Doctor Archive

This is actually a fairly simple issue in microeconomics. You should figure out what the highest price on your server is that you can charge and still sell every last pack you are producing. This is the equilibrium price for your server where supply meets demand and will be determined by factors outside your control, such as the quality of resources on the server, the amount of master doctors producing items on the server, and the overall demand for doc items on your server.How much it cost you to makeis an important calculation to make only as far your decision to produce packs for sale or not. It should not affect your final sale price so long as your marginal cost is below the equilibrium price.

To refute those who would initially look at an economic model such as this and complain that it overlooks the welfare of the consumer, this is not the case. On many developed servers there is a serious shortage of just about every master doc component but stimB's. This shortage is caused by doctors who price their goods according to what it cost them to make, and not what the appropriate price for the market should be.

In practice a good way to determine the equilibrium price on your server is to spend a day checking out all the medical vendors available or talk to a doctor with a well publicized and already established business on your server. If it sells in under 8 hours you are probably selling it too cheaply.

AgentDib
Chilastra - Master Doctor/Master Musician

Agent'Dib
Chilastra - Master Swordsman/Master Brawler/Ranger

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Rhadamanth wrote:

wow, i really didn't expect to get flamed just for asking for some pricing advice. i am well aware i could price this however i want. i also know i could price these at 20K per pack and sell them out. but it's not my desire to make the most money i possibly can. i want to make some money AND seem to have fair and reasonable prices. this is where PUBLIC EXPECTATION comes in. thanks anyway.

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The only public expectation that matters is your server. That being said how many doctors make the buffs, How much do resources cost (assume you have to pay for a hunter to harvest what you can't mine) how much do you want to make for your trouble to assemble it all. Then present that price to your customers and see how fast they buy them. On my server (Kettemoor) I sell buff paks for 15k a pak (usually 25 or so 800+ str 11,000+ dur) and can not keep them in stock (but that is a function of how many I can get for sale as well One answer to my selling out so fast is to raise the price another is to raise the production. I am still considering which path to take but am leaning toward raising production to meet demand.

-Indene-

P.S. I am a merchant so I provide the doctor(s) with a store front for them to sell their wares. They sell to me at a lower price that gives them a profit and I sell to the 'public'. The 15k price was MSRP (mfg suggested retail price).

This thread has certainly been an interesting read, didnt realise buff packs were selling so high and I make them myself hehe

I've paid up to 150 cpu for some resources tho so its no supprise they are so damn expensive!

Kynin interesting you bring up the doses/heal ratio, I belong to an unofficial doc forum on Chimaera when we first started out being one of the youngest servers in SWG i suggested the very same and use a prx divisor method.

I browsed all the vendors to see what was currently on the mkt, to be fair in the first few weeks on Chimaera no one had a clue to be honest. I was making 30x350s then so my math was (30x350)/5 = 2100 credits i.e my divisor was 5 and would mail that to the list, we generally all agreed to price the same and a structure then started, if you boosted your packs in either charges or power you up itso a 35*350 pack using the 5 divisor would then be priced at 2450 and so on. Problem as you rightly have said it gets to saturation, someone gets hold of a huge stockpile of subs, organics and inorgs to crate like a madman, maybe from their guild or they got a good supplier, the whole mkt gets dumped! Mind you as a good guide 5 still works on chimaera generally, i can now make stim b at 40x403 = 3200 credits now so i feel justified in my prices and my margin is still good and the price inflation is no different to when chimaera went live! its still 5! from me anyway.

On your point of buffs i have no idea what Id charge, i never sell em cos i they are just too much damn hassle getting the meat etc and when you have a 50+ guild to support who want buffing regularly i cant get enough meat often enuff to schema on for buffs... without ruining my entire gameplay for an evening LOL. I do at least like to PVP and travel around do quests and the rest etc LOL.

Rough working i make902 in 28 charges using 2.5 =10k thatdivisor looks pretty much a bog standard pricer across a chimaera at mom.

Isiac will correct me but his packs at 870 at 26 odd at 8k? so you are doing 3ish but i thk 2.5 shud be about right for Chimaera in D packs.

Using a divisor for me ranks all my goods easier to price consistently and easily, while it may change as resource costs change at least theres a formula inflator to get some general agreement on and it does work if relayed around the community on your server. Also anyone asks me for stims prices I have a few guys who ask me what my divisor is ..Ihave 4 or 5 lads, they know what to expect to pay and get same value for money every time. I know my pricing is consistent across my whole range of Stims i have, I have even sent mails to peeps saying its bargain week my deflator has gone to 5.5 come get it!! LOL and it works a treat, buy a certain amount get a 1point deflator bonus!! so much better for you and the client.

