Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Underselling the bane of our lives
Well, I don't know the standard prices, but my vendor stocks on of each of the three ("LE Wrestle", Probot (Ranged only) and R3 (ranged and melee (toggle)). I'm out of battery crates though, and my factory spent a few days giving me @manf_error_7 before I figured out how to avoid it, so I'm making a large part of them by hand. They're still there at the moment (just checked), but I don't know for how long. I charge 25K, 14K and 10K for the R3, Probot, LE. They're not maxed out (can't remember their combat ratings off hand, but the max is 600, 550 and 300) Allbut the LE has 20% AR0 armour (new max) and a line telling you what kind of dmg and spd the combat rating will likely transfer into
Now I know Caix is a thorn in my side on these forums, and I would like it noted that I post here, not in Chimaera, so as not to have an argument in public, so to speak, which will damage our profession in the public's eyes.
Message Edited by Shian_Tavkin on 03-21-2004 09:16 PM
Whoa, I can sell my R3s at 75K! Man, I must be overcharging or something, lol
Of course, my droids are all 98-99% experimented, with 110 combat modules and full lvl 6 armour on every droid. In short, the very best that can be made. 
Probot at 69.5k and LE at 45k. I'm equating combat modules to droid repair modules, and using the configurator at http://www.undeadfish.com/droids.php, so my prices are justified when using that.
I know that no-one wants to be a ‘gouger’ but they do say that your gear is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it.
The one and only big factory run I’ve ever done of droids was 50 units of lvl6med/lvl6storage&110med surgical units (yeah I know, I know, the storage mods don’t work, well you could have told me that before I made ‘em
). & given that it took me 4 days to do that run and all of my resources, I changed 50k a shot (seem to remember getting a tongue-in-cheek poke about high prices from Shian actually
). If someone contacts me with a ‘hand build’ order though I usually charge 75k, though that’s normally for advanced astromechs with many modules. Can’t say as I’ve had any complaints so far, nor anyone saying that they can get them vastly cheaper elsewhere so the prices must be ok, after all, I’m not making millions and I am working hard.
Oh dear.
I've been charging 45.000 for R3's with 6 modules since the day I could make them. Combat capable ones with 600 combat and 1690 HAM i sell for 55.000.
Tell you this, I can't keep them stocked! People buy them like mad, always has.
my norm price is 10 cpu for a droid
Right now, rounded up, my R3s go for 62.5k Probots are 50k. I think it's a fair price, due to factory, energy, buying resources, my time, etc
Well, I think I possibly charge less than Caix at the moment, but since we're looking at going into business together I'll have to hike my prices up a bit.
The way I look at it is that these things aren't worth all that much, really. I've always been irritated by the 6cpu "going rate" of rescources on the bazaar, and to price a topped-out combat R3 at 6cpu comes to somewhere in the region of 12.3K. I don't feel like I'm selling myself short or ripping off the customer. Fact is I don't have a whole lot of time to market droids so I tend only to build to order, so for the time being anyone in the region who wants to charge 5 times as much is quite safe.
Without meaning to sound confrontational, how do you justify such high prices?
gardengoth wrote:The way I look at it is that these things aren't worth all that much, really. I've always been irritated by the 6cpu "going rate" of rescources on the bazaar, and to price a topped-out combat R3 at 6cpu comes to somewhere in the region of 12.3K. I don't feel like I'm selling myself short or ripping off the customer. Fact is I don't have a whole lot of time to market droids so I tend only to build to order, so for the time being anyone in the region who wants to charge 5 times as much is quite safe.
Without meaning to sound confrontational, how do you justify such high prices?
That's cool if you just build to order and don't put a whole lot of time into DE, but let me ask you: If you buy resources for 6cpu and sell droids for 6cpu, where are you making any profit?
A maxed combat R3 for 12.3K? Hell, the chassis itself is worth 30K (if you want to make a profit, that is). Consider all the components that go into an R3. Then take into account the following:
- factory maintenance money for crated items like GP/EM modules, motive systems, etc.
- money spent on resources
- extra money spent on rare or uber resources
- travel fees spent in picking up all resources
Those factors have a lot to do with my prices. I did an experiment once... I made a few maxed-out ADV R3 droids with full data/item storage, crafting, repair, medical, and armor, and put them on my vendor for 65K each. They all sold within 2 days. They were the most expensive droids I'd ever built, and they sold like hotcakes.
The main factors that determine my prices are:
Resources -- I use nothing below 600 rating, mostly in 800-1000 range, which are more expensive to begin with
Factory maintenance -- I have a small fleet of factories, and am thinking of getting an alt to add more
House maintenance
Outside purchases -- droid components that are made by architects, also skill tapes, and anything else I want to buy
Profit margin -- in order to stay successful, I've got to have a decent profit margin so that I've got the money to spend on the resources & maintenance that I need.
If I charged as much to sell a droid as it took to build it, I'd only be breaking even and not grow at all.
Iused to selling Medical R2's for 20K (L6Med/Storage/FoodChem). But I found that I would sellout to quick, they would fly off my vendor. I raised the prices to 25K, no difference, 30K, no difference, 35K, slight decline, but I would sell out 10-15 a week still.
It is sort of annoying when you go around and see the same product for close to 15K, but hey, its a free market. People can charge what they like, but I just got tired of refilling the vendor every other day.