Chef Archive

I started selling for 300/use then increased it to 400/use. I can't keep them in stock so I'm thinking of increaseing to 500/use. It doesn't help that I have to harvest all my own materials and that sunburns are the only real money maker. It's costing me at least 2 credits for a single piece of reactive gas, maybe more.

I'll be curious to see what the price stabalizes at. It would be nice to see more things people will buy at the rate they by sunburns... but at least right now we don't have to collect all the materials for everything little thing. And why is it that on Ahazi all the fruits / grains seem to go for 6 credits each on the bazzarr... that's bloody NUTS!

I agree with you, Cocoon. I am the only one in my area that sells sunburns (actually, I haven't seen any others on the entire planet yet). I feel completely justified selling mine for 700-750 a charge. I am running 4 harvesters and a cafe with 2 vendors. If it weren't for my fighter friends funding my little business, I'd be flat broke (and would probably be a weaponsmith by now). Sunburns are the ONLY things I can even think about making a decent amount of money on, and from the people I've talked to, 700 cr is more than fair for a +3000 total pt boost.

I'm not a bad business person. I've been working hard to let people know the value of food. I spend lots of time in cities bartending, giving out free samples, letting people know what's available and what it does for them, emailing waypoints to my shop, etc. I spend a lot of time harvesting the best ingredients, experimenting on every item, putting items together in packs to make it easier on the customers, all that stuff. I feel that for the time and care I've invested in my profession, Ishould be able to take advantage of the one decent item I can make and sell it for as much as people are willing to pay.

You have to consider that fighter classes have a TON of expendable income. When I needed money to fill my harvesters for the weekend, two of my friends went on destroy missions for about an hour or so, and together got me about 30k. That wasn't even the total amount they made--just what they felt like donating to me. 700 cr is nothing to them. So I'll continue to charge it, as long as people will buy it.

Lev(Hooggle) i know you in game.. so take this not as a attack but a difference in opion...

that crazy to sell for 100 a use.... cause then everytime i meet someone who as bought from you... they expect the same price.. at a 100 a use i would make no money... i own 6 micro harvesters,small house,1 heavy gas,1med water, and a personal mineral harvester(which i'm gonna upgrade to med)..... and no i don't do missions... i'm doing very well.... the standard is 400-500 a use on our server... i really think your doing more harm than good at that price.... wat are u afaird of? no one will buy it? i get told how low my prices are all the time.. trust me ppl will buy it. However, we can't make you change what works for you... and nor will I flame you for that..

I still don't understand how you can't make money at 100 per use because I'm doing it now.

I would callit the "Hoggle/Leviathan Stockpile System".

Let's say you stockpile enough materials to make 600 Tatooine Sunburns all the while filling orders for Tatooine Sunburns. That would be 30,000 units of reactive gas, 12,000 units of minerals, and 18,000 units of wheat as your goal. That's 36,000 creditsfor me tomine myself at .6 credits a resource assuming a 35% wind spot and a 65% spot for the personal harvesters.

While stockpiling all this, yesyouare losing money everyday even if you are sell selling Tatooine Sunburns and other items along the way. This is because itis an investment and you are mining way more materials than you need a day.

Now, with this I can make 600 Tatooine Sunburns. At 100 per use and 6 uses for my current quality reactive gas that's 600 credits per Sunburn. That's 360,000 credits for all of them. Quite a bit more than the investment of 36,000wouldn'tyou say?

Even if you bought all your materials at 4 credits a resource you would still get 360,000 credits at a 240,000 investment. Not as much as mining it your self, but you did add extra costs with a middle man.

The real secret into making money at this price is knowing that you don't have to have every single one of your lots used up 24/7 and adding needlessly to your costs. If you're hauling in way more materials than you need per day for items that you sell then of course you will lose money.

Untill the money starts rolling in youwill have tocut back on your uneeded harvester use. So untill you need to start stockpiling again you can sit back and only need to pay off a small house and the optional factory. Vendor cost doesn't enter into it because right now I have the bugged super low cost NPC vendors.

