Business And Economy Archive

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Little-Green-Guy wrote:

its very possible to 'influence' the economy. there is a small group of crafters/entreprenuers on my server that are capable of doing so @ will.

to your points.....if people are 'buying and reselling' ..wouldn't it make more sense for the original sellers to mark up the prices?

having said that..maybe they are pricing their items 'lower' for a reason. so people can afford them.

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Pawlin wrote:

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Giamai wrote:

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Pawlin wrote:

Reselling doesn't mean gouging or scamming.

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it can...on the smaller servers where particular crafters are few and far between buying them all out can create a monopoly

i've only seen this happen once but it is possible

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A reseller could engage in predatory business tactics. But so could any crafter, merchant or loot seller by gouging or scamming or undercutting or whatever.

Reselling by definition isn't evil. thats my point, someone above seemed to think just being a reseller means everyone must hate ya...

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i think because we have already seen predatory tactics used in game, this is why many crafters go with the notion that all resellers are evil.

it is a common conclusion, right or wrong, you won't be able to convince everyone.

thus, resellers be warned, you do tend to get banned from stores.

i personally don't see a problem with it but only in theory, as a crafter and merchant i prefer to maintain control over what my products are initially selling for, so that my name is not associated with higher prices. it is my choice. regardless of how one might view the ethics of it.

that is ultimately what it is all about, choices.

actually, i've never used the term "fair price". the definition of that will vary server to server, month to month

the point is, i choose the price i feel is appropriate, and if i feel that my trademark is being abused by a reseller, then i will take steps to maintain control.

again, my point is just that its about choice. the choice of the merchant who sets up the vendor.

In a pure capitalist system like SWG, only the strong ones who sploit profit survive (hence why RL free capitalism is BAD). One can either complain about getting shanked in the economy by sitting around doing nothing or take part in the shanking.

Its just a game so it really doesn't matter. Gives people a chance to practive buy low sell high stuff anyways.

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Little-Green-Guy wrote:

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Emotemaster wrote:

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Little-Green-Guy wrote:

all of you who are making 'ridiculous' amounts of credits by purchasing (from others) and re-selling..I would bet are the same people who are not liked very much on each of your respective servers.

at some point..people need to have some 'virtual' ethics.

This game isn't all about credits.

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You think people don't buy and resell in real life?

*cough*stock market*cough*

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are you confusing this game for real life?

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Way to change the subject and not defend your point of view Its impossible to try to reason with people like you

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Little-Green-Guy wrote:

all of you who are making 'ridiculous' amounts of credits by purchasing (from others) and re-selling..I would bet are the same people who are not liked very much on each of your respective servers.

at some point..people need to have some 'virtual' ethics.

This game isn't all about credits.

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Ethics? What's unethical about buying on the cheap and reselling higher? You do understand that the entire real world economy works on this principle. What do you think stock buying is about? Buying low and selling high.

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Little-Green-Guy wrote:

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Emotemaster wrote:

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Little-Green-Guy wrote:

all of you who are making 'ridiculous' amounts of credits by purchasing (from others) and re-selling..I would bet are the same people who are not liked very much on each of your respective servers.

at some point..people need to have some 'virtual' ethics.

This game isn't all about credits.

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You think people don't buy and resell in real life?

*cough*stock market*cough*

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are you confusing this game for real life?

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Hey, you're the one that brought in ethics - ethics are a function of the real world.

Btw if you want to help the newbie playerbase, don't sit on your lazy butt and expect your low cost vendor will somehow help. You need to actively got out there with your HELPER title up and seek out newbies to educate them and to let yourself be known in that fashion. If you have some altruistic idea of crafting, fine, that's your business style. Just realize not everyone plays the same way as you and that your vendor is public. If you don't like how the public deals with it, go to custom orders and make deliveries.

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bluejanus wrote:

Ethics? What's unethical about buying on the cheap and reselling higher? You do understand that the entire real world economy works on this principle. What do you think stock buying is about? Buying low and selling high.

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People keep using the stock market as an example of how reselling produces useful results, but it's not necessary to go there.

The value of reselling any good is in moving it from where it has only potential value to some other place where it has actual value.

