Business And Economy Archive

Which is why isntead of asking to take away part of a profession so that they are no longer needed. It is much better to go out and push for additions to that profession that would better fit what is needed.

I have seen quite a few threads with the suggestion of giving Merchant a Reseller Vendor that would allow them to make a percentage of the sales while still giving the hands on control that crafters and loot sellers are looking for.

Yes, the solution for handling not wanting to be a merchant requires no game changes, you just have to make a partnership with a merchant who will buy your goods at wholesale.

Then you dont have to worry about them after that point, it all becomes the merchant's problem, and unlike getting others to sell for you, you get paid up front.

You have to be willing to accpeting making your money on quantity as you cant wholesale goods at retail price to a reseller. Basically you have to make it so there is some money for the reseller to make.

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IntoTheGarbage wrote:

No they should not.

I have posted a solution many times. Give merchants the ability to access all vendors in the galaxy, advertised or not. If merchants had this ability, a crafter would not have to be a merchant as well. They could craft there goods, sell it wholesale on a basic vendor, and a merchant could then buy it and retail it.

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Kinshi wrote:
You have to be willing to accpeting making your money on quantity as you cant wholesale goods at retail price to a reseller.

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And there we see the real problem. Greed and this approach just don't work together, and so many crafters feel "forced" to be merchants too (it worked btw fine when we had two merchants hosting vendors for several guildies, was basically the here already proposed approach, crafter offers item to vendor, merchant buys and resells it).

To me, and this topic is one that I have discussed probably 1000's of times in the past year and a half, the basic issue facing crafters and merchants is the lack of tools to help them work togehter. I think there are probably a LOT of crafters who don't particularly care about running a shop but they don't see a viable alternative that they feel provides them a safe and reliable method for getting their product to market and getting paid. The current system is either based on a huge up front investment from the merchant (which is a considerable risk and impossible for smaller merchants) or a consignment system that has no secure support by the system and thus makes the crafter trust another person without any controls or insurance to protect their time investment.

I have been involved in many business relationships in game from straight wholesale purchasing to customized consignment and in between and all of it can be done if the two parties are willing to work at it but the system is very weak in its support of these systems.

The merchant forum has put forth many suggestions over time about changes that would help things from our perspective and though we are decidedly biased on one side of the equation we do have a lot of crafter/merchants who visit and keep us at least a little honest. Some of those changes that I personally think would make a huge difference are:

1. Revamp of the Offers System to allow for more efficient offering of items in bulk, suggested retail prices , support for payment of the sales fee to the crafter upon sale of the merchandise.
2. Individual item Sales of items from crates and resource stacks which would allow quick and efficient restocking and tracking of items.
3. Sales reports and tools to help the merchant track their business and provide data to their suppliers and help make decisions about their businesses.
4. Revamp of the sales interface which would allow multiple items to be put up for sale with a few clicks. This would make restocking more efficient and allow a merchant to service his crafting suppliers much faster and with less effort. It would reduce the feeling of many merchants that these relationships are more trouble than they are worth for the small profit (usually 10-15%) we make from the sales.

There are some other ideas that would probably help. One of the more fascentaing ones that I have heard is the concept of a wholesale bazaar system that would allow crafters to sell their merchandice with no 6k limit but only allow merchants with the appropriate skill to purchase from the system. This would allow a merchant to shop for good merchandise at a price he could afford to make a profit in his corner of the galaxy and buy merchandise for resale. There are obviously some problems details to work out but something like this might help build a more robust model than we have now.

For those crafters who like running their own establishments or who just don't want to give up control they still have that option of getting those skills themselves and running everything solo.

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DocSavag wrote:

There are some other ideas that would probably help. One of the more fascentaing ones that I have heard is the concept of a wholesale bazaar system that would allow crafters to sell their merchandice with no 6k limit but only allow merchants with the appropriate skill to purchase from the system.

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Wow that is way better than my suggestion to access vendors! I am a merchant myself, but I never cruise that forum, looks like I should start.

The only thing I can add to that is make those bazzar stations craftable.

1. Create a Marketplace in NPC cities.


2. Give Merchants the ability to place 1 vendor in this marketplace. This should be located away from the Starport (to reduce lag).


3. Have seperate sections for weapons, armor, etc, but include some seperate areas for resources organic and inorganic seperately. And seconday production. This last one is the biggest part, allow merchants to place secondary products so that people can actually get things wholesale, such as fiberplast panels for tailors and other craft pieces.


4. The NPC Marketplace should not allow barking of advertisements, droids would still be permisable, but vendors would ju cause to much spam in a setup like this.


5. Each section is restricted to what it sells. If you place a vendor in the weapons section, don't expect to be able to sell you adheasives & other loot drops on the same vendor. Half the headache of vendors is many tend to be peoples personal junk shop.There would be a "Misc" area that you could put an anything for sale vendor, but for the most part we want things to be kept orderly.


6. Communal Storeroom. (Master Merchant Only) The storeroom becomes a shared inventory for all vendors that merchant owns. This allows them to have a common area to price and list all their items. There would be no need to pick up items if they were on a different planet or anything. The merchant can then have a private shop & a public vendor in the market place that would list all his applicable wares for sale. *Note: same rules would apply as in section #5. So if someone with a vendor in the weapon section of an NPC marketplace, that vendor would only list all weapons for sale in his storeroom and not crystal collection that is for sale in his private shop.

With these kind of options it might just make merchant a very useful tool to the market in general, and unclutter some of the bazaar for those who don't have the merchant skills, and hopefully lessen some of the shops in far off and hard to reach places.

these changes won't free up the artisan slots for business, but if trust is found and good merchants abound. Then there will be less Mom & Pop stores and more like wal-marts to be found.

Feel free to pick and choose what you like from this. Hopefully some of it might make it into the game.

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Gooney wrote:

Obvious solution to this is to simply "buy" the items from your friends, then "sell" them on your vendor. Hmmm wholesaleing...sounds like something a profession could do....hmmm which one though .

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I agree.

This is what I do actually.
I have someone buy my weapons off me, then go sell them.

Even though I have a merchant, it helps alot.
Maji (flurry) does the same. And is the most proficiant AS composite seller.

If only more people would do it....

-Kano