Chef Archive
Thread: Sunburn and Teltier pricing.
Finally got Cooking 4! I'm quite happy, lol, especially after losing internet for a few days, which put me behind schedule.
Anywho... I popped out about 6 crates of Sunburns with +1750, -58 for 378s, 6 servings each. Haven't had a chance to really play around with Teliter or Ormachek but I'm planning on making a few crates of those as well for medical use. Mostly my own, heh. Any insight on how to charge for these things? I"ve seen worse sunburns sell by the crate for 45k. Not sure if that's too much or too little - I rarely see chef foods selling on my server.
I think it varies a lot per server.
When I had time to look hehe I'd see sunburn crates for between 25 and 35k.
I charge 20k. Yes it's low. My shop is new too. Actually it's low mostly because I'd included my PA member's discounts on the vendor, since they were the ones mostly buying it. I probably need to raise my prices but I'm kinda lazy. 
I do things differently from (most) other Chefs I've seen. I don't charge per use, I charge per resource used and I gear all my experimentation towards the buff and its duration not the use (I try to get at *least* 4 uses per item, and 6 for the easier to raise ones, however). /me shrugs.
If I start getting overwhelmed with orders or anything, I'll raise my prices, but I'd charge about 400 each for Teltier noodles and 500 for the Ormacheck. Just multiply that x25 and that'd be my crate prices (I already know my prices tend to be cheap so I don't offer a crate discount.) I'm working on a more accurate accounting of my actual expenditures when making things, so that I know how much my actual 'net' is but for the moment I'm sticking with 10 cr per resource used. Which must be working as I've actually got a nice bank balance 
but I'd still like to see how close to my costs that is hehe
Hmmmm...
I hope those sunburns I bought for 600 credits for a stack of 3 weren't meant for guildmates of the cook... I'm hooked
I was just running through some pricing for these things and was VERY surprised to find the actual cost was so low.
I am running an efficient medium harvester for the gas, and 3 small harvesters for the minerals and one large harvester (not very efficient) for the wheat.
Here's what I track for costs:
- Energy collected at 0.5 credits per unit.
- Loaded cost of the gas at 0.45per unit
- Loaded cost of the minerals at 0.45 per unit
- Loaded cost of the wheat at 0.36 per unit.
- Manufacturing run takes 2 days of factory time for about 200 cases = 3,000 credits total
Cost of all 200 cases = 14,200 credits. Cost per case = 71 credits.
Now, if you're buying all your components for 4 credits each, that would be 80,000 credits plus the manufacturing cost = 415 credits per case. Still WAY under the 25,000-35,000 credits I hear is the "average" price.
I sell mine for 27,500 on Kettenmoor, and I think I have only sold one case. Part of that could be the traffic, but i'm considering cutting the prices drastically to try to push this stuff. Even at 15,000 per case (since I do my own harvesting) I could make well over 14,500 proffit. At 200 cases sold (I'm actually planning on a 300 case factory run) that would be 2.9 million credits.
...could it be that a CHEF could be a millionaire?...
or is my math wacked?
I would argue that your prices for resources are too low. Energy can be bought in bulk on my server for .9 cr/unit (serious bulk) but is more commonly 1-2 I believe. I do all my own power harvesting, just like my other resources so I'm not that certain. Also, I'm not sure about your factory run costs - you included the cost of the power in them and the maintenance? The reactive gas and other resources I believe you could easily use 3-4 cr/unit to be "fair" (remember higher OQ *should* mean something though some people selling resourcesdon't seem to realize that). The other thing I see is that you don't seem to list a general figure for your time? I mean what is it worth to you, to spend this time making things? Don't get me wrong - I haven't got a figure for it exactly either, this is why comparison is good hehe.
In general I look at the things you listed, I try to gauge how much my time is worth (to me) and how quickly something is selling. A lot of times if something is selling too quickly, then you need to raise the price, if too slowly you need to lower it. It can be really hard to decide what to start with too.
Anyway, how about marketing? I'm not certain on your server, but WH doesn't have but a handful of Chefs so people tend to seek me out more than I them. Put an item on the Bazaar at 3k on auction with directions to your shop (waypoint coordinates at least) do this at a few busy cities on your particular planet. Actually sell items on the bazaar - tat sunburns for instance and put in the description where your shop is what else you carry etc. (On the off chance anyone bothers to read that description which they don't tend to.) If you're desperate, stand around handing out samples and a waypoint.