As long asavehicle sits on my vendor, it has no actualvalue, only potential value. It doesn't matter what price I'm asking; if no one's using it, it has norealvalue.When someone buys it and uses it, thenit has real value, and their choice to pay methe Price X that I was asking communicates that value. It has that value because that's what someone was willing to pay for it.

But maybe it just sits there on my vendor because no one where my vendor is located needs that kind of vehicle. Now along comes a reseller who knows a place where people really want that kind of vehicle. (Maybe they're aRP community.)He buys it from my vendor at Price X, then takes it to another player who buys it for Price X+2000, who then sells it for Price X+5000 to someone who happily drives it off the lot.

In this scenario,I'm up X credits; the reseller is up 2000 credits; the other merchant is up 3000 credits, and someone's driving a cool vehicle that I crafted.

Who here has lost anything? In particular, in what way have I been harmed because someone else recognized that there was value in moving a good from where it had no value to where it had value, and profited (and helped me profit!) as a reward for their effort?

This is the one of the great virtues of a free market. In the process of buying and selling, goods move from places of low utility to places of high utility, and those who are good at recognizing these opportunities to satisfy consumer needs are rewarded forcontributing tothe efficiency of the system. It's how the personal profit motivation winds up supporting the needs of the society -- what Adam Smith called the "invisible hand" effect.

Which means that:

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Famas wrote:

In a pure capitalist system like SWG, only the strong ones who sploit profit survive (hence why RL free capitalism is BAD). One can either complain about getting shanked in the economy by sitting around doing nothing or take part in the shanking.

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is severely unrealistic.

For some people, the profits of one are imagined to somehow be a loss to another. In this kind of "zero-sum game" thinking, resellers are unethical because they make more money than the original seller; they appear to bemaking a profit that the original seller (somehow) could have made, and thus "taking away" the difference in prices from the original seller.

But as I pointed out, there's no such loss happening. Everyone in the chain wins -- that some may winbig while others only windoesn't constitute any kind of "loss" to anyone!

The great advantage of free market capitalism is that as long as some people can do very well, everyone can do reasonably well. Everybody wins... and that's more than can be said of certain other systems in which somebody has a thumb on the balance scales in the name of "fairness."

On the whole, I think SWG's approach works amazingly well -- not in spite of being a strongly free market system, but because of it.

--Flatfingers

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Dakaraim wrote:

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Leana_Txorana wrote:

Yes but expect to get many people upset. There are some crafters that choose to create high quality weapons for low price and want individual buyers not resellers buying all thier stock.

Expect bans, items named in such a way to make it more difficult to resell and other tactics. On the other hand, this is a player driven economy and if you want to do this, more power to you.

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I cant believe people would get upset if you buy something from them to sell. Honestly, I choose a price to sell something at and if a person buys something from me I'm happy if they keep it forever or sell it on a vendor next to mine for twice the price, I got my money didn't I? Of course, I do this with rare items and rewards instead of crafted tools so perhaps it is different if you buy something from someone that they have made.

However, if someone bought out my other vendor, (chef) I would be too busy rolling in my money to get upset no matter the price that they resell at.

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One of my favorite reselling flame war threads

One of my favorite reselling flame war threads

(and this also relates to another post I saw in passing)
When I was a noob archy, struggling for a buck, I started selling small houses on the bazaar. This was when small houses sold for 10-20k, and the bazaar limit was 6k. I stuck ads on them with a WP to my vendor. Most of these houses where bought by one person. I buzzed her, she had been marking them up on her vendor...

My nose was out of joint for about 5 seconds - ads gone, potential new customers gone... Then I realized that is she could afford to blow hundreds of thousands of credits in a short time period, she's doing something right. So I found her ads, visited her shop, got some good ideas - and ramped up production, branded with my own name, and listed at odd hours.

(BTW, no, the market is not closed to the weak, poor, noob. But it is closed to those who don't learn the nuances of business - and the Warren is closed to combatant who spams /attack)

the better way to use the bazaar is to make your ads as auctions...saves reselling that way since it takes a week to buy them up

If you have a problem with people that are reselling your goods, ban them from your shop. If they still manage to buy your goods and resell them, ban any person who appears suspicious in their buying habits.