Chef Archive
Thread: Overpriced?
hey man i'm chef ! i said i don't want hear people says that my profession is full of thieves. read before anwers plz.
you don't need to justify but i think you are very agressive. i have asked how you can reach the price of 50/60k or higher for a crate that's all. it's a simple question .with my resources i don't reach this price
if your customers buy at this price it's great for you but it's not very fair.
I can read just fine thanks. Including the part where you say we are just trying to justify our overcharging.. Youll note I didnt bother to single you out until your second post which had much more of a oh you guys are just making lame excuses to rip people off feel to it.
You can think the prices arent fair all you want. I dont really care. What I think isnt fair is having my customers travel across the galaxy to find a vendor that doesnt have fishak. They just spent up to 6k to find out I didnt have fishak. Not very nice, especially if it happens a lot. I charge more and it still sells within hours of putting it on the vendor. If I charged less the first person to come to my shop after stocking would probably buy it all. I run 14 food factories atm and have trouble keeping it in stock.Fair is all at how you look at it. Personally, when I want something, Im happy to pay more credits to someone where I know I can walk in and get what I want and leave. Credits dont mean squat in this game to most people who play for long periods of time. What does mean alot is time. You cant get more of that. Nothing ticks me off more than spending hours trying to find something I want cause everyone is selling it so cheap they sold it all as soon as they put it up. I dont think putting my customers in that situation is fair.
In addition to that, maybe you can buy your flora at 2-3 cpu. On my server hardly anyone sells flora. And the few that do charge 5-10cpu generally and aim for the doctor crowd. Yes, I can find some flora on the bazaar, but the quality sucks 99.9 of the time and even if it was good quality Id never be able to get enough from there to make a whole factory run.
Seriously, when your view of what prices should be are so different from everyones elses, you might should wonder why...
what does my being aggressive have to do with anything anyway? I love being a chef and I love the chef profession. I originally wanted to be an architect for about umm yea 3 days until I saw how they treated each other. Price undercutting to the point they lost money just to drive others out of business, dropping harvs with names saying bad things about each other etc etc. I dont want to ever see chef become that. So yes, I get very aggressive when I see things that resemble that behavior. I hope chef never goes that path, it would be an extreme shame.
Precisely. Several days ago I put up 10 crates of Fishak with the last of my best ingredients. I marked them up at 100k, about 15k more than usual, since the 85k ones sold like hotcakes. I wanted them to sit on my vendor a bit longer... Not a chance. All 10 were sold overnight - 8 of them to the same person. So now my vendor is devoid of Fishak til I can trade a limb for more r-gas and radioactive, and that irritates customers.
Why should I undervalue my time and ignore supply and demand again? It's not about the money, not to me (since veteran non-holo-chefs are already wealthy) and most definitely not to the customers (they don't come buying master-level food if they can't afford it). It's about having a quality, stocked shop. That to me is far more important than offending some other server's chef's sensibilities of overpricing.
I imagine prices will be nutso when the overhaul goes in anyway, and more opportunist chefs will spring up and bring the prices down. Just means I'll make less - my time is what I value.
At 60k - 75k (depending on buff and charges) I have had one person buy out 12 crates. Market prices are market prices. We sell goods based on their value to the purchaser. To make 12 crates of BOH takes at minimum 4 - 5 days IF you have 2 factories running the alcohol.
To the guy that said he made 200k in food sales in a day. I'm LMAO. You are leaving so much on the table it's sad.
Guys, we are chefs not fighters. Please calm down. All the guy asked was why. The simple answer is the price of things that we need are high and few and far between. The solution is to beg (yes for anyone that sees this we are begging) for more people to mine things for us and not just the doctors. I, personally, refuse to pay that price for resources. My customers know that I put out a good product and attempt to make it the best possible. However, I, also, know what I would pay for that item and will not charge an arm and a leg for it for that reason. Market prices? Sure, I might could charge more for some of the things I sell. But I hope that my meager business doesn't affect so much of the game (considering the availability of supplies) that I am not causing another chef heartache because folks will occasionally visit my store to get something at a lower price. Most that visit this board are other chefs or people that are interested in what we do and why we do it. How are we to explain these things to them if all anyone wants to do is jump. Take a sec before you hit the respond button. Knowing how the responses are going to this thread.....
Flame away.
Eladia Summerwind
Master chef
My flames werent intended to the original poster...I answered his question in a separate post. My flame was to chef that was commenting everyone else but her was charge outrageous prices which would lead people to saying chefs were crooks when in fact shes pretty much undercharging. Nothing ill intended towards the original poster at all
ohmmm ohmmmm ohmmm Im trying vishna 
I had an interesting economic lesson in mind...but I think I am going to respond a different way.
First, the average person will pay whatever they feel is reasonable for products. They don't care about our time, our reputation (for the most part), or even us (the person selling). All they care about is getting something they want. This is true in the real world of economics...this is true in a virtual world of economics.
Second, pricing our products can be based on anything we want...our time, resource cost, something we pull out of our butt...it doesn't matter...its what we want to sell it for...if the market will bear it.
Third, overpricing and underpricing...these are horribly misunderstood economic concepts by the majority of people.
