Artisan Archive

I've been reading alot of posts with people complaining that the market is getting oversaturated with underpriced goods as folks grind out XP items. Here is my ideas on it, that I posted in another thread, but I feel warrant their own post:

There is another tactic if you see folks selling stuff for well under it's value. Buy the item, then immediately resell it for the price it should get. The artisan who made it got their asking price, now all you are doing is relisting the item for what it's worth. One of my favorite hobbies in this game is market speculation like that. I'll go to one city, see that a whole bunch of a certain item just got put up for sale for an insanely low price, buy all of them in one shot, then go to another city where I know they will sell for a bit more. As long as I can make 20 credits plus the price of my shuttle ticket spread out across all the items, I'm winning, and I'm keeping myself interested. Yeah, sometimes I take a bath on a load of muzzles, but most of the time I turn a profit.

There is alot to be said about this market, and I think that after all of us early players get up to higher and more influential levels, we'll be able to really make this market work.

Artisans, we have the ability to change the market. With some cash, you can create an artificial demand, control the price of items in your town, or even get together with other artisans in your town, and completely dominate the market on your planet. There is no reason to sit passively by and let people flood your markets.

This fellow is right on target. The market is small enough that each person can exert significant control over it in this way.

I have been doind reasonably well with this approach - I've got burned recently on a load of bone armour chest pieces and this is a kind of warning:

Beware of market saturation - when all the players have the item and dont need more (because they'll move up to a better type before it wears out)

Huge influx of low cost goods - you can tell when a player or several players is on a grind. Suddenly lots of the product turns up at an insanely low price and large quantity - whats worse is when other sellers follow suite on this price (though they may not be grinding) just to get their product to sell. You may find yourself unable to buy all of the product, or you may find yourself buying faster than you are selling (due to your 25 item limit on the Bazaar). Couple this with the first point and you could find yourself saddled with a load of goods you cant shift

Obscure Bazaar listing - some items are hard to locate because they are not where you expect them to be. This can create the illusion that the item isnt in demand or that the price is too high. If you think thats the case dont be afraid to peddle your wares on a street corner. If you're prepared to invest the time you can sell the product and make a good profit (I've sold obsure items for 150% markup in this way - it just takes a little time)

The underlying problem is that people are too eager to grind and dont value their time enough - this creates large supply/low cost situation that 'honest' artisans have trouble competing with. My suggestion would be to only produce quality goods (which will sell for a high price) and to wait-out the current market situation until the grinders have either reached their goal or at least moved on to producing a different item.

I have to completely agree with you. One of my very favorite things to do is to take a look through all of the resouce containers. I almost always find some resource selling at 1 to 2 credits per unit. As soon as I see it I buy and resell it at 3-4 credits per unit. And I have never not sold a resouce that I have bought in this manner. I have a good friend I play with who put 4 containers of 1000 units of corn on the bazaar. Each selling for 1000 credits per container. I immediately bought all his corn and resold it for 1500 credits for 500 units. He made 4000 credits buy I made 8000 credits after the cost of buying his corn. He has since learned his lesson. This is a great way to control market prices as well. Some things you can not do this with though. I am not about to go out and buy the 300 cdef pistols at 50 credits a pop and resell those.

Heck, ignore those 50 credit CDEFs. I have no problem selling my good CDEFs for 1,000 credits. I just make sure that the damage they do are in the name. I have made a thousands of credits off buying items cheap and reselling. I currently have bags of armor I bought dirt cheap and slowly resell. I expect that even bone armor will go up in price as people see the HAm on some of the "better" armor.

Yes Draznar, you are correct about ignoring the subquality CDEF weapons, and simply marketing your equipment better.

I always go out of my way to make only the best, and then to label the item in a way that indicates that is a superior product. Also, putting in a good description does wonders as well.

Really, it's all about presentation, and crafting quality items that you know are going to help the buyer.

I have sold lots of CDEF guns and so far I have only had one pistol fail to sell.