Business And Economy Archive
Thread: Galaxy Wide Vendor Search on TC POLL
Puertoriqueno wrote:
bluejanus wrote:
Well Egida, on your server you might have an advantage because the galaxy search system is going to be rather difficult to navigate. But most likely with comparable products with crafting classes like architects, prices will migrate to the lower pricing. It's next to impossible to establish a unified profession guild.
Perhaps, but I would like to think it is possible. Most of my friends are bulk sellers....as you can imagine I dont have alot of freinds in the community due to my prices, and we have been at war for a very long time over it. The word I am hearing is that this change will make it easier for us to sell individual items, so we will be willing to up our prices to better match the market. Now that comes from 22 crafters that I know on bria....we discussed this last night at length. One crafter dissented to be honest....cant win them all.
The point I am making is that the time for conflict between the undersellers and the gougers has passed. We all have to band together as a profession and work as a team to minimize the overall impact of this change. It is here, and it is not going away. We need to adapt, and I think unity in pricing is the only way to do it.....unless we all agree not to list. That is another option. I think that is more of a strike however, and I believe Sony would frown on that.
I would still like to think we can start a dialog on this for each server.
That dissent is just my point. You can't compell crafters who refuse to join your merchant guild to follow your pricing. If there are enough of them (and there probably are), you'll have to adjust to their pricing if it's lower and depressing the market value of your products.
The angry rants I posted before when this search was discussed about how to win in the search world were designed to undercut, people who were undercutting. Your organization won't win by raising pricing, it'll outcompete others by dropping prices. In a market where everyone's vendor is accessible from one location, that's the inevitable outcome.
bluejanus wrote:
Puertoriqueno wrote:
bluejanus wrote:
Well Egida, on your server you might have an advantage because the galaxy search system is going to be rather difficult to navigate. But most likely with comparable products with crafting classes like architects, prices will migrate to the lower pricing. It's next to impossible to establish a unified profession guild.
Perhaps, but I would like to think it is possible. Most of my friends are bulk sellers....as you can imagine I dont have alot of freinds in the community due to my prices, and we have been at war for a very long time over it. The word I am hearing is that this change will make it easier for us to sell individual items, so we will be willing to up our prices to better match the market. Now that comes from 22 crafters that I know on bria....we discussed this last night at length. One crafter dissented to be honest....cant win them all.
The point I am making is that the time for conflict between the undersellers and the gougers has passed. We all have to band together as a profession and work as a team to minimize the overall impact of this change. It is here, and it is not going away. We need to adapt, and I think unity in pricing is the only way to do it.....unless we all agree not to list. That is another option. I think that is more of a strike however, and I believe Sony would frown on that.
I would still like to think we can start a dialog on this for each server.
That dissent is just my point. You can't compell crafters who refuse to join your merchant guild to follow your pricing. If there are enough of them (and there probably are), you'll have to adjust to their pricing if it's lower and depressing the market value of your products.
The angry rants I posted before when this search was discussed about how to win in the search world were designed to undercut, people who were undercutting. Your organization won't win by raising pricing, it'll outcompete others by dropping prices. In a market where everyone's vendor is accessible from one location, that's the inevitable outcome.
I know you were pretty angry about it, and I think I was resistant to listening because I have always been at war with high-end retailers. Honestly, it was a dialog from the wholesalers on our server, when we got together, that made me rethink my resistance to retailers concerns.
I am not an unreasonable person....well, at least most of the time i'm not. Perhaps you are right, perhaps it would be in vain, as there will always be that one person that undersells us all.
But I dont think you are looking at one thing, and I would like to clarify just in case you missed...with due respect of course. You have wholesalers, or undercutters if you want to call them that, talking about being fair to retailers for the first time since this game went live. I have been playing for a very long time and I never heard a wholesaler say "we have to think of the impact this change has on retailers, and consider changing our tactics to be more sympathetic to their situation". At least half....thats almost a dozen high end mass distributers on the server mind you......said they would drop wholesaleing all together.
When something like this happens, it deserves noting.
