inventory is a nightmare. It's not "I need 50K ore", it's "I need this and that steel, this and that reactive gas, this and that copper, all of good quality please".
I harvest some of my resources myself. I can:
- Sell them for 3CPU on the bazaar/my vendors. It sells well.
- Make them into items with more work and more costs, too. (factory items, need for a crafting station...)
The point is, all resources sell because of grinding, but if you make items you need to make good ones for them to sell. Meaning, you won't sell those guns made with 12 OQ metals you WOULD have sold for 2.5 or 3CPU to grinders. Hence the added overhead and inflated prices.