While your lots are empty you can try renting them out to people or you can mine and sell what you pull in. I haven't done any of this yet but it's an option if you want to make an extra buck.

Once your materials start getting low you should have made back your 36,000 and more. You can use the "more" money for anything you want, just set aside some of the funds so you can stockpile again.

Once the second session of stockpiling is done and you have fat stacks of materials, you can start using your "more" money on stuff like gathering grinding materials, bigger harvesters that will cut down on costs more,or whatever you want. A great investment would be a fusion generator. It doubles as a mineral and power harvester and it's very cheap on the cost to pull units out of the ground.

Always try to have a bit of extra cashon hand in casesome super high quality reactive gas pops up. You will be prepared to get a ton of that stuff and it will pay off in the future.

Remember this is all according to the current system. That chefs are pretty much Tatooine Sunburn dispensers and that there are bugged vendors. If either of these change 100 per use might not be workable.

I haven't done any skilling up in two weeks because I have had to cut back on my harvester use for this system, but now that I am getting into the "stockpile system" for a second time or so I now have used my "more" money to collect 50,000 units of water and am on my way to get 80,000 units of wheat by saturday and will get enough corn for Ithorian Mist Fest 2003 sometime a week later that will bring me to master chef. The 2003 stands for not the year but how many Mists I will have to make and coincidently how many doctors will have to treat my hands.

Hoggle, my previous comment was not intended to be an insultor attack on your methods "n00b price cutting"is just an example of another economic problem that will fade over time, and I didn't mean to imply that YOU were a n00b or that YOU were n00b price cutting. What I meant was that your selling price of 100cr per use is the EQUIVELENT of a n00b price for such a product... Since I know you are not looking for quick XP by selling for below cost I know that you are NOT "n00b price cutting"

I can appreciate the effort you've put into your pricing strategy and I'm very glad you're happy with your results... I can however offer you a suggestion....

Raise your price and compare the amount you make after the price hike with even LOWER costs...

Raise your price and compare the amount of grinding you do to make the same amount of money...

Raise your price and get money flowing from the mission grinder hands to the crafters hands...

I'm all about working smarter and not harder... Rule number one about sales is not to sell your product short! I ran in to ONE person so far who said he gets his sunburns for 100cr each use. I told him to keep going back to that person cause I don't have the time to waste on a price like that... My 6 vendors need refilling daily as it is without bending over for someone who can make 10000cr in 10minutes...

To each his own I say... And I hope you can at least acknowledge the fact that selling for more is a better idea for an indevidual and for the chef economy as a whole. If you can't sell as much as you want to make, then drop your price a bit maybe... But as it is, I'm sold out every time I log in...

(And that's 2 factories running starshine surprise on a regular basis)

i m used to selling my tat sunburn for 200cr per usage but after reading this i guess raising it a bit to 300cr to see how it goes isnt too bad

Selling my buffsat 1c per stat pt for buffs under 5mins & 2c per stat pt for buffs over 5mins works out pretty well so far.

Ok, so there's a lot of discussion about the one drink. What about the other stuff? What's a fair price for it? I've started making a little niche for myself in my area with the creature handler crowd.

I'm not a novice chef yet, but I'm working on it. For the stuff I'm currently making, I charge 5cr per unit of resource used. Is that a fair and reasonable price?

Perie - Ahazi

Novice Chef in Training

Master Image Designer

I sell for 300c a charge on bazaar vendors. 200c a charge on my personal vendors, and 100c a charge to guildmates and friends. This seems to work well. But honestly, 500c a charge? That seems to me to be way overcharging, aleast for me, considering I mine all my own materials.

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Perie wrote:

Ok, so there's a lot of discussion about the one drink. What about the other stuff? What's a fair price for it? I've started making a little niche for myself in my area with the creature handler crowd.

I'm not a novice chef yet, but I'm working on it. For the stuff I'm currently making, I charge 5cr per unit of resource used. Is that a fair and reasonable price?