This could....and notice I said could....actually stabilize the market. IF, and only if, we could come to some kind of agreement across the board. Not price fixing...we are talking about fair market value....the idea that there is a minimum and a maximum price for everything.
Modern companies do this. They work with other companies, even as competitors, to keep the market solid. They agree to change markets, advertising, etc...just to keep prices in fair territory. In fact, the biggest group that is famous for this is OPEC.
So, my question to you is this....as a retailer that really disagreed with wholesalers, could you sit down with us and discuss this? Do you see any point in it?
Well actually the angry rant I spoke of was one you probably didn't read. It was in the Architect forum. I'm expecting that the galaxy search change will impact the server economies and the effects on crafters who can't produce different products, i.e. architects and tailors will have to do something. Sure you can get together and formulate strategies, maybe establish a merchant guild, but I don't think that the efforts will work at least to stablizing prices. But I suppose that's the cynic in me. If you can get crafters to agree on a range of pricing and attempt to establish the relative value of a product instead of letting the market establish the value, perhaps it might work. It'll be hard for you on your server though. Far too many crafters I think.
Puertoriqueno wrote:
I know you were pretty angry about it, and I think I was resistant to listening because I have always been at war with high-end retailers. Honestly, it was a dialog from the wholesalers on our server, when we got together, that made me rethink my resistance to retailers concerns.
I am not an unreasonable person....well, at least most of the time i'm not. Perhaps you are right, perhaps it would be in vain, as there will always be that one person that undersells us all.
But I dont think you are looking at one thing, and I would like to clarify just in case you missed...with due respect of course. You have wholesalers, or undercutters if you want to call them that, talking about being fair to retailers for the first time since this game went live. I have been playing for a very long time and I never heard a wholesaler say "we have to think of the impact this change has on retailers, and consider changing our tactics to be more sympathetic to their situation". At least half....thats almost a dozen high end mass distributers on the server mind you......said they would drop wholesaleing all together.
When something like this happens, it deserves noting.
This could....and notice I said could....actually stabilize the market. IF, and only if, we could come to some kind of agreement across the board. Not price fixing...we are talking about fair market value....the idea that there is a minimum and a maximum price for everything.
Modern companies do this. They work with other companies, even as competitors, to keep the market solid. They agree to change markets, advertising, etc...just to keep prices in fair territory. In fact, the biggest group that is famous for this is OPEC.
So, my question to you is this....as a retailer that really disagreed with wholesalers, could you sit down with us and discuss this? Do you see any point in it?
Ledao wrote:
With zero cost (i.e., using resources that are already sitting in my factories -- not even using resource kits), I can produce easily a billion credits worth of product. Not instantly, for sure, but it doesn't take as long as you might think. If I keep my 40 or 45 factories humming, I can certainly produce 1,000 sets of buffs and 20,000+ stimpacks every week. Are you going to buy them all and mark them up for resale? And if you do succeed in cleaning my vendor out one day, what's to stop me from lowering the price further?
Lol... you don't know me at all. I will need to hold onto merchant for a brief period of time while I drop all of my prices to next to nothing so I can get rid of my stock, so I will try out the new system for a little while. As for being dedicated, I have been a master WS since launch and I have decent customer base mainly do to the fact that I dont gouge on the high end items,but I currently charge 10k for an FWG5 and 5k for a VK, justto give you an idea of my prices. These will be high on my server. The big guys are currently charging 5-6k for FWG5s and 2-3k for VKs, I cant compete with these prices, it really just isnt worth my time to even try either, I can make much more money as a combat character, and might even have more fun with it. I am small time, pretty much just me and my wife, who is a master AS, architect and artisan. We do what we can with our 20 lots, to try to get all the resources we have and keep enough factories down to meet demand, and we have done fine for over the 1.5 years that we have been playing, never really price gouging, just charging what we have felt was necessary to make it worth our time. Well those times are over.
Scudder wrote:
Also...if you're gonna drop merchant and/or your crafting professions without waiting to see the outcome of this change then you're probably not very dedicated to your profession anyway.
Ok, obviously I'm kidding around now. But seriously, you think it's really gonna be all doom and gloom for the dedicated crafters? I don't see it. However, one thing is certain... time will tell.
