Merchant Archive
Thread: My take on the upcoming Vendor and Merchant changes
). Message Edited by StumanKadir on 06-07-2004 01:38 PM
All I can say then is good luck.
A question though. I have spoken to a few merchants on my server and none of them are willing to pay for my goods upfront, yet all wish too sell them and then reimburse me for the sales they make. They have said that I am free to check the stocks on their vendors and reconcile that with my tally.
But I am very dubious of doing this as I have no mechanism at all for disputing what they say they owe me to what I have dropped ontheirvendor (hence my opposition to this change). Not only that, they will have all of my stock and I will have no way of recovering it.
How are situations likethis going to be handled?
StumanKadir wrote:
All I can say then is good luck.
A question though. I have spoken to a few merchants on my server and none of them are willing to pay for my goods upfront, yet all wish too sell them and then reimburse me for the sales they make. They have said that I am free to check the stocks on their vendors and reconcile that with my tally.
This one is tricky for both sides. If I pay you up front, I take on all the risk. What happens if I can't sell it at the expected price? What if you won't buy the product back or give me a partial refund when I have to lower the price? But I agree, if you give me the goods and I only pay when it sells, you take on most of the risk.
What this comes down to is relationships. I am perfectly willing to (and would prefer to) pay you up front for any goods. But since I am taking the risk, I will initially expect more than 10% of the revenues. I might only initially be willing to pay 60 to 75% of my expected sale price to you initially. I might also only take on a portion of your stock. Sorry, but I don't really want to start out with 10 of every type of furniture. But here's the deal - as I become more familiar with you and I also become more familiar with the market for the products you are making, my margin would come down and I would take on more of your stock (assuming I had an expectation that it would sell). Admmittedly, if you are in such a low margin business that you can't afford to sell product to me at a 25% discount to start out with, it's probably not a product I am interested in selling anyway.
If you were accepting the risk by selling through a merchant on a consignment basis, you should handle it the same way. At first, limit your risk by only dealing with a small percentage of your inventory. As you are able to trust the person more (and as you make more money through them), you can slowly ramp up your risk.
Well Stuman, all I can say is that your PA and the merchants on your server are failing you then. I am very fortunate to be in a PA that has a dedicated division solely for selling the products of our crafters. We have a number of Merchants who work very hard to ensure our goods are available throughout our galaxy. They work with our crafters to find the appropriate relationship with each person. There is no issue about buying for goods up front because our merchants know the goods they are buying will be among the best out there.
From my point of view, you need to work within your PA to find a solution to this or, if that fails, find yourself another PA.
well if you dont want to loss all those items and have to heel to a merchant.... sounds like you better jump on business3 or create a new account to pick up the slack. i got busniness 3 in a matter of less than 30min... Anyone who has done merchant should of had a pretty penny to start with... so no excuses on not being able to grind business3. Its a too bad so sad situation im seeing here. But i think the Merchant prof is gearing for a good change on fixing this bug. More power to them. dont think you can hog all the credit unless your willing to go that extra distance and surrender some skill for the skills that are more important to you. About moving well thats your fualt for thinking a bugg like this would never be fixed someday. Thats like saying "its not Fair that i had Master BH and now that i surrendered it i cant hunt jedi anymore". Man i love the forums Good luck on any choice you make 
Message Edited by Lopaka79 on 06-07-2004 02:41 AM
I couple of answers to some responses in here.
For the record (as I mentioned above in my initial posting) I am at Merchant 0/0/0/3 and will probably drop most of Swordsman to go to 3/0/0/3.....ie; I'll be a dabbler. I will not have any choice (irrespective of peoples opinions in here).
This change is gonna change the game for the worse, and the more crafters I speak to about it, the more anger and frustration I encounter over this issue. Most have found a nice balance between doing crafting and having fun in game, and that is going to be taken away from them. They are not happy about, some are threatening to quit, most how are staying are doing as I do and will dabble in the profession. If you are a proponent of this change and feel that you will get extra business from this from the existing crafter base, you are sadly mistaken.
If the merchant community wants more business, or complain about people "stealing their sales" (I have to say that I actually laughed out loud when I read that load of rubbish), maybe they should have a look at the way they run their businesses. I and many others have tried dealing with merchants in the past and have NEVER had a good experience from it. All they ever wanted to do was to undercut each other and bring business through the door - they wish to deal with quantities and nothing else.
To them, us crafters are a dime a dozen, so they are surprised when suddenly Master Crafters don't use them anymore? This is probably a wide brush to use, but I can only base it on personal experience. When dealing with merchants, there are no guarantees, no CSRs will help you when you get ripped off, there is no dispute mechanism and as we on Valcyn have seen in the past, if you name a crooked player, your post gets deleted so even that avenue of complaint is shut off.
