Artisan Archive
Thread: My get rich quick plan Will it work?
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xDiggerx
Thu Nov 18, 2004 5:36 pm
#27
Powerups as a way to make money? Maybe chump change to spend in the cantina but real money? NOT
I have made powerups in game since day 1. It is my longest running business and one I really enjoy. But money maker? Sure, you make good money on a cpu basis for what resources you use, but for pure cashflow and volume of money they suck.
Consider resources as a comparison. With 8 harvestors running you can easily pull in 1 million plus resources a shift. For argument sake lets say 500K in a week. If your pulling in decent stuff you can easily average 3 cpu on those resources. So, $1.5 million income per week. Take off maintenance and power costs and even conservatively we are looking at $1 million per week profit. All with limited in game time on your part.
Now Powerups. I sell my powerups, top of the line stuff, for $2K per crate. I will give the benefit here and say you can sell them for $3K per crate. So at $1 million profit per week you would need to sell 333 crates of powerups per week, and that is not considering your resource costs to make them. 333 crates of powerups would use 33,300 resources, lets say at 3 cpu, so $100K in costs. Nice return on investment but 1) you won't sell 333 crates of powerups in one week and 2) you can't sustain any kind of significant volume long term. Resources you can match that $1 million week after week after week, and that is conservative.
Sure, to each his own on making money in game, but don't point a guy down the wrong path if he is looking to make serious money with his artisan. Time spent to income return nothing beats resources, period.
Shadwe
Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:10 pm
#28
DarthsForce wrote:I need money.. I spend cash much faster than I make it, so ive decided to make my alt a artisan.I plan on just popping out tons of swoops. Mainly because its not too specific with resources and for the most partpeople dont worry about effectiveness, they just want a ride.What ya guys think. Can I make a lot of money just by crafting nothing buy swoops.
Also if you could tell me what resources they require so I can start harvesting now. Thanks
waste of time and effort you can sell the ores used at 3cpu and make more then you can making swoops.
make alt drop 10 harvesters on steel sell steel make more money that way.
Zandergeef
Fri Nov 19, 2004 2:22 am
#29
Selling resources is a great way to make money. If you are on top of things and getting the best stuff you can sell it for bundles. You can sell almost any large quantity of metal to people who are tring to grind out professions.
PaladinX333
Fri Nov 19, 2004 10:57 am
#30
Animi wrote:
Fodder650 wrote:
Actually powerups do very well and dont eat up much in the way of resources.
To each their own way of making money
Yeah, but those sales are also way down since JTL went live.
I am surprised you guys have been hit this hard by JTL. Grenades sales are through the roof and people are still getting buffed and running missions on the ground.I have JTL and my consumption ofweapons, combat foods and whatnot have never been higher. You can only spend so much time inspace before that gets old too.JTL seems to have brought back many older players including a few in my guild that "quit" SWG.
Fodder650
Fri Nov 19, 2004 10:58 am
#31
I havent been hit at all. In the last week i made myself a 11 point artisan, 11 point WS, 11 point DE because of profits from grenades and powerups. My wifes BE/Chef has been making some good money from BE food sales as well. There are a lot of players worried that they wont make money with the loss of solo groups. But that will come back soon and things will get back to normal. Mostly when they realize they can still make money it just takes a little longer
Dreamland
Fri Nov 19, 2004 11:55 am
#32
PaladinX333 wrote:
I am surprised you guys have been hit this hard by JTL. Grenades sales are through the roof and people are still getting buffed and running missions on the ground.I have JTL and my consumption ofweapons, combat foods and whatnot have never been higher. You can only spend so much time inspace before that gets old too.JTL seems to have brought back many older players including a few in my guild that "quit" SWG.
Yeah i BET grenade sales are through the roof. I see c-12s going for 200k a crate, where they used to sell for 50.
Fodder650
Sat Nov 20, 2004 1:11 am
#33
Well no one buys them that high. But on Bloodfin we see wildly different prices. I charge 29k for my C12's and 9k for the powerups to go with them and sell quite a few. It has brought me some very loyal customers
PaladinX333
Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:08 am
#34
Dreamland wrote:
PaladinX333 wrote:
I am surprised you guys have been hit this hard by JTL. Grenades sales are through the roof and people are still getting buffed and running missions on the ground.I have JTL and my consumption ofweapons, combat foods and whatnot have never been higher. You can only spend so much time inspace before that gets old too.JTL seems to have brought back many older players including a few in my guild that "quit" SWG.
Yeah i BET grenade sales are through the roof. I see c-12s going for 200k a crate, where they used to sell for 50.
I increased my price from 25K to 30K per crate of C12s for two reasons. First of all, my costs went up some as I had to buy some of the resources (I usually harvest my own). Secondly, at 25K per crate, I simply could not keep up with the demand. I had requests for more than 120 crates in a single day. Even with 4 factories up and running now, there is simply no way I can keep up with that kind of demand.
Funkbacca
Mon Nov 22, 2004 5:22 pm
#35
Dreamland wrote:
PaladinX333 wrote:
I am surprised you guys have been hit this hard by JTL. Grenades sales are through the roof and people are still getting buffed and running missions on the ground. I have JTL and my consumption of weapons, combat foods and whatnot have never been higher. You can only spend so much time in space before that gets old too. JTL seems to have brought back many older players including a few in my guild that "quit" SWG.