Scudder wrote:Open up a fortune telling shop because you seem very confident in your ability to fortell the future.As a dedicated shopper I have can see a great many positive aspects of this change:1. There is no longer a need for vendors to huddle around the hub cities of Coronet and Theed. A vendor owner can pretty much put his shop near any starport and/or shuttle and will get traffic if his prices are good. People will probably do it anyway to some extent but they no longer will feel the NEED to do it.2. On day one of the patch you can take out all the vendor owners who have left the game. Their vendors won't be listed automatically which will save LOTS of time for those of us who do shop around.3. On items, such as furniture and decorations,the lowest price will win. This is competition at it's finest. I don't see the problem. I have yet to come across anyone, regardless of how rich they are, who are willing to sale below cost for very long. If you know of any in Kauri please send me a waypoint and I will do my best to buy them out.4. Rare items will have a better chance of being seen and purchased. I can hit every major mall on Kauri and not find a single AV-21 deed. Now I will have the ability to find it quicker and the seller will get his credits quicker because of this system. Who's that bad for?5. Crafters willcan see where the market supply of a product is low and craft to meet the demand. For instance, there is a schematic that's all over the place for a technical console and yet it can be difficult to find. I assume that this isbecause some crafters probably believe that the wide spread availability of the schematic must mean that the item itself is wide spread. Now they will know for sure whether or not this is true.6.Loot sellers will have just as much access to this feature as crafters. I see no benefit in excluding anyone from being able to compete just because they aren't a crafter.
Why is it that anyone for this change must refute those of us agaisnt it by ignoring that we want global searching too? We just don't want the devauled merchant profession that THIS version brings. We want full text searching that returns listings of items that match your query with the locations of the vendors that have those items. We want the vendor listing to allow you to open that vendor up and see what other merchandise is there. We want this all tied in to skill points of merchants. We want a tool that will give us real advertising and marketing power without ruining our gameplay while STILL giving the consumer powerful tools to do find merchandise.
We don't want remote purchasing from our vendors. We want you finding a shop that has something you want (and maybe discover we have something else that you didn't know you wanted) then we want you to come visit us and see we have 12 vendors and they are well stocked and the prices aren't bad and we want you to store that waypoint and come back again and again. We don't want convienience of single click buying from a list of 10,000 items on the bazaar to be the way you make your purchaess. Every single skill tree in merchant is devauled by this change when it isn't necessary to give the consumer what they really want..the ability to find good shops with the merchandise they need. We support that goal and our idea is better than the one currently implemented. Our plan also has none of the baggage of griefing and misunderstanding that remote purchasing has. It promotes centeralized shopping where this plan doesn't. All around looking at both ideas one must ask themselves why can the dev team not see the benefits of the alternatives? Is it a logical design decision or just expediency for the sake of a short term boost of good will from consumers?
Scudder wrote:
I just think some people are blowing this way out of proportion without any in-game experience to base it on. The patch hasn't hit the live servers so no one can say with any certainty what will happen. For almost 2 years the current system has been in place and I think this change deserves a chance.
If a vendor owner grossly underprices his items then those items will sale fast. You may not be able to buy him out but then you're not the only person who will be looking for those opportunities. And based on game mechanics I don't see how he would be able to keep it up. Havesting and crafting cost time and credits. Eventually someone doing this is going to run out of one or both and he'll get nothing in return because as soon as his vendor is empty people will buy from the next guy's vendor.
Those who use the system to grief by placing items in front of their shop's door will risk being repeatedly reported by potential customers. How long do you think that person will be allowed to continue those tactics?
One thing I think will be changed is the gross over-pricing of items that happens now. For example, Luke Wanted Posters can range from 1,000 to 100,000 credits. The reason is because somevendor owners don't even bother to compare their prices to the galactic bazaar. So the dabblers who just want to get rich quick will lose with this system. My response is obviously positive.
Also...if you're gonna drop merchant and/or your crafting professions without waiting to see the outcome of this change then you're probably not very dedicated to your profession anyway.
