Chef Archive
Thread: Are my prices too low???
Ida wrote:
I'm not really in disagreement with him, I'm wondering about the economy of things and how broken it really is.
The way it should work is people will comparison shop to some degree to get the best prices. Prices will tend to level out at a certain level based on market demand, and will go up if items get rare or for higher quality items.
On Starsider, I was charging 400 creds a unit for Sunburn. I had someone refuse an order because he said he found it for 100. I looked around and saw a ton on the bazaar at 150 in one spot, and other spots where it was around 300. So I lowered my prices to 300, 250 bulk, since I really think the guy selling for 100 is going to be overwhelmed with orders and 300 isn't unreasonable. And I get just enough orders to stay reasonably busy and not go nuts. This is kind of how I think things should work.
For his initial description, it sounded like either there were no chefs on his server other than him, or there were some chefs selling ormachek for like 150 while he was selling the exact same stuff for 800 and getting away with it (since I've never seen those kind of prices anywhere on my server, and from most reports on these forums this is not a typical price). If that was going on then you mighthave some really undiscriminating customers who don't care what things cost, which is the sign of a broken economy.
If his Ormachek is way better than the competition's - like much better buffs, or much bigger stacks - then sure I think charging a premium makes a lot of sense.
Sunburns are an abnormality... every novice chef in the galaxy shoots for that straight out and floods the market with them on every bazaar term and vendor. If you're selling through the bazaar where people can easily comparison shop, you probably are going to get a lower price.
The thing you have to teach your customers is about the combo effect of foods and which work best together in which situations based on their play style. Then, make sure you keep their menu in stock on their vendors so they can one-stop shop at your store. The convenience of just being able to hit one store for alltheir food needs is worth a few thousand credits in itself.
Secondly, you're not obligated to feed the entire galaxy... nor would you want to spend that much time staring at your crafting station. This thread started with the statement "my vendor is sold out are my prices too low." Just keep raising your prices and filling your vendors until you get to the point where you are doing the exact amount of cooking that you want to do per session. What isn't mentioned is how many customers bought the 73 units of food. Was it a couple CH's and a couple fighters or 50 different people?
I saw that my customers were not buying pet food and were using the food for revenue generation. These people are going to be less price sensitive than the players that are just reacting to the "Hungry!" cue. The exception is if the food buffs (con/stam/will) work well on pets as helping with health regen would make the food more valuable. If it does help, make regen food and name it Pet Mind/Health/Action Regen Food. You could probably charge a premium for that too.
Without having a factory to churn out dozens of large stacks, I can't feasibly feed more than a dozen or so heavy fighters each day. They each buy 10 to 20 large stacks of food and making 120 to 240 stacks of food each day is getting on the borderline of insanity for me. So, I just provide superior service to those customers and actually turn others away in order to be able to service my existing bunch. My next step is to build another small house to serve as a private restaurant so I can put up a vendor for those customer's particular diet under the understanding that they only buy those foods that are intended (and named) for them. This will allow me to stockpile those items that they normally buy without having to worry about random people buying it.
Be creative. It's a fun profession and if you focus on price and competition you're missing the best part of being a chef.
Cheers,
Kaizen
Jonzun don't know where you've been, but your posts are spot on in this thread. You have obviously figured out the inner workings of both the profession and its proper application in the game.
To the troll who stated 'didn't realize chefs were such rip-off artists' (I'm not gonna be bothered to go back and look up his name)...
There are, from time to time, idiots like you that come along and say such moronic statements. They look at the straight resource cost of making a food and figure they can come here and criticize other chefs that are trying to run a successful business in the game. I used to get upset with these trolls, but I no longer do. The fact is they *never* stick around. They come by, post how wonderful they are and how cheap their prices are, and then they disappear after a short time, never to be seen from again (well...they probably take up some other profession-of-the-week and go troll on those boards...)
The fact is, running a successful business in this game is a lot of work (in a fun-challenging type of way I mean). Those that are in it for the long haul understand the business side of it much better than the Mix II wonder Chefs that drop in, sell a few items, and drop out cause its way too hard to sustain over a long period of time.
Its just not as simple as 'gee, I need 50 credits of resources to make this food, so I'll sell it for 60 credits, thats at 20% profit woo woo!
- I have harvester farms to run & maintain
- Daily resource checks on planets to see if a much needed high-quality resource has spawned
- Business contracts with many, many resource suppliers to stay on top of
- Custom orders to hand-grind
- A vendor to keep stocked with several hundred items at a time that costs me between 10k - 20k a day in maintenance.