We have asked people in our Guild and even in our city (I am the mayor of a metropolis on Talus on Valcyn server btw), and those that have been Master Merchants, did for grinding purposes only. Those that have it still are planning on ditching it as they wish to do other things, and the only ones who have expressed an interest in doing it are those who are also crafters. We have a lot of casual players in our city, and none of them have the time to do - what is in effect - a full time position managing sales for other crafters.
Most have barely enough time to do their own.
Someone above mentioned that they have a guild dedicated to the merchants and crafters, well good on them for that. As far as I know they are a rarity in this game. I do know of some others but unless you arein their PA, you have a snowflakes chance in hell of getting your stock onto their vendors - and even if you did, they will stock their members goods before yours. So the benefits of this fix are???
But really, why should I have to leave my friends and mates, and go and join another guild just because I wish to craft??? What next?
I have chosen to drop skills in another profession that I dearly love, in order to remain economically viable from myself and my city. I do this in order to meet the upcoming "fix" for merchants. I do this grudgingly, and with absolutely no good will to the merchant community that has been pushing this change. Would I support a fulltime merchant in this game because of these changes - as I said before, I WILL NOT. I will dabble and I will encourage every crafter I know to do the same.
Face it folks, aside from a few dozen people in here, the vast majority are happy with the status quo. So whether you consider it an exploit, or "retail stealing', or any other justification you can think of, for a bug, this has been one of the better, more universally benefitialones.
It has assisted whole communities of novice and early master crafters to become self-sufficient. It has taught legions of players about the game economics and mechanics. It has helped countless player cities carve a niche from themselves in the game.
So if you want your way, then fine. I want my mining profession back (that was what I originally wanted to do when I was playing beta and was saddened to see it not implemented). I want Politician to have back everything that has been taken away. I want so many things to be right in this game.
But to me, and to many, many others, this change is just plain and simply wrong. I guess that is why aside from these boards it has not been advertised at all (and I only happened to find this by accident).
Message Edited by StumanKadir on 06-07-2004 10:05 PM
The problem is, you're not supposed to do everything. For most crafters, it's 9 points they will have to spend if they want a vendor, I don't think it's going to hurt their balance between crafting and fun that much. In your case, you want to be crafter, politician and do some combat... you have to make a choice.
Idon't want nor expect extra business, personally I just want, as a customer, to be sure that when I go see a vendor it won't be empty or just selling a few items. As a vendor, I want my name on the map to mean something, not to be lost in a list of merchant dabblers who won't spend the time to restock their vendor, so that most players don't even bother using the map anymore. If people have to spend points to keep a vendor, they will prolly think twice before doing it, and if they decide to they will make sure they are well stocked to make up for the point cost.
Don't forget one thing too... With the changes to Jedi everyone will be able to do what they want with their second slot, why not just pick up merchant with it? Just a thought.
When you say that it has assisted lots of novice and starting crafters to be self sufficient... My guess is that most novice and starting crafters kept merchant for a while before dropping their vendors.
If the change hasn't been advertized elsewhere, it's because people didn't read the post where it was announced that it was a bug going to be fixed. Everyone is free to post about it if they want (there is a long thread in the doc forum about it too).
If anyone end up with 1000+ items, and know where to put them it is thair own fault, there is ample time to unload you current inventory now, and convert to custom sales or to regain your merchant skills. Anyone who wand to can become a merchant, and toughs that do not wand to invest in toughs skill will have to do with out. Just like I as most "pure" crafter chooses not to have any combat skills and thus have to do with out.
Now if you wand to argue that SoE should do more to inform people of this, then yes you might have a point there.
Likewise you there will be some turbulence on the economy when exploit vendor goes away, but so is there are any other major change. When mounts came out, and the vehicles came out, there was price shifts, and so will there most likely be at the combat rebalance, and when publish 10 comes and Jedi are to be obtained throe quests.
One thing crafter have to get use to, is that if the merchant take all the risk then the merchant will have to get most of the profit. Do not expect merchant to buy your harvesters and PA halls at you current prices, more likely the price you have to sell to will be slightly above the what it cost you to harvest the resources. I am saying that as a Master Weaponsmith/Master Merchant/Master Artisan.
I think quite a few people will pick up merchant, precisely because that can not stand the thought of anyone else making profit on thair products. Of cause that will no be able to keep thair combat professions on the side but that is the choice we all have to make.