Merchant Archive

Byak, try talking to the "high needs" customer about a bulk discount, and personal sales for him. Explain that you can fill his order, sell it to him separately and cheaper. He'll likely take that over your vendor. Give that a shot.

Do not feel bad about charging high prices for your goods and services. If you were charging too much for your product, you wouldn't be selling as much as you do. Keep raising you prices until you can comfortably keep up with the demand given the amount of time you are able to put into the game.

Here is a quote I love: A wise Bothin once said "Too many people forget that the economy in SWG is just another form of PvP".

btw: might I ask what it is that your selling?

Rexan, byt the sounds of it, I think we'd need to look no further than your, and my, sig... or at least what ever it is, it sells like spice.

Mark em up, get laughed at, and still sell out... hasn't hurt me yet, but as soon as things slow, make sure to jump on and re-pricelower. I'm reselling Muon for 1k more than my neighbor, and I still sell out daily. Going for 2k more after tonight, as I dont want to sell more than 1000/day yet, and thinking of buying out my neighbors' stock to re-sell at my price and artificially boost the value.

I was in exactly this same situation, Byak! Selling at a reasonable price, my vendor was wiped out within MINUTES! I even got into an argument here on the Scylla forum with other power merchants asking them to justify their ridiculously high (to me) prices. Their answer: because people pay it. So....now I sell power for 2 c/u. (It costs me about 10% of that to harvest.) There's just no way power should be selling this high, but I can't keep up otherwise.

Message Edited by mhal9000 on 02-20-2004 07:54 AM

I've been through this too on almostevery new product I have sold, and always ended up increasing the price. I am still way more expensive than other merchants on some products but there is guaranteed stock and I sell at a reasonable pace that allows me to restock regularly without running out. For me, having well stocked vendors is what matters, price is secundary.

Let me clear this up for all of you so you feel better about being merchants!

The economy on ALL servers with perhaps the exception of some of the 'newer' european servers is horribly inflated. The level of this inflation is partially masked by the fact that there are few places to spend money in the game and there are no public taxes or reporting methods that would reveal the amount of money people have.

The money supply is incredibly loose. While high prices are a disadvantage to newbie players right out of the box, they quickly learn to work the missions, craft, or harvest what they need to get by. Plenty of people have millions of credits in 'walking around money' that they cannot find a use for.

In the end a Merchant provides a valuable service for which we get paid: Providing a regular and convenient source of <insert item here>. The difference between 1500credits and 1900credits for the same item isn't enough motivation for me to get back into my speeder and find a new supplier. Even a difference of twice that wouldn't make much difference as long as the merchant in question keeps the vendor well-stocked every time I visit.

When I had an armorsmith tenant, she always asked me what to do to keep her vendors stocked. She was working like a dog to keep up with demand. She asked me if her prices were ok...and I told her "Double them". So she did. A week later she asked me the same question and I told her "Double them again". She continued to sell out. We had the same conversation week after week. People complained about the prices but she continued to sell out. She would probably still be selling out but she made so much money she lost the impetus to make armor and became a TKA...and eventually quit.

Here's a little tip. Most people are lazy, and browse vendors under the "all" tab.

Just put a few items on your vendor (reasonably priced) that will probably never sell. 1 Point Skill Tapes and Armor Attachments at 10k each works fine (on my server, 1 pointers go for 10k). You might sell out (eventually I did), but they will sell far slower, and it's better people see you have a couple unrelated items in stock instead of nothing.

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Faellyn wrote:

So....now I sell power for 2 c/u. (It costs me about 10% of that to harvest.) There's just no way power should be selling this high, but I can't keep up otherwise

You shouldn't price items based on the value (or perceived value) of your good/service. You need to price you goods/services based on what people are willing to pay for them.

Lets use Power as an example:

Just because it appeared to cost 0.2 cr a unit to harvest power does not mean you should use that as a basis for your selling price. Here is what someone would have invested in order to harvest and sell power.

1. Capitol investment in harvester
2. Investment in skill points for artisan survey
3. Investment in survey tool
4. Investment in time tool and locate resource (can be quite large)
5. Investment in money to re-deed and place harvester
6. Investment in money to pay harvester maintenance
Now you wait.
7. Investment in time to gather resources from harvester
8. Capitol investment for your shop/merchant tent deed.
9. Investment in maintenance for you shop/tent.
9. Investment in skill points for merchant skills
10. Investment in time to hire/train vendor.
11. Investment in maintenance for your vendor.
12. Investment in time to stock your vendor.

Never feel guilty about charging a high price for your time and effort.

You shouldn't price items based on the value (or perceived value) of your good/service. You need to price you goods/services based on what people are willing to pay for them.

That doesn't work in SWG.

You realize the SWG economy is over-inflated, and people *will* pay a lot more for things than they should. And raising the prices on the low end (power) will bump the prices up for regular resources, which in turn will bump the price up of crafted items...

Auctions are the worst. There are a lot of super-rich crafters out there with nothing to do with their money, who will keep bidding on an auction, and bumping the price up to something rediculous.