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Thread: Pricing
Unlike everyone else I think that clothing is less useful than installations, and that since archetects can't get more, I shouldn't either. So I've rigged up a formula based on difficaulty and resources.
(3*(Basic resources and Basic Hide)+5*(Special Resources)+Components)*1.1
Components use the same formula, so the 10% markup stacks.
And yes... This kind of pricing earns me a lot of flames, but I can turn a profit (Including maintence on my shop/harvs this way) and at the same time be competitive in the market. If I turn a positive profit (Which happens often due to synth clothand RFP sales) I reinvest in my business. I mean, why have a lot of free cash? Having 1Mil in the bank is stupid. Having 1 mil in harvesters and housing? That makes more sence. 
OMFG He makes his products more efficient then me and charges less! HE RUINS IT FOR ALL OF US!
OMFG! He's SMART! HE's got CUSTOMERS!! OMFG!
Competition! noo! NERF IT! IT CAUSES GRIEF!!!!!111
I always think that when I see all these complaints about price-cutting but I don't feel like wasting my time to do neg. posts on them, there are so many! Maybe they should make a SWG jail to throw in these price-fixers, just like what happened to the guys from Sotheby's and that other high-profile auction house...
Oh my! Someone is "cheating" because they pay for multiple accounts! Heavens! Nerf that, too!
Personally, I know people who do this (I don't, I want to minimize the amount of money I give to SOE). But, I also know resource vendors who rent lots (I have five that I rent, myself).
Sometimes I don't think people actually read or think about what they post.
So many people here act is if you are a bad person if you have friends and people who help you and who you help. Oh, cooperation! Nerf it!
Apparently you missed the fact that this game is not *the real world*. People are here to have fun not, how did you say? "get sick over price fixing." Perhaps you should try to get things in perspective little forum troll =).
Apparently you missed the fact that this game is not *the real world*. People are here to have fun not, how did you say? "get sick over price fixing." Perhaps you should try to get things in perspective little forum troll
Tell that to the people comparing things to the real world. I just wanted to point out how silly they're being.
Also, if people are here to have fun, then why do they want to tell the rest of us what to do? You can't have it both ways, kids. Pick one.
I pick: I'm setting my prices to be fair and competitive. I'm having fun.
You pick: Whatever you want. I'm not going to tell you what to do like you pathetic little hypocrites and flamers do.
If one company were to tell another company "Hey, your prices on this item are too low, raise them!", that would be called anti-competitive. It's illegal.
One word for you: OPEC. You think prices are where they are because the costs went up that much?
If two allegedly competing companies got together and decided that they were going to charge the same prices, that's called price fixing. It is also illegal.Hmmm, because this is the unspoken rule behind most general-purchase car dealerships and computer manufacturers?
I understand what you are saying, but illegal or not it happens everyday in the real world because it's how people stabalize a market and profit.
Car dealerships do not fix prices as such these days. Car dealerships are franchisees of automakers, and the automakers sell the vehicles to the dealerships at specific prices. Different car dealerships all have their hooks to convince you that they can offer you the same car cheaper than the dealer across town (high volume, low overhead, insane proprietor and so forth), but they're all dealing with similar prices from the manufacturer. They don't have to collude.
And computer manufacturers? Where in the world do you get the notion that they engage in price fixing? There are few industries on Earth with the kind of dog-eat-dog atmosphere that the computer hardware business enjoys. Trust me, Michael Dell does not get on a conference call with Carly Fiorina and Ted Waitt to figure out how much cash they can squeeze out of computer buyers. And they all have to deal with the fact that I can walk to a component shop downtown, pick up a bucket o' parts and put together a system superior to their offerings for half the price.
JonasBlackmore wrote:
I understand what you are saying, but illegal or not it happens everyday in the real world because it's how people stabalize a market and profit.
Am I to understand that you believe the laws in the U.S. (and most developed nations) prohibiting collusion, price fixing and anticompetitive business practices serve to destabilize the economy?
Why on Earth would any nation establish laws to destabilize their economies?
No, that's not what I'm saying at all -- you're reading things into it -- all I'm saying is that even though the "illegal" methods still go on everyday, it doesn't throw the world out of whack and ruin the economy.
And also...when real money is involved, people tend to act differently then when it's game-money. The people in the game selling things very low most likely would not "just cover costs" if they were running the business in the real-world.
Just something to think about: in the real world (which so very many of you like to talk about)
If one company were to tell another company "Hey, your prices on this item are too low, raise them!", that would be called anti-competitive. It's illegal.
If two allegedly competing companies got together and decided that they were going to charge the same prices, that's called price fixing. It is also illegal.
If a company sells everything under cost to try to destroy a market, it's called dumping and is also illegal. However, I really doubt anyone here is doing that.
What is happing is ... if a company sells one item at a low price to get people to look into the products, that's called a loss-leader. It is quite legal.
My on-topic response, though, is that price fixing does not stabilize an economy. Price fixing is only useful for stabilizing artificially inflated prices, which is exactly why price fixing is illegal in the real world, and why it should not be the solution of choice in SWG either. Price fixing serves no purpose but to gouge consumers by offering them no alternatives. Natural markets tend to balance themselves based on the actual facts of market conditions. Markets which are artificially balanced based on arbitrary judgments tend to be weak and brittle, and unable to respond properly to changes in real conditions.
The fact that harvesters now carry over power and maintenance is a real change in market conditions, which should have a net effect of reducing resource prices and thus end product prices. Fixing factory bugs should reduce prices. Increasing critical failure rates should increase prices. Owning your own harvesters (establishing a vertical market, as it were) should allow an individual to lower his prices, as would upgrading to larger harvesters (by making you more efficient). People who really are losing money doing business the way the are will not be able to keep it up, and though they may undersell you now, will probably be forced to raise their prices later. People who are gouging will be forced to lower their prices when they don't get sales. The guy on the other thread who said, "nope, I just can't and won't ever sell for less than 4cr per unit resource" is very likely to get frustrated and go out of business, because he is too rigid in his expectations. He certainly can go lower than 4 per. Lots of people are doing it. He just won't because he's got this arbitrary rule stuck in his head, and that's really his issue.
We're not anywhere near a "price war" on droids. People are willing to pay a lot more for droids than what we pay to make them, by anybody's estimation, even if our frustration with droid engineering sometimes makes us wonder why they are willing to. Architects are a lot closer to price war conditions, because there are way too many of them, selling an expensive product to cheap customers who are for some reason a lot more angry about the prospect of Architects making even a single credit on the sale of a house.
What we're seeing is less a droid "price war" and more the first glimmers of real competition in a market which has been, up to now, largely a "name your own price" game for those who ground their way up to MDE the fastest.
Not suggesting all MDEs have been gouging people, by a long shot. Most folks are pretty fair, I think. But as the profession fleshes out population-wise, well, that's a fact of market conditions too, and overall decrease in price is the inevitable result.