Yeah i BET grenade sales are through the roof. I see c-12s going for 200k a crate, where they used to sell for 50.
Well it didn't hurt at all that your potential grenade customer base jumped something like 15% since they un-Nerfed wookiees using c12's.
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!!"
funk
Fodder650
Mon Nov 22, 2004 6:35 pm
#36
(hugs the grenade certs)
It helped me pay for my 11th Artisan and Weaponsmtih points. I sell mine for 29k and took 3 days off from crafting where i had been going non-stop for over a month. I went from 130 crates to 6. And i got emails from my clients wanting to know when i was reloading the vendor.
So now 14 factories are on day 3 and no plans on slowing down
It helped me pay for my 11th Artisan and Weaponsmtih points. I sell mine for 29k and took 3 days off from crafting where i had been going non-stop for over a month. I went from 130 crates to 6. And i got emails from my clients wanting to know when i was reloading the vendor.
So now 14 factories are on day 3 and no plans on slowing down
GraffDavu
Wed Nov 24, 2004 12:48 pm
#37
OK powerups... what the heck server are you guys on that you're selling powerups at 3kto 9k a crate and they're flying off the shelves. I've had my vendor (and yes it's registered on the map) 1km outside of Eisley for months.
My worst powerups havea max stat of 29.8/14.9. Most of my newer ones have 31/15.2 as their stats. I have them listed at 1k and 1.5k and I'm lucky if I sell 5 crates a week.
Mind you these aren't bad combos either, min/max damage. Speed/damage. Anyway this isn't a trade post, but I'm trying to figure out how pepole stay in business and get the results that some you guys are getting. I'm about an inch away from dropping all of my merchant and artisan skills because maintenance costs are killing me relative to what is actually bought.
xDiggerx
Thu Nov 25, 2004 1:31 am
#38
Ok, here are a few pointers for you that I have found successful. Realize I have been selling powerups since about day 2 on Radiant and have never stopped. I moved locations from Eisley to Theed after about 6 months in Eisley but this was associated with my guild move, etc.. With travel as easy as it is in game (swoops, etc..) I don't think location should be an issue.
Anyway, some suggestions on selling your powerups:
1) You have to make the best. No excuses. That means 33.16% and 16.33% Powerups. If you can get a 3rd stat on there, all that much better. An example of my best selling powerups would be 33.16% Maximum Damage Increase/16.33% Minimum Damage Increase/8.4% Max Range Increase. For instance. To get these you need OQ stats on your chemical and mineral to be over 990. I use 1000 OQ minerals and 1000 OQ chemicals. I think even on a low economy server you can sell these for $2K per crate of 10 powerups. It's what I sell for on Radiant. So, at 100 resource units per crate you would break even paying 20 cpu for your resources. You should be able to find 990+ OQ stuff for under 10 cpu on most servers.
2) Rename your Powerups to include the stats in the title. I always use 33.16% Blah Blah/16.33% Blah Blah so that they know exactly what they are getting. All my melee powerups start with Melee 33.16% Blah Blah..... I see a lot of folks use the standard naming that SWG comes up with....PLEASE, I make them and can't keep all the combinations and names straight, why would someone using them. Rename them.
3) ALWAYS have stock on your vendor. At least keep the most common pu's in stock, like max/min damage. The fastest way to lose customers is to have them show up and not find any stock. Once you get them coming to your vendor you need to keep them coming, an always FULL inventory and selection is a great way to maintain loyalty.
4) Get them to your vendor. Make sure your registered on the planet map. Make up some special runs of your best Powerups....like 3 or 4 stat versions...and list them on the bazaar of the busiest cities. On my server that is Theed, Coronet, and probably the Mining Outpost on Dant (at least pre solo-group nerf). For those bazaar crates name your powerups with your shop wp in the end of each powerup name. You can also keep crates in your inventory, with your shop wp in the name, and offer a free crate to folks while waiting for shuttles, when in the cantina, etc... this will help spread goodwill, get you a good reputation, and also they will then have your shop wp on the pu's. After giving someone a free crate send them a nice message telling them you would love to earn their business and that your shop is always stocked, etc.. and here is the wp (attached on the email). Make sure your wp you send them says something like "Top Quality Weapon Powerups" or such so that 2 weeks from now when they are looking through their datapad and see it, they know what it is for. A wp of "Bonzo's Shop of Goods" might seem great, but for most people in a week or two they won't remember what it was for and suddenly your a casualty of the delete key.
5) Advertise on your galaxy forums. Work deals with large guilds. Cash flow is king in this business and so if you need to cut your cpu profit a bit, but can move 100 crates at one time, then do it. I have guilds buy 100 crates at once and give them a discount. On the bazaar I can list my Powerups at $2500 per crate. Off my vendor they are always $2000 per crate. Specials to guilds or others in volume, $1500 per crate. Your still making money.
6) Keep some special crates labeled something like "Thanks for your business - Have this free crate on me". Have them a good general powerup like a max/min damage. Everyday put 1 of these special crates on your vendor. The next person who bothers to look will get it for say $1. It spreads good will and will keep customers coming back.
Just a few ideas for you. Stock the bazaars near high traffic areas, make the best, advertise, keep plenty of inventory....do those things while making the best product will set yourself apart and keep your business growing. The key is making the best. $2K is nothing to most folks in game, so I don't care if your powerups are "close" to the best and cost 1/2 as much, I want the best and will go somewhere to get them.
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