Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: Some BE-WalMart openend right next door *sighs*
Hope what happened to architects doesn't happen to BE. You can buy this guy out as long as it is only this guy. You can even sample the pets and make clones of them with your name on it. That is great. He'll get pissed at you, but you have to buy it out to save your own market. Eventually he'll get smart and ban you, but not after some burn out.
The real problem is people get use to those prices very quickly. Once they see a pet for 10k, then they feel all pets need to be 10k and anything else is over priced. That is the danger, so you have to buy the guy out.
Hmm, I wouldn't recommend that. For one thing, it creates a domino affect. Now you have 2 BE's charging far less than market, that will then in turn affect others in your area. What's the next BE gonna do? charge 50% of your new prices? lol. The other thing is that once you get a customer base used to a certain price, no matter how rediculous, it would be hard to justify suddenly raising it 500% or whatever after this business is behind you.
I think you're much better off just removing the idiots best pets from the market completely. Either buy them to resample, like others suggested, or buy them to resell. But just get them off the market at those prices.
Tal-N wrote:
As for the low prices I have to say it looks like he's selling them at a loss, thats not a problem really and frankly I could do the same since I have more money than imaginable. If you want to be especially vicious then for a few months have all of your clones for sale at 50% what his prices are as long as your bank balance can suffer a slow decrease like that. Frankly if you're past 1 million then it's worth doing since you'll never find enough stuff worth buying with money like that.
Ironically, after the knock-down sale and getting in of new stock, I will amost certainly be raising my prices.
On Chilastra the hologrinding has pushed the price of resources through the roof. Stim and tissue prices will now be based on the resource price, and if those don't sell, well heck, I'll just sell the resources........
As for pets. TBH they are just a sideline. It's the tissues and stims that bring in the cash. If someone wants the pet badly enough they'll pay top dollar for it. Those 'in the know' also know the pain associated with getting that pet DNA and are happy to pay for it (more than happy, on occasions I've had people tip extra!) If not, well it's back in the blender.
BTW - it really is worth educating clients on what goes into making a BE pet. A lot of people don't realise (or more usually it just doesn't click)that in order to get rancor DNA you actually have to sneak up on a rancor and 'stick a needle' in it. If the rancor objects then your only option is to run like hell. Your average pet user owns a pet precisely because they want to keep the pet between them and the rancor.....................
You mean it can create a domino effect, we've already seen that some people refuse to improve their sales by taking a profit loss. Personally I think it's better to occasionally boost your exposure as a supplier by occasionally dropping prices to the point of making a loss since in the long run it means more people are aware of you so they stand a better chance of return custom. So what if others in the area do the same, if they do then drops yours lower again. In the end it's the customers who benefit. In the end it's a choice between no sales and a definent loss of profit or selling at a loss which lowers that drain.
Hmm, I wouldn't recommend that. For one thing, it creates a domino affect. Now you have 2 BE's charging far less than market, that will then in turn affect others in your area. What's the next BE gonna do? charge 50% of your new prices?
Tal-N wrote:
You mean it can create a domino effect, we've already seen that some people refuse to improve their sales by taking a profit loss. Personally I think it's better to occasionally boost your exposure as a supplier by occasionally dropping prices to the point of making a loss since in the long run it means more people are aware of you so they stand a better chance of return custom. So what if others in the area do the same, if they do then drops yours lower again. In the end it's the customers who benefit. In the end it's a choice between no sales and a definent loss of profit or selling at a loss which lowers that drain.
Hmm, I wouldn't recommend that. For one thing, it creates a domino affect. Now you have 2 BE's charging far less than market, that will then in turn affect others in your area. What's the next BE gonna do? charge 50% of your new prices?
The problem is Tal, you are using mass market, high volume RL sales practices to support what is a low-volume, limited market game environment. Also, constant price cutting does not help the customer in the long run, as it drives out quality product and creates a mediocre level of service and clones.
Its a very unimaginative solution that ignores the fundamental economic realities of a small market, low volume product. Places like Walmart don't succeed because they sell high quality goods cheaply, they survive by selling huge volumes of adequate quality goods at miniscule profit margins. Arthur's buy-out option is a far more sensible solution. The OP effectively turns the opposition into a sub-contractor and, as long as care is taken to ensure that pets aren't purchased for re-sale that would never sell to a real customer, can make money off his creations AND get customers back into buying her own, higher quality pets.
The problem with petstims is probably different. Since CH is no longer a truly single combat class, I think many CHs are more active in group hunts. These usually have a medic/doctor along with them and the heals from a high powered C or D stim can hit 1K or better. CH's just 'trick' the pet for mental.
Seshemw wrote:
Ahh, is that why my petstims and tissues have been sitting more or less still for a good bit, when I used to have to struggle to keep them stocked at similar prices? I'll probably keep my prices set, on Kettemoor. I've already spent my time and money, posting them on the vendor and keeping them there is a negligible investment of time to restock, and the vendor pay I'm going to be paying anyway.