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Thread: Pricing
This is all too true. I've set my prices at what I feel are reasonable based on what I've seen on these boards and have not done any calculations on my own. Nearly all of customers are happy with the pricing, and some are even suprised thinking they'd cost a lot more!
The only exception I can think of is the guy to kept bugging me to sell him the droid I had 'floating over there' for 2500 (advanced probot) since he was 'my only customer' when I was fielding tells from other people perfectly willing to pay 20k for one.
I agree, if somones prices are much lower than yours and their spitting out droids for people who pay a fair price for it, dont get them to change their prices. Just today a guy came up to me and asked if I was able to make him a Probot.
Guy: "Hey are you able to make me a Probot?"
Another droid engineer runs up and asks "How much?"
Guy: "Well I'm pretty new to droids, whats a good price for a probot?"
Other DE: "I sell mine for 24k without armor model"
Me: "I sell mine for 14k with an armor model"
Then the other guy /tells me "Hey, charge him more than that, we use up too much resources to build one and this guy doesnt know what to pay"
Me to the DE: "Sorry, 14k is a fair price for a Probot"
DE /tells me "Your crazy, thats way too much resources for a probot just for 14k, dont you know how to charge droids?"
Guy: "Okay I'll buy yours"
DE/tells me "I'll charge him 32k and we can split it"
I then ignored him and just made the Probot for the guy for 14k. Lesson to be learned?
STOP TELLINGOTHERS HOW TO CHARGETHEIR **edit** DROIDS
I thought 14k was a very fair price with a level 2 armor model in it.
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.
When you get to college, take an Economics class. They'll explain why price fixing destablizes economies.
"My Mouse can beat up your mouse."Guys, it's called "Price Wars", and sometimes, the company with the deepest pockets wins (the company that can afford the price war the longest).
Witness the airline industry for instance. Those who can weather the storm survive. And the rest? They might go out of business.
Yes, we're all competing in an economy. The economy will have inflation, deflation, price wars, price fixing, monopolies, and all sorts of economy elements. Some people will be driven out of business. Some people will become weathly. There are barriers to entry. There will be lean and mean startups competing with the fat and lazy established crafters.
It's probably the most complex economy I've seen in a game to-date, and it's probably working 95% as intended.
The fact that we're having this discussion is a credit to the design of this economy. Bravo!
And just for the record, I've taken Macro, Micro and business economics courses.
Then you should know exactly why price fixing is bad.
McYew said:
www.swgdroids.com
Holy cow! Have you seen this guy's prices? 8000 credits for an Armor-6 module because it requires a part from an armorsmith and "rare resources"?
I dont think the problem is as black and white as this - resource duping (did they fix that yet?) is certainly going to allow people to crash market price, this IS unfair (and by SOE rules 'illegal') because its cheating (the difficulty is proving this), but how far do you take it?
Does the person who unwittingly bought a boat load of cheap resource from a duper (thinking they got a really good deal and not really smelling a rat) which allows his to lower prices also get branded a cheater?
All things being equal the only real variable in pricing is how much value you place on your time, even without exploits etc things arent equal because some people have better harvesting spots (more resource for the same power/main) and some people dont fund their crafting operations with the profits of said crafting operation (thus allowing the crafting to run at a loss) people with lots of time to play will always have an advantage in this regard - unfortunately theres nothing you can directly do about this.
However that doesnt mean your doomed, it just means you have to play a little smarter. If your competition is populated by grinders occupying the same 'product space' you can take some consolation in the fact that they will probably move on to another product once they've gained the next skill. Grinders are only interested in xp (and subsequently usage xp where applicable) but its only human to want a certain return on any investment even if its still at a loss (just less of a loss) I'd expect hardcore grinders to be using the practice function now.
If your competition doesnt look like its going anywhere then you can always relocate. Another town probably isnt going to do you alot of favours so we are talking a complete change of Planet here - obviously you need to do some recon to make sure your not walking into the same problem again.
Maybe you can change your 'product space' to one less populated? Or if your cash flushed enough you could always buy allyour competitionsstock and re-sell it at your prices (no pointbeing the cheapest guy around if you never have anything to sell!). Alternatively you could do a bit of undercover work - pose as a customer (or get a friend to) and ask how he manages to be the cheapest guy in town (flattery usually works here) maybe you can use some of this info to become a little more competative.
Unfortunately though the bottom line is this - the game allows you to run crafting at a loss, missions etc provide alternative forms of income to supliment/support/run unprofitable crafting operations, and as has been true with eery other MMORPG I've ever played, those with the most time to play will always have an advantage - that doesnt mean there isnt room for you in the mix somewhere - it just means you have to understand what your up against.
Oh loss-leaders normally do so to get industry dominace for some future gain (i.e. Microsoft sell Windows cheap to get it everywhere so they can screw us all over at a later date - which they did)
Doesnt really apply to droids since you'll never see that customerbecause ofthat droid (no repairs, not upgrade, no supplier lock-in because of compatibility),the only reason you'd see them for anything else was because you're cheap (which doesnt count because you dont become a loss leader just so you can sell more stuff in the future at a loss)
I don't consider myself to be underselling, can buy just about anything I want.
I am not expensive either though.
I for one am glad to see a 'debate' on this since as a newbie DE (and a newbie SWG player) it's hard to gage where to price items. Like most newbies, I probabally have a tendancy to underprice things due to needing cash and it is up to you more experienced guys to provide some guidance.
One thing I have noticed is a big difference between market activity on the two servers I play on- Wanderhome/Tatooine/Bestine which appears slow right now compared toNaritus/Tatooine/Bestine wheremy goods literall flies off the shelf. Maybe it's because the latter server is less developed.
Regardless in my view, as withany economy when supply>demand prices tend to go down (as sellers compete) and vice versa. Hence on Wanderhome my prices might justifiably be lower than on Naritus. Anyway I guess that what I am trying to say is that a fixed price strategy in an open and volatile marketplace is impossible to enforce, regardless of what people say. However, if someone consistently upsets your market by under-selling, maybe you should think about putting a price on their head!!
Monkeyman745 wrote:[...]I thought 14k was a very fair price with a level 2 armor model in it.
hehe I sell level 4 armor probots for 3k on the bazaar. Y'all must hate me, but I'm ahead another 60k this week (so you can do that and make a profit).