- Constant advertising to get the word out about my business
In addition, you have to have a long term outlook. Yes, today I don't really need that nice 30k of dantooine berries you want to sell me, but I'll shell out for it any way cause I know that tomorrow and for the next several weeks there may be no berries of quality anywhere to be found.
My daily resource costs run from 50k - 300k a day depending on how many suppliers come in with a shipment, or how much bazaar (gah) browsing I'm forced to do. If I ran my business at such razor-thin profit margins any period of 2 or 3 days of low sales would WIPE me out.
So please, mr troll, go away, or I'll throw this 4k loaf of bread at you.
Ssauron
I just logged in and I had about 80 items on my food vendor this morning and just now she only has 7 items!!!
I'm wondering if I'm charging too little for the food. Perhaps you guys can help me out. Could you please visit my website's menu page and let me know what you think? Typically I charge 5 times the number of resources it takes to make the item. I just can't fathom charging more than that unless other people are doing the same.
http://members.cox.net/liv/menu.html
Just from your statement there, I would say yes.
I enjoy the social aspect of being a Chef. Developing relationships with customers and helping them design the perfect diet based on their activities, weapon/armor costs, spice use, etc. is the fun for me. Actually making the food is the necessary evil I have to do in order to have my fun.
If you enjoy running around different worlds buying resources and staring at your food crafting tool window for hours each day, price your food as low as you like. It will get bought up fast. However, if you enjoy the social aspect of Chef'ing and like having food on the shelves when your regulars drop by, bump those babies up until you've reached a happy equilibrium. There are people out there that rely on our food to help them earn 200k to 500k a day in credits... they can afford it while still appreciating the service you provide.
Cheers,
Kaizen Jonzun
Proprietor of The Drunken Jester and Master Chef
23280 3819 Radiant-Naboo-Keren
I will charge 4-6 per resource, similar to you. However, I charge on a per-use basis. I figure out my resource price for a food item, and usually divide by 2 to get my per-use price (divide by less if the buff is particularly good, more if the buff is pretty bad). Since I can usually make more than two uses of an item with better ingredients and experimentation, I am rewarded financially for increasing my chef skill and progressing in the chef tree. (I actually tend to experiment on nutritional value over quantity cuz I hate making tiny buffs). The customer finds this fair as he gets more servings for more money.
There was a nice price list posted here recently that works out similarly to my current price list with this method.
From looking at your web site, your prices are insane. If you have any good, high-quality resources that you're using in your cooking, I'll buy them from you for 6 to 10 credits each. You don't even have to cook them and you'll double the profit you're making from your foods. That's an open offer for any chef on Radiant.
Cheers,
Kaizen Jonzun
Proprietor of The Drunken Jester and Master Chef
2380 3819 Radiant-Keren-Naboo
OK, that was a bit harsh.
Things go to an entirely different level when you can start making ryshcate, ormachek, breath of heaven, etc. in large stacks. If you have 4 to 6 experimentation points and tier II recipes, it can be more difficult to get great pricing. I would strongly suggest just biting the bullet and grinding to Cooking IV at least so you can make large stacks then charge by the serving. If you're charging 75 cred per serving for a stack of 2 stewed gwouch, charge 75 cred per serving for a stack of 6 or 8 or whatever you can get out of it. It's all about stack size with most of my customers as they have very limited inventory space.
I am having so many issues finding enough really high quality resources that the thought of people using good ingredients in food and selling that food for 3 to 5 credits is painful to watch.
Sorry if I came across as overly harsh there.
Kaizen
Here's my pricing for some of my fastest moving products:
Breath of Heaven: 1500 credits per serving/stack of 8 = 12,000 credits per stack
Ryshcate: 800 credits per serving/stack of 12 = 9,600 credits per stack
Ormachek: 700 credits per serving/stack of 8 = 5,600 credits per stack
Flameouts: 500 credits per serving/stack of 10 = 5,000 credits per stack
Veghash: 600 credits per serving/stack of 8: 4,800 credits per stack
Some of the above prices are going up again next batch as they sold out again within 12 hours. Sunburns aren't even on the radar anymore so far as most profitable products. The whole idea of charging 3 to 5 credits per resource is just insane when the value of the food to the people buying it is 200,000 to 500,000 credits aday.