I can only speak for one person on Chilastra, who makes great meds, but are charging a WHOPPING 40k per Simtpack, with 20 uses.

They are 920ish, 10k time on them, 90+ use. So you need to be a Master Doctor.

You would need 6 packs to buff yourself or someone completely, so that's 240,000c for 20 full buffs.

I think that's a bit high. I'd be willing to pay 20k per Stim, but 40k is a but much IMO.

It's cheaper to get someone to buff you than to be a Master Doc and buy buffs.

If I get buffed 20 times (taking the amount of uses for this example) and pay 8-10k for a complete buff, that's a total of 160,000 to 200,000c. If the buff cost is going to be around that, then it's not even worth it.

Another thing of note is, I have used these buffs, and with Medical bonuses on me, as a Master Doc with a 110 Droid, I have gotten plenty of 1100 stat buffs with a few in the 3000 range. Ok, these buffs last for 3 hours, but if you get dropped or have to log, there goes the buffs.

These all have to be put into the equation.

Personally I wont do buffs even though I know I would make a tonne more cash doing so but SOE has seen to it that I can stand beside my med stats but I cannot stand beside my buff stats, that being said I prefer to have a well stocked vendor than make a lot of cash I dont need as everyone knows the stim b's business on every server is always booming.

I like what Agentdib said about economics although the bottom line is this; mission payout is the same on all servers so product has the same price potential across all servers(there are a few exceptions in regards to servers plagued by duped credits and auction fetchings) products can and will be sold irregardless of price as money isnt a hard thing to make, hell you have people spaming outside lagonet on most servers who have thriving Bantha statue business's

I dont have a degree in macro/micro/any economics but I do think that rampant price flucuations on everyday goods hurts any economy. I swear by formulas as I like to think I have a competative pricing system but like I said it's useless when joe blow either massively undercuts or overprices the same quality goods in relation to mine. I know it wont happen but it would be nice to see people compete using the same pricing.

I cant stand people throwing out arbitrary prices with no thought behind them other than well I think thats what it's worth. The stim b market is the easiest model to use to demonstrate this point; what point is there in trying to out do your previous production of stims if the guy two planets over sells all his b's for 800 c's for 100 d's for...... irregardless of quality? Yippy I just made 460/35 b's wow now i can price them the same as my 404/32's yay im soo happy? Or better yet if I dont like this setupI can use the free market pricers guide to pricing and keep adding digits to my final cost until they dont sell anymore????, I mean what the hell is that? It has no relation whatsoever to the quality off the goods, it's just a model of free market gouging.

I mean the recent Bria auction for some buff packs came out to 50k per pack? 50K PER PACK????? I mean c'mon do the math I dont remember what the charges were but even if they were at 30 charges per pack (which I'm almost positive they weren't) you would just make your money back at 10k per buff no? I dunno people are crazy lol

All in all the best formulas I have seen are ones that represent varying quality of the goods they are pricing;

not mine - wound packs heal x charges x 30% so say a 100/25 wound b = 750 fair IMO

not mine(been around for ages) - stims heal x charges / 10 so say a 400/30 stim b = 1200 fair IMO

mine - enhance d's - power x med use x charge as a % - so say a 800/25/90 enhance health d = 18000 more than fair IMO as the buyer is going to make anywhere between 41650 - 50000 off that one pack alone

I bet you I could run an auction for a set off buffpacks with the minimum bid being what I sell them on my vendor for and at the same time run an advertisement stating the vendor sales and the auction would sell for more than 50% of what I charge on the vendor in a sixth of the time it takes to sell all the packs on the vendor, seems silly but I bet my 50 bucks to your wooden nickel I would be right

Oh and to the original poster I forgot to say no one is or was flaming you I am not sure if I gave you that impression but if I did I apologise but I think you might want to reread all the replies?

Message Edited by Kynin on 02-18-2004 03:55 PM

Message Edited by Kynin on 02-18-2004 03:55 PM

I don't sell my buff packs on Bria. I spend way too much time making them to just hand them over for credits.

I get tipped between 8-15k for my buffs... lets just say 10k average. That is 1666 credits a charge. Times 20 uses (925 power, 12k+ duration) = 33k. I get 33k in like 3 or 4 customers, on whom I have only used 3 or 4 charges out of each of my packs.

It just dosen't make any sense for me to sell a pack for less than 100k. And who would pay that?? Not anyone with the med use skill to use these 98s, thats for sure.