Chef Archive
Thread: Desperation is not the same as fixing the economy ...
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I_Zombi
Fri Apr 08, 2005 7:25 pm
#14
FYI, undercutting the market in real life is called "product dumping"or "predatory pricing" and companies and sometimes entire countries get fined for doing it. Selling something at or under the cost of the resources/components that go into it in a specific attempt at putting other people out of business is a bad thing to do. Sure, it's just business and everyone's out for him/herself, but like I said... if I were a chef on a server with someone purposely undercutting the market I would buyout his stock and resell it. If you're selling your crates of brandy for 75k, they'll go for twice that if I buy them and resell them by the bottle over the bazaar. Turnabout is fair play,plus it's always fun to profit off of the work of others while strengthening your business 
broombug
Sat Apr 09, 2005 8:49 pm
#15
Being that the high quality, high volume chefs usually set the standard of pricing on my server, I felt comfortable charging on average what they charged for an equally as good item. If my stats couldnt compare I felt comfortable charging lower. etc. Believe me I was never lacking in customers. Some complained about my pricing but after they shopped around they found I waswithin average market prices for the quality I provided.
There were 2 other chefs in my guild that charged very low for their food and they both went out of business because they felt the money wasnt worth the work put into it. I sold less than them but I made as much money if not more without half the work. Plus my vendors were reliably filled with a goodvariety while theirs were reliablyempty despite their efforts.
So I figure undercutting isnt my playstyle. I like to step away from crafting, factories, harvestors and vendors for awhile and enjoy other aspects of the game.Like decorating.
Halthron
Sat Apr 09, 2005 9:05 pm
#16
I_Zombi wrote:FYI, undercutting the market in real life is called "product dumping" or "predatory pricing" and companies and sometimes entire countries get fined for doing it. Selling something at or under the cost of the resources/components that go into it in a specific attempt at putting other people out of business is a bad thing to do.
If you harvest your own meat, flora and water, all of your resources cost .5 cpu. A bottle of enhanced brandy uses 170 units of resources so the dumping price would be 85cr per bottle or a bit over 2k per crate.
Dumping is a pretty silly thing to do in a game like this but people have different efficiencies. Guilds will sell resources cheaper to members than they do to non-members. People have multiple accounts to avoid the cost and frustration of dealing with buffs and finding a stocked BE. So what is dumping and predatory pricing to one person isn't to another.
Unless you start finding crates of 420 brandy for 2k
I_Zombi
Sat Apr 09, 2005 10:26 pm
#17
Take the value of the resources, not what it costs you to obtain them. If you're selling brandy at or below the value of the resources you're putting into it, you might as well just sell the resources. A high end chef that sells 10mil+ a week isn't going to have the time to stock vendors and harvest hundreds of thousands of units of meat himself.
And the definition of dumping doesn't change based on how much it cost you to make the brandy. It's purposely underselling the market to put others out of business... it only takes the market value of what you're making into account.
Message Edited by I_Zombi on 04-10-2005 02:24 AM
jfarr
Sat Apr 09, 2005 11:21 pm
#18
I_Zombi wrote:Take the value of the resources, not what it costs you to obtain them. If you're selling brandy at or below the value of the resources you're putting into it, you might as well just sell the resources. A high end chef that sells 10mil+ a week isn't going to have the time to stock vendors and harvest hundreds of thousands of units of meat himself.
i do harvest my own but i buy alot of resources when they are live. I keep my vendor stocked decent, not as good as i could but i would need more facts to do that, and i make a good amount of creds too but i spend it all back in resources especially creature resources when something good s
pawns,
Qbx9
Sun Apr 10, 2005 1:07 am
#19
Interesting that there are no Bria Chef's commenting on this thread.
Corum31
Sun Apr 10, 2005 4:08 am
#20
well hi all chefs, im not master chef just a lowly 1030 been cheffing for 3 weeks (not grinding)
i just made my first brandy at +154 (no experiment)(no additives) and it sold for 2k.
now i managed to get a stock of additives and am doing exp (2pts) its gone to +394 sold this for 5k a cask.
been offered brandy at crate +437 45min 30sec 50 fill for 100k (dumping his vendor)
to make money to buy the BE stuff i have to sell high as even a guild BE is charging 1.5mil for a run of med additives.
so selling for less dont help me, but then war is war so i have to put up with it.....
Halthron
Sun Apr 10, 2005 5:35 am
#21
I_Zombi wrote:Take the value of the resources, not what it costs you to obtain them.