Perie - Ahazi

Novice Chef in Training

Master Image Designer

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This is exactly my problem. Frankly this is my real problem with selling a Tat Sunburn too low. I charge per resource used also. Atm for my things I am charging 10cr per. On WH this seems to keep my things within the same margin as other Chef's & Cooking (Domestics people), with the exception of a few items (Charde comes to mind). If you charge *only* 100 credits a use for the most powerful buff we can make then how are the not-very good buffs going to sell? NOT WELL. I will make Tat Sunburns when I get there but frankly it's not going to be the only thing I make. At any rate, based just on my pricing: Tat Sunburn will cost 1110, and considering I have seen it selling for 1800 on WH (remember it's a newer server so really it just started getting made), I think that's fair.

I don't charge extra per use, myself. I charge based on the materials used. I could get 2/3credits each selling my wheat & berries to Doctors (probably even more); add in one's time and a portion for harvester maintenance etc and you can easily reach 8 credits/resource imo. I think you're 5 is fine Perie if that's what you are comfortable with - that's the main thing. And of course if it sells. For instance, if my scheme fails I'll lower prices.

The thing is, in my experience (I've been a merchant in UO for 4 years), if something isn't priced right, it's much easier to lower a price than it is to raise it. Too high of prices initially can yes scare off customers. Prices that you try to raise later on can scare off repeat customers. Imo the latter is more important.

When I was first able to make Sunburn, there was no one else selling it on the bazaar on my server (because they were probably sold out, lol), so I started out selling it for 100 a charge and I couldn't click fast enough, so I quickly moved up to 200 a charge. Same thing happened and I moved to 300 a charge. At 300, the customers are stillcoming, but I'm not selling out. The customers still think 300 is a fair price, as do I, and it's working well for me. I am making a healthy profit, finding a way to introduce customers who are buying Sunburn to other products, and having fun.

We're talking about multiple shots in a stack, which then it's fine to sell for less than 500cr PER SHOT... I'm talking about the base for the product... You shouldn't sell for less than the cost of the materials, and at that you should have a markup... That's what business is about... Make more than you spend... No?...

Not that anyone would ever use it... But here's what I go by...

1) Take the number of materials used to make it and muliply it by the 3-5cr it costs to buy those materials. (Don't forget the cost of the alcohols you use)

2) Take that number and double it for your mark up price.

THIS is what you would sell a single unit for....

3) Take one third of that price and add that amount for every stacked item you add.

So for example:

• Something takes 10 units of materials...
  
• Cost = 30-50cr
  
• Markup price= 60-100cr
  
• Double stack = 80-133cr
  
• Tripple stack = 100-166cr

The customer gets a better deal by buying the multi stacks and you save on materials and make a half decent income!

Using the above system I have regular sales for:

1. Bantha Blaster


2. Deuterium-Pyro


3. Gralinyn Juice


4. Tatooine Sunburn


5. Durindfire


6. Garrmorl


7. Ice Blaster


8. Elshandruu Pica Thunder Clowd


9. VayerBok

Others sell well but not as well as the above listed drinks!... Entres IV has VERY saleable items as well!

NOTE: If the product isn't worth selling at the above price... It's not worth making and I have no idea why the devs made such useless items...

Oh, and I almost forgot... I wanted to ask everyone who is selling their products for what the resources are worth at market value a question.

Question wording #1) Is your assembly of the materials NOT worth anything?... Is that what you grinded Ithorian mist and wasted thousands in wheat and corn for?...

Because if you wanted to sell materials for what materials sell for, you can save yourself the time of making them into something and just put up a raw materials vendor who WILL get you some good coin for half the effort!

Question wording #2)If a player walks up to you and gives you the ingredients to make 2 starshines and then a stack of Tatooine Sunburns. You're gonna do it for free?... Guild mates is one thing... But anyone?

Don't get me wrong guys, it's a game after all, you can do as you wish and if you wish to do what I'm confused about here then all the power to ya! But if it's not your intention to work for free in a game, then it's easy enough to stop...