And yes a Chef can be a millionaire. But frankly to get that kind of money is a serious investment of your time compared to say a even more lucrative profession like weaponsmith/armorsmith, at least imo. I always seem to be doing factory runs (I'm still working on a good schedule too!) and everyone else I know does either the same sort of things pretty constantly or does one or twobig run and is set for a while. Anyway, that may just be me
Plus not to mention, you should also price based on how valuable you feel your time is, you should be compensated for your work.
Thanks very much for the inputMousekin.
My numbers were based on this:
Solar costs 1,500 per day. On a 40% concentration, that's 4600 energy= 0.33 credits per unit.
Personal harvesters cost 750 per day + 600 enegry = 950 per day. On a 80% concentration, that will produce 2,300 per day. That cost per unit= 0.41 per unit including energy.
Mediums & large's have almost the same cost structure (large's actually harvest at a better effiencey) but harvest a greater amount per day (i.e. double the cost, double the resources harvested).
Resources are cheap if you harvest them yourself. That said, running around to the harvesters and solars is a real pita, so yes, time should also be counted (I could easily run 4X2,000 missions in the time it takes me to run to all harvesters each day). That said, 4X2000X7 days = 56,000 credits. Factor that into the cost (as I outlined above) and you'd get a per-case cost of about 350 credits... If you bought the resources (at 4cpu) it would be about 700 per case.
Still far short from the 30,000 cr. we're charging... but hey - that's the economy right?
I personally buy my materials at around 4:1, and I take that into consideration with my sales. My most important metric is demand though.
60k a crate of 9 use sunburns, and the 40 crate run lasts me about 2-4 weeks. It lets me do other things with my factory, like run aludium non-stop 
I find that many of my prices are pretty close to what you see here: http://www.ralloszek.net/swg/ChefPricing.htm
For teltier noodles with really good stats, I sold them at 150 per use which I believe meant 900 for a 6 stack (though I might be misremembering and thinking of Blap Biscuit instead).
Sunburns I've been selling at 1500 for a stack of 6. I'm selling8 or 9 stack batches for 2000 each. I view Tat Sunburns differently than most chefs seem to - I always max out the quantity first before raising the duration. Once you have a buff of 1560, another 200 more doesn't do a heck of a lot (at least I don't believe it does).
As far as being a millionaire - definately possible. Since the stat bug has been fixed I've gone from about 500k to just over 3 mill in the bank. I am currently working on special orders that probably total over a mill too. Heh, one guy ordered 5 crates of BOH, 5 of Dweezel, and 5 of Ryshcate. Each stack of BOH is 3000, each Dweezel is 900, and each Ryshcate is 1600. So that totaled something like 687,000 credits. For that much bulk, his prior purchases, and friendliness to wait for the order to be completed - I offered a 10% discount which means he'll pay me like 618k. So later this week I expect to top the 4 million mark.
Due to a combination of using up 5 lots on a Cantina, and having to drop all my survey skills to become Master BE - I find that I buy almost all of my resources from the bazaar or the very rare resource seller that has organics. I've reached a point where I am lucky to find 3 cpu deals. I don't even mind the price considering the percentage that I make off the materials; rather, I cannot purchase enough to make long factory runs. So the price of manufaturing someone quoted above really only seems to apply to someone that collectes resources themselves and more importantly have more supply than their demand requires.
I usually gather my own resources, unless I see something for sale I can't pass up. I'm VERY tired of everyone selling easy-to-come-by resources for 10cpu and up.
The tailors have a really nice program floating around, you input cost per resource, name of item (which is inputted based on skill required) and it pops out a nice figure for you to charge. If I had any idea how to make something like that I'd go for it with Chef. I can't stand pricing... always avoided the auctions in EQ and DAoC if I could.
Thanks for the input though, guys. Should help me quite a bit... I never even thought about adding power resource costs, lol
Interesting thread. It caught my attention because I've just begunmy first factory run of Starshines, and intend to do Teltier Noodles next.
I was originally gauging my possible price as some others do here, units/crate* uses/unit, and setting the price per single use based on the item's usefulness and basic reputation.
I'm currently selling a run of experimented Bofa Treats, and have been encouraged by the rate of sales... I label them as Bofa Pet Treats and did em because of the expected rush when mounts came out; intended as pet food only, not expecting people to actually cinsider using them themselves as a regular buff. They go for 18k / crate, 25 units, 6 uses a unit. And never once have I heard they were overpriced, on Shadowfire where I reside.. for Bofa Treats, of all things.
Encouraging...