Chef Archive

Hey everyone,

I'm a new chef on Naboo, Chilastra. I've got Mixology II and Cooking II and, well, I charge 250cr/charge ( with some discount as high as 15% when buying in quantities ) - and everybody tells me that's a really fair price, and the lowest one they've ever seen.

So I wonder - why do you sell at your price? I know I'm a particuliar case, I had a LOT of money ( was an architect before ) , so I wasted about 60k to be where I am. But I'm making good money right now, so I think it was worth it, really. The main difficulty I had is educating customers about my products, but it's coming, slowly but surely...

So, let me know why! It's mostly curiosity, really. And please don't flame me for selling at 250cr/charge - considering I get over 3 charges on average, and I was selling at 2.5cr/resource as an architect, that's more than three times the gross margins I had as an architect!

Uttar

Delete all your harvs, food, armor, weapons, cred and skills and start from novice artisan. Only then will you know why.

How, pray tell, are you getting more than one charge of TS? I have Mix 2, and Cooking 3. And still only make one charge. And that's with experimenting for quantity.

I thought this was bugged atm.

Tell me what if anything I could be doing wrong.

Err just guessing here.....Money?

Like maybe its the one thing that nets us a decent profit margin....?

Spare me the altruistic motives, but the other classes make wads of cash where we scrape by..

Course what we make is consumable, unlike tailors and architects, so we have a self replenishing market....

Wellsi

-- what's the overall quality of the reactive gas you are using? I'm guessing 100 or less?

I sell my Sunburns at 175c a charge. I sell stacks of 9 for 1500c and my BurnPacks™ for 20k (Tailored bag with 13 9 charge sunburns)

Frankly, with those prices. I can not keep a vendor stocked. Could I charge more? Sure, but why? I am WAY above my cost to make on each item I sell, and I make a decent profit without ripping the public off. I started on my road to chef with a donation of two smally flora farms from a friend. Once the factory problems are resolved I should be able to atleast keep my vendor stocked.

I charge what the market will bear. For most of my best customers, price isn't an issue on Sunburns. It's all about inventory space. Thus, I now have a 21 crate backlog of Sunburns (that I can't get produced thanks to the buggy factories) and a vendor full of 6-8 use stacks of Sunburns that get turned over frequently.

For me, maximizing the profitability of my business venture is as much of a goal to shoot for as killing the "ubermobs" is for the combat characters. Grinding and making stuff isn't particularly fun in the long run. It's building the customer base and competing with the other people making the same product that is the thrill for me.

Personally, I don't mind other chefs grinding out tons of Sunburns and pricing them at the low price as it just helps educate the market as to the value of food. This is still needed badly as there are still many people that haven't even tried a Sunburn yet. And, once hooked on the Sunburn, they have to accept the value of food and are more willing to try out other foods to see what benefit they provide. THAT'S where the fun comes in where you start teaching people what other foods are available that will help support their various activities.

To answer you question, "why do I sell them so expensively?" The answer is because I can and I'd rather spend my time providing other value-added services to my customers (like delivering a massive order across the galaxy) than I would churning out dozens and dozens of Sunburns.

Each person has their own marketing strategy. If yours is to grind out massive amounts of Sunburns and sell them at a lower price, more power to you. That just doesn't fit my play style.

Cheers,

Kaizen Jonzun

Proprietor of The Drunken Jester

2380 3819 Keren, Naboo - Radiant

Hmmm... I've always gone by the formula of charging at least 5 creds per unit resource for a craftable item. With food, since medium/heavy flora farms are broken, I buy most of my resources from the market for 3,4,5 credits per unit. Depending on how many uses I can get per stack, I go from losing money(one use) to making a nice profit. With other products, the 5 creds per unit includes my time spent producing the component as well as the factory time/energy for subcomponents. Also, with how good the Sunburn is, I'm actually scared to lower the price anyfor when the people see the other foods we can make and what I have to charge to get my money back. I am not that concerned anymore after learning that we are pretty much the only ones that can buff mind stats. Truth be told, when they fix food production in factories, I'll be more than happy to lower my prices on Sunburns. As it is right now though, I'm selling at a fairly good pace(not flying off the shelf, but not collecting dust either) and it is the perfect pace for me. Also, keeping the prices as I have them helps the other chefs(with less skill boxes/money) make money by selling either at or below my price.

While I agree with you Jonzun as I too enjoy the competition of other chefs. I am quite sure however that was I to raise my prices now my customers would riot, causing an overall loss to my repeat customer base. Sure I might gain back new customers over time, but I would rather have a large frequent use clientele then a small high paying one.
Having many customers serves two purposes for me.

·Visibility
·Reputation

Visibility is one of my chief concerns right now as I am planning on becoming a politician as well when they implements PRC's. Serving the public as a Chef with a reliable Quality product speaks volumes for my characters desire to contribute to the community.
Reputation is really a cousin to the point above. I want to build a reputation of reliability. When people come to my vendor I want them to be confident that they will find it stocked with the goods that they came for. And if for some reason it is not stocked I want them to be able to depend on me to have it stocked in a timely manner.
What does any of this have to do with profit? In a word, everything. Your vision for your business, your desires and goals within this game, and your ability to execute said goals are all factors in your overall price. Of course you are going to have the universal constants such as structural overhead (building upkeep), Harvester maintenance, vender fees and what not that will also contribute to your base price. You have to take into consideration everything mentioned above when setting your prices.
To sum it all up, we cannot set your prices for you, only you can. My best advice is to find your niche, remain competitive and have fun. If you are having fun, so will your customers.

I've never charged per charge, it is a basic 5cr per resource used.

If I have to buy resources, I have to pay 3-5cr plus transport costs, so Im not charging lower than that.

If I use an exceptional resoure that's cost more and yields a significantly superior product, I'll charge accordingly based on a per unit cost.

It's quite easy, sunburns are the items we can make profits off of.... and those harvestors / factories are spendy. Even if you sold everything at 5c / unit you'd have to sell SO SO SO much food if you wanted to buy 1 large flora farm when they are fixed.

Since we make so little profit per item it's a no brainer. Besides training is SPENDY if you don't have other high end chefs around to train you. (And even then you should pay them.. since they likely spent the 6-9k to train)

There're one main reason imo. As long as we have to craft everything by hand (**edit** factories WORK) there's going to be much greater overhead charge then on all other crafted items. Once they get factories fixed for food the price will drop. Just imagine how much they would cost if you had to make the starshines by hand as well.

I charge more to cover expenses and live comfortably. I can't factory make them, I can't gather resources in bulk, and if I sold them for a low price the vendor would always be empty from overselling and I would piss off a lot of fellow chefs trying to grind out a living. It is the only thing we can sell effectively, and everyone is more than happy to pay the price. There is a lot of money out there and warriors and marksman are constantly getting more (just look at what a lot of them spend on their weapons!)

But that's beside the point. You should charge whatever you and your customer feel is fair. If people keep buying them and you feel you get a comfortable profit margin, then great. It's the whole idea of a free economy that keeps the game going.