Chef Archive
Thread: Chef undercutting AGAIN!
Actually, I know how to mine very well. I just don't care to be a miner, its incredibly boring just running around. Hell,I think being a chef is more excting than that lol. I try to locate materials around our PA if possible, with a max of 1 planet away.
While I can say I'm not in it for the money and want to be a good chef, I want to make a decent living and not have to worry about paying the utility bills. I could be a flavor of the month and make a ton of cash, but I don't care about that. If they fixed the **edit** class I'd be happy, pure and simple.
Jonzun wrote:
If you target the mass market without working on developing the personal relationship, you're going to be competing strictly on price as the customer doesn't know Chef_X or Chef_Y. While there is a market to those people, it's a low-margin / high-volume business and you better be ready to spend a huge chunk of your time gathering resources and stocking vendors.
That would not be a fun SWG experience for me. It's all about having fun and helping others have fun. If you accomplish these things, the credits will follow.
Amen Jonzun.
When factorys were first fixed I threw down 6 factorys and sold over 4 million in food. But it was not fun, the resource scrambling, the constant tells from demanding people. Now I hand pick my customers, and still have more then enough to keep me busy.
Right after the factory fix, I was in heaven, too.
I did 2 large orders, a few small ordersand was eagerly anticipatingmore. I dropped down another factory.
I have been waiting patiently, and aswering every question I get, always getting a thank you, youll get an order from me soon.
I helped three people into composite armor yesterday with free samples of food.
What I am getting at is, you can do all the personal attention the customer wants or needs, but it doesnt always lead to sales.
Maybe they get the information from me, then go to one of the Theed undersellers to buy the items. I sure hope not.
Heres to hoping its just a Theed sales slump
"Maybe they get the information from me, then go to one of the Theed undersellers to buy the items."
Though I'm sure the horrible, nasty, evil undersellers feel you are overpriced to some extent.
The difference of course is you don't see the supposed "undersellers" constantly moaning on the boards.
I get the feeling many of you aren't ready for free market trade.
People will charge what they think is fair 99% of the time, w/o giving a second thought to other Chefs. While many of you may feel SO betrayed by this, I'm sorry to say it's part of business.
Cyene
I get the feeling many of you aren't ready for free market trade.
Martyn's prices and business practices are extremely fair, and as Quellon and I are also on Starsider and selling at similar prices, I don't think it's particularly justified to make comments like this.
I will second the comment about personal relationships. I get the occassional tell from someone doing a chef search, but I can probably trace most of my new business to friends of current customers. Also, I've been pushing my mind food a lot lately, and have been getting some really overwhelming responses (for some reason I can't keep Ormachek in stock this past week).
I didnt exactly get into it to make a ton of money either. -But- it is a long, expensive road to master chef, and my foods need to pay for me to get there... and I do not get free resources like a lot of folks with guild backing do.
I dont expect to make as much as a weaponsmith, tailor, architect, droid engineer, or Doctor, but I do need enough for materials, training, travel fees, etc.
I dont think it is asking much to have the 10-40k per mission fighting folks pay a fair amount.
Cyene wrote:
The difference of course is you don't see the supposed "undersellers" constantly moaning on the boards.
I get the feeling many of you aren't ready for free market trade.
If you talk to your customers half as badly asthe way you talk to us here on the boards, no wonder you have to sell so low to actually get them to buy something...
Undercutting, aka competitive price points, is a part of business -inthis game simulates the real world fairly well. But there the comparison stops. I have control over the product I designor I can change vendors for quality issues (in RL). I have control. I can have relationships till my fingers bleed in game, but the mechanics of the game don't allow for the factthe stack bugofis driving business away.
Even with the poor selection of goods people do want, I can't sell. Iliterally have crates of tat, blaster, veghash, etc on order, with people telling me they'll get them when the bug is fixed. Until then, I starve.
The undercutting sucks, but if I respond appropriately with slashing my prices again, I can't survive. I would have to make cutbacks on equipment, and will drive myself out of business unless I can find another market or product to sell. Hm, sounds like real like, aka layoffs, hourly cutbacks, pay reduction, asset reallocation. Only there is no other market.
I suppose I could switch trades, but that's kinda not the point, I want to stay a chef. Supplemental income from selling materials is an option, but I don't want to mine (see previous post). I should be able to make a living as a chef, and a chef alone.