No actaully some people are NOT blowing what will happen out of all proportion. I've been playing this game since NOV 2003, and been a crafter/merchant all that time. That gives me MORE than enough experience to say what will happend. I remember when bikes 1st came in. I saw them selling for 100k i used to sell them for 40k for a swoop made withresources i could sell for 40 to 48k on the bazzar. But very soon there where people selling them for 20k and less andI got no sales since people would say i was ripping them off chargeing 40k for something they could buy for 20k or less. Now i see swoops for 10k or even less. This is a prime example of what will happend to ALL products VERY quickly once this change takes place.
As shown in another thread I posted how a guild could get about 2 million resources a day and it only took 1 person in that guild 90 mins day to pay for ALL the expenses for that day. The problem with undercuters will that there will be MORE enough to supply ALL the items needed at rock bottom and MORE. You say it takes time and effort to get resources. True but what about people like the doc is this thread who could make the 20k+ stims a weekand me who have a HUGE stockpile. We have all ready spent the time and money on them so thier are in effect FREE to us.There is NOTHING to stop me when this hits live from droping all my prices to 1cpu or less. I'm shipwright btw. I very much doubt many if any would be able to compete. I've been told by many that i'm the best shipwright on the server. So others will not be able to beat me on quality and certinaly not on price as i could give the items away FREE if i wanted to. And continue to do so for a LONG time because i have a HUGE stockpile of resourceson hand and a large bank balance to support me. Long enough that all other shipwrights quit anyway. Once thier all gone i can jack my prices sky high and theres nothing any one can do about it. They would'nt have the resources to match my quality and who wants crappy stuff anyway.
But why don't i do this now you say. I sayas it would not have the same effect on prices as it would when you could see i'm the cheapest on the server in seconds. Aslo I belive that MY time and effort HAVE VALUE. But there are many other people out there who do NOT and have the means and ways TO DO what i just told you about above. All it needs is a FEW people like that in each profession which i'm SURE there are and thats the end of the best part of SWG and why MANY MANY people play the game.
Oh and before someone says the GCW and combat is the main part of this game ITS NOT. If it where why are there MORE NON COMBAT profession than combat ones. There are 36 different professions (pilot is one profession not 3) 19 or 20 if you include smuggler are NON combat. Thats about 25% MORE non combat professions that combat. If this game was ALL about comabt why have so MANY NON comabt professions.
Whats the point? The point is this is a MMORPG NOT a MMOFPS. Your SUPPOSE to interact with OTHER people, Your SUPPOSE to have to DEPEND on other people. Thats why crafters NEED combat types to get them meat and hides, and why combat types NEED crafters to make them armour, guns and everything esle a fighter needs to do his thing.
5. Whats the point? The point is this is a MMORPG NOT a MMOFPS. Your SUPPOSE to interact with OTHER people, Your SUPPOSE to have to DEPEND on other people. Thats why crafters NEED combat types to get them meat and hides, and why combat types NEED crafters to make them armour, guns and everything esle a fighter needs to do his thing.
Gameincentives for grouping and interaction between players was gone from this game ages ago and it had nothing to do withthe artisan/crafting aspects of this game. You should not try to force interaction between players who do not want to do so. I don't understand how AFK spamming at starports or any of the other supported advertising methods encourage any interaction so the point seems moot to me.
Scudder wrote:
1. We want this all tied in to skill points of merchants.
Why? Are you under the impression thatmerchants and crafters the only people who sale stuff?
You're kidding, right? If merchant is to remain in the game, we need unique, exclusive abilities that justify the skill point cost.
Nobody is asking to move the crafting of heavy harvestersfrom architect to artisan engineering-3. Nobody is asking to move strafe shot 2 from master rifle to marksman rifles-3. Nobody is asking to move the /curepoison command from Doc2000 to medic phatrmacology-3. Yet you are perfectly willing to move the single most useful merchant ability (the ability to advertise) to artisan business-3.
The ability to advertise has to be tied to merchant skills or you've instantly devalued merchant advertising. This change already devalues hiring (who cares what the vendors look like?) and management (why have multiple shops or vendors when people are shopping remotely?).