Overpricing would be charge double, triple, or even higher for an item that has an "economic median" for its price. You see this all the time in the real world. High end retailers, dept stores, etc sell the same products as discount outlets...just for more (the high end of the median, whereas the discount outlets sell for the low to middle area of the median). Overpricing exists in the real world...just look at the housing market during a "seller's market"...a house isn't actually worth more in good economic times as opposed to bad...there is simply more money, more credit, and less apprehension at spending money for a house.
Underpricing or undercutting, is a classic American tactic...just look at Wal-Mart, they undercut the competition constantly...sometimes its pennies, sometimes its a lot more. They do it by being more efficient with their labor, transportation, warehousing, and purchasing. There is also a negative side to this company specifically...but this isn't a Wal-Mart review...just an example. In the long run, underpricing only does one thing, it devalues a product or market...and forces the seller to work harder to make the same margins as prices fall.
Bottomline? No one is a thief for selling something more than someone else...in fact, it likely means they are a better salesperson, have better interpersonal skills, and/or better products or service. Using what we used to call in the business "glittering generalities" and resorting to attacks are indicative of a deeper problem.
I am not interested in passing judgement on anyone...but frankly, when it all comes down to it, your time is worth what you feel it is...my time is worth what I feel it is...same goes for everyone in this world -- we charge according to that belief. For example, the time I spentwriting this responsewas worth $35 had this been an official letter...it took me ten minutes to write...but I would have billed for the complete hour (minimum charge time frame).
Im really bored of this kind of posts and tells many chefs receive in the game saying their prices are really expensive. They dont care paying fortunes for armor and weapons, but when they see a 50k+ price in a chef item they seems to be really surprised. They dont even notice that most of our drinks and foods has 200+ charges per crate and that the real value of an use varies between 200 and 500 credits. 500 credits max for a buff that will let you win 30k in 10 mins.
I dont really care about my prices and the other chef prices. Most of Radiant chefs keeps a good relationship between us and share resources and knowledge. I know there are chefs selling worse foods than mine for more credits, but I also know that exist better buffs going for less credits. And I dont care. I sell my goods at the prices I consider I should sell. I dont see what´s syk'e charging for his fishaks to price mines and he doesnt do either.
If you see a price you dont like, its simple, move away and dont buy, but dont complain cause if the item is really overpriced, i know for sure you will find another one at the correct price.
The way I price is based on resources used as well as factoring in the other expenses. I will admit I do not factor in much for my time. I know my products are good and I know my customers like them at the prices that I produce them. I have made a bit of money off them so that I am able to buy some of the better resources to make even better products which yes is reflected in the prices. Overpricing and underpricing? Type of salesman? When you have a good product (which many of us do), I see no reason to be a salesman. My product speaks for itself. In the end, yes price is what you are willing to part with for it. If someone wants to charge 200k for a crate of anything and someone buys it, they thought it was worth 200k to them and so it wasnt something that was overpriced.
A side note on 'justifying' prices. Noone has to justify anything. We charge what we do because the server or customer base will pay it. I know that on a new char I am playing I made 100k in an evening doing missions. No it wasn't alot nor was it chicken feed. Food cost used that night? Maybe 2k along with doctor buffs. So did I make more money than I spent? yea and that is at anyone's prices.
Eladia Summerwind
Master Chef
I sell bloodfin fishak at 60K per crate, +550 mind, 5-7 uses..
Personally, I sell Fishaks for 250cr/use if the buff is above 550 Mind. If it's lower than that, I sell it for 200cr/use. Generally speaking this means a crate goes for around 50-65k. It's still a pretty subjective system, but I don't feel that I need to sit down and come up with some complex mathematical formula to determine "fair value" on everything I make. In any case, they sell as fast as I can pull them out of the factory.
Further, I'm not really in it for the money so much as I am for the interaction. That being said, customers (and this should be valid for all customers) do have options if they feel they're being taken for a ride. First isnot tobuy if you don't like the price, i.e., let market forces work. On a sidenote,I hadan interesting run-in with a customer who complained that I was too high after she had already purchased them, claiming that she didn't look at the price when she clicked. The second option, and I think this is just grand in a game that is supposed to involve interaction between people so I highly recommend it, is toactually (*gasp*) talk to the chef. This is where your interpersonal skills come in. If you avoid using phrases like, "Wow! These are too expensive!"or "Gee! Why are you trying to rape me?" then I think you'll find that most people are willing to work out a deal if you can't afford it. I've broken crates into smaller chunks for people on request andI've even given away freebies in exchange for a little advertising (gave away one crate the other day and withinhours two people came from this person and bought out myentire stock).
For me, and I'm surethat it's the same for many of us who love this profession, themain reason for being a chefissocial. Money, like Nikii said, is easy enough to come by, so it doesn't really motivate me very much. I'd much prefer to know the customer and talk with them about the product. Ifit came just down to making and selling stuff, I'd probably leave the profession.
I'm continually adjusting my prices, always upward, as the demand for food goes up. It's not that I want to rake in even more credits (I already have more than I could ever spend on anything but more resources). It's just that I can only produce so much food (how do you folks with two dozen factories do it??), I want to provide a service to my customers by keeping things in stock, and pricing is the best tool I have for controlling how much people want my product.
I'm selling top quality Fishak for 60k per crate and can tell already I'll need to go higher. I don't advertise and recently moved my shop to a very obscure location, and I sell out of the stuff in a day. Plus good reactive gas has become rare in this galaxy, and the stuff I'm using for thefishak is going for 40-50 cpu. That's 25k per crate cost just for the gas.