If you want to use the value of the resources, don't use the term dumping. Dumping refers to the cost of production. Someone with a very efficient cost of production will have a very low dumping price.
I_Zombi
Mon Apr 11, 2005 12:38 am
#22
Halthron wrote:
I_Zombi wrote:
Take the value of the resources, not what it costs you to obtain them.
If you want to use the value of the resources, don't use the term dumping. Dumping refers to the cost of production. Someone with a very efficient cost of production will have a very low dumping price.
Semantics... that has nothing to do with the discussion. If a chef wants to sell his product way below market value he's got every right to do so. But if it's going to affect my business, I've got every right to stop him and maybe even profit off of him.
To answer the original question, new chefs who attempt to undercut the market don't really worry me much. Most new chefs have a hard time getting a customer base to begin with and once they do, their resource stockpile usually runs out while they desperately try to keep up with the demand for their underpriced product. The cost of meat or BE additives forces a lot of chefs to raise prices or quit altogether. But like I said, if they're smart and manage to stock enough resources to keep up with such high demand for low priced foods, there are always actions other chefs can take to adjust their prices.
ezq672
Thu Apr 14, 2005 1:05 am
#23
I agree and beleive that each server should have a credit limit.
Take the current number of credits on the server add a "treasury fund" (of lets say 500K per char) and make that the cap.
When you request a mission from a terminal the value of the availablemissions should be modified. The multiplier being a function of the current number of credits "in the treasury". If the treasury is nearly empty, missions won't pay out much.
All the things we pay for (Shuttle tickets, building and harv. maintenance, 5% bank transfer fee) send the funds back to the treasury.
When a new player joins the server, a fixed amount is added to the game in their bank and another amount is added to the server treasury.
When chars are deleted, the server will lose their bank balance.
I have both an artisan and combatcharacter so I don't beleive this is a one-sided view. Plus it would be something that could be tried, if it doesn't work, just remove the cap and we will be back to the situation we are in now.
To spice things up a bit, the treasury fund could become a per planet treasury. The maint spent on one planet would affect mission values on that planet only.
alligatorboogaloo
Thu Apr 14, 2005 4:54 am
#24
Hey Nori,
I'm one of the people that is "guilty" of price undercutting and keeping the stats way up. I've been a chef on one of my 2 characters pretty much since launch. I had a spat of about2 months where Iwasn't a chef (dropped chef the day before the revamp, I felt stupid).Anyway, Ifelt that prices were crazy so I created Ikeer and started to do a little mass producing. I don't sell in any of the major malls, just in New Deeja and I don't use the galaxy-wide bazaar for food since that would just create a price war which I don't mind if others gouge, its just not for me. I had an outlet in Kor Spera for a couple weeks but its too much work and my time online was considerably cut back recently, stupid work, so I've since shut down my outlet vendor. I see it this way.
I'm supplying food priced where it needs to be. I have community support so I get meat for free which gets handed off to a BE with the grain. The schematic gets made and I bring it back and run it in my own factory. No hassle for the BE, I get to choose how good my additives are, and I don't have to drop Weaponsmith to be a successful Chef. Success for me isn't measured in how many credits I have but in how many people I can help. 45k for a crate of brandy covers my expenses easily since I harvest all my own materials. I'd do a break down but I'm sure you know where I am going with this. I don't charge enough to buy all the super experimentation tapes, I'm 11 pt because my customers donated the tapes so that I can have a better product for the same price as before. I price based on the additive used and uses per item, although I do break this rule when it comes to heavy additive drinks as that would be too expensive and I'd feel like a robber. brandy: 18 uses at 100cr per use...1800 perbrandy; ahrisa, 3 uses at 100 cr per use = 300 per ahrisa this goes so on and so forth. 50 per use on non BE food, mostly for pets. 75 for light, 100 medium, 250 heavy. It works for me.
Its a free market, there is no price floor and definately no ceiling so as long as the attitude for the devs is laissez-faire, you're going to see a lot of different prices
Ramses1
Sun Apr 17, 2005 6:24 am
#25
I can understand undercutting as part of playing the role of a successful businessman (i.e. to ruin your competition or steal their customers), what drives me nuts are the undersellers who do it (or claim to at least) because they just want people to have affordable synthsteak. That's not good business and not good roleplaying, it's just being desperately trying to earn goodwill through bribery (which rarely works, you can sell at discount for months but if you're ever forced to raise prices the customers will ditch you in a heartbeat if the guy next door is underselling you). I don't sit around thinking about it or anything, but when I see that mentality of supposed "goodwill undercutting" I do usually end up rolling my eyes despite myself.
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