As for chefs getting backed by guilds, that's fine also. Large corporationsacquire small busnesses all the time and slash prices of the product. Which in turn allow the businessto operate at a net loss just to eliminate competition from the market. However, corporations can only do it so many time before the edge into anti-trust issues.
What I would like to know is if peeps that sell goods so low actually make a living on chef alone.Or do they get cash from guild, resources for free, or have a different professions and sell food at a loss.
"If you talk to your customers half as badly asthe way you talk to us here on the boards, no wonder you have to sell so low to actually get them to buy something... "
Twas not my intention.
Just, I see these posts every week talking about "undercutters", when essentially you are talking about specific business practices of specific people. I am one of those people.
So honestly, I am somewhat offended when people come here and whine about undercutters. That is your perception and you are entitled to it, but there is some unspoken expecation for the undercutters to "come to their senses and price like the rest of us".
Well if my previousposts don't indicate it, and am 100% against any attempt to set up a pricing guide for all Chefs to abide by. I feel that defeats the entire point of a player based economy.
So if my tone comes off as a little terse, re-read what you are saying about undercutters, but read it with the knowledge that you ARE talking about some of us directly. And I'm sure you will agree many of the commentsmade towardsundercutters were a bit more hostile than my tone has ever been.
Also, I would suspect that the reason you don't see the so-called undercutters here complaining is that their business is probably booming and they have nothing to complain about.
So what I see over and over is people who can't sell their product come here and complain that its someone else's fault. Please....take some responsibility for yourself. If my prices are lower and I'm outselling you, compete with me. Don't whine that I'm ruining the game because I'm not playing by some arbitrary set of unwritten be-polite-to-your-fellow-chef rules.
Somone posted on this thread that basically said screw price, give your customers good service and they will come back. I coulnd't agree more. There are a million other things to consider besides price, so I find it hard to believe that some of the people aren't getting business because there is a network of undercutters out to get them.
My customers come back because of price and service. How many of you have a form email set up that describes how to get a bugged stack of food to start working again that you send out to every new customer? That alone has "wow-ed" so many people that they could care less what my prices are.
Somehow I think if my customers were to read these threads, they would agree with me. Which is all I care about. I apologize if that seems not in the spirit of your vision.
Cyene
Cyene, everything you say about how to retain customers makes sense. The problem is that some people do not have the same ability to lower their price as others. There are people bringing in tons of money from a second profession, or getting a ton of resources for free from their PA. Those people might think it is fun and a good service to sell their food at less than what it costs a full-time chef to make that same food. But you are completely removing that chef's ability to compete, as his prices cannot get that low with food as his only income.
An equivalent real-life analogy would be someone inheriting a few million bucks and deciding it would be fun to set up a bar selling beer for25 cents a pint. That person would do very well and probably piss off the neighborhood bar to no end. If they could manage to fill all the demand for beer in their city (not likely, but there is not nearly so high a demand for food inSWG as for beer in real life) they might drive their competitors out of business.This would beperfectly legitimate business practice, and probably get people up in arms far more than Sunburn at 100 a use. But this is unlikely to happen really, as few people would imagine running a dirt cheap bar at a loss to be fun enough to be worth doing.
Ida wrote:
If they could manage to fill all the demand for beer in their city (not likely, but there is not nearly so high a demand for food inSWG as for beer in real life) they might drive their competitors out of business.This would beperfectly legitimate business practice, and probably get people up in arms far more than Sunburn at 100 a use. But this is unlikely to happen really, as few people would imagine running a dirt cheap bar at a loss to be fun enough to be worth doing.
Actually many areas of the country have laws against selling too low.
Ida that makes sense, but I receive no outside funding from anyone. I run all my own harvesters, my own factory, house, and vendors.
I honestly can't explain why I am able to be profitable at such a lower price point. Maybe its where I am set up for resources, or maybe I am just a better businessman. Who knows.
I personally derive all my revenue from food sales. I have not run a mission or sold resources for over a month. I have no other crafting skills or items to sellaside fromfood and drink.
Perhaps what I consider profitable is not what everyone else does, but I will say I have more than a few hundred thousand credits in the bank more than 90% is from food sales(and more than 90% of that is from sunburn crate sales).
So you guys tell me, what am I doing wrong? My stuff sells, yours does not...somehow that is my fault?
Also, I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but I sell crates of sunburn for far less than 100c per use.
Cyene