Merchant Archive

I was wondering how many actual Career Merchants there are ?? - Certainly there are only a few highly active ones here on these boards.. And I never see many (any) in game - Indeed I only know the names of 2 other Career Merchants on my server...

Any estimations ? I reckon were looking at less than 50 per server..

Well I am one of those slowly trying to become one of these on your server. With the changes going on, I am not sure I will continue... I am at the stage where I need to start developing a supplier base. I went up the tree to get more venders, but it looks like they hosed xp over time. I wish I could now trade that xp in for advertising tree... Oh well. On the estimates 50 is probably high. I believe it is probably the best way to go, freeing crafters to make stuff, but with the way it seems they are taking things. Venders will only be usefully to the elite with high turn over. FIX the databases, do not make it imposible to be a non (or minimal) crafting merchant.

I'm a career Merchant, 2 boxes from Master. I haven't met any others on my server (Eclipse).

I'm a career merchant as well. About 3/4 of the way to Master. Its tough to say the least. Business has slowed down since the lamers who duped resources can undercut my already very low prices, which scarcely earn me a profit anymore. The slow down of money from missions is making people hold onto their credits a little more tightly as well.

I know maybe 5 or 6. I know a full-time miner/resource vendor, two wanna-be's who've opened up shops 100 yards from mine and are trying to steal my business while begging me for training, one or two others who may have a future if they get focused, and about 999999 artisans with one or two vendors who think that Master Merchant is something to pick up in their spare time.

Oh..and me...

I'm a career merchant on Eclipse as well. I know of two other merchants on Corellia with me . . .andthere are numeroushybrid artisan/merchants. I'm at Management IV / Hiring I at the moment.

I can't say that I'veexperienced any nerfs to merchant xp- I getapproxiamtely 10,000 xp per day with a slow to moderate volume of customers. Of course, I may be getting a much larger volume of customers who don't purchase anything since I am online during off-peak Eclipse hours.

I've been pretty successful as a merchant so far - I have a nice sized bank account and make enough profit per day to maintain 7 harvesters and my home. I think the key to my success is that I diversified my remaining skills into various artisan classes - focusing on niche markets. I have Master Artisan which allows me to make the electronic subcomponents that most of the elite crafting professions require. I get several /tells daily from elite crafters looking for components. I also make weapon power-ups at 30%+ effectiveness - I can't keep these in stock. I'm a novice architect with furniture 1 which allows me to make very basic (but often overlooked by other archtects) that I can't keep in stock. I get emails from people asking me when I will have x_piece of furniture in stock. I have some basic tailoring so I can stock clothing essentials - uniform boots, backpacks, etc. The net result of my "dabbling" is that I am not dependant on any particular supplier and can fill a very real void in the market as evryone races to become "Master Whatever". I may not be filty rich - but I'm happy.

I drive business to my shop via the bazaar - I always have my 25 bazaar slots filled with various items (furniture, power-ups, and repair kits are my best sellers). Once someone buys something I send them a quick thank you email with my shop location and a list of weekly "specials" which are my most popular items offered at a special in store discount (i.e. - 350-450 credit power-ups are 250 in my shop). This drives a great deal of business to my store.

Sorry for straying a bit off topic - I just didn't want my fellow merchants to get discouraged. This class is viable, you just have to look a little bit deeper.

If anyone needs any help/training on eclipse please look me up. Also, since we seem to have many fellow eclipsers responding to this thread maybe we can get together and form some sort of unofficial (or official) trade consortium/alliance?? Just a thought The most frustrating thing with this game is I CANNOT take a day off (due to maintenance, vendor stocking, etc) - if a group of merchants were to band together we could make things much easier for us and offer better service to our customers. Just a thought . . .

- Vorin

I'm a career merchant as well, and I haven't met many on Lowca (but I suspect that is in part because we are spread out.)

But then I know a lot of PAs that have an extra account to hold the PA hall lots, and a lot of them are having the character go Merchant since it lets them advance to master without actually doing anything, and then that account can also maintain PA-based merchants.

So we're in real danger of becoming a "tool character", as I fear politician will be as well (I can picture the PA extra accounts being Master Politician/Master Merchant), because so much of the class advancement actually happens when you aren't even logged in or actively involved. Best solution? Drastically reduce the amount of experience earned from venders and introduce a mission terminal ... import/export missions that are a varient of delivery missions? If people's advancement as "hardly ever logged on" Merchants slowed so that it was nearly impossible (rather than inevitible) to achieve Master Merchant, it might be a good thing for the class.

The factor probably hurting us is that the class count for Novice Merchant is probably very high, but high among people to tack on a little bit of Merchant because they are an Architect/Merchant or a Weaponsmith/Merchant ... heck, even my favorite neighborhood Master Weaponsmith/Master Smuggler has Advertising III. These people's feedback for the class will tend to push us more in the direction of being an enhancement class rather than a full Elite, as it creates a perception of the class as being a secondary one rather than a primary one. I'm not sure I know the solution on this one ... there seems to be such a resistence (from my perspective) to selling wholesale to a "professional merchant" (it seems like about half the artisan/merchants that I've approached about that were actually offended at the suggestion that someone else would be making money selling their goods.)

Carvin Abrok, Merchant/Smuggler (Lowca)

I am At least until I go broke

Career Merchant here.

I'm a Master Merchant on Corbantis.

I resell stock from overa dozencrafters, and manage to push several million credits worth of merchandise through my store a week. Business is decent, but the new vendor rates may change all that.

I have recently become a merchant - was necessary to support my growing medical supply business.

Im a merchant, and a droid engineer... my goal is master merchant/master droid engineer/master artisan and a little marksman to get rid of those pesky durni's...sell droids for the most part but I also sell droid lubricant for the roleplaying aspect via a shifty looking vendor in the back room of my shop. I also plan to swap out a vendor in favor of a vending machine to sell drinks for a friend of mine who is a chef, basicallyt a cheap cola machine for the fun of it. Other than that tho I have no intention of making myself a real seller of all goods and don't plant to make a PA Mall or anthying like that....

--Dolomite

Dolomite Droids Inc (645 -3897) Just NE of Coronet on Corellia - Corbantis

p.s. Can someone st SOE fix the vendors so they wear clothes I give them instead of just eating them.

I'm also a merchant on Eclipse, Advertising and Efficiency 4, Management 3, selling resources and factory crates (electromic components, droid batteries and weapon upgrade kits). I get about 10-15k xp per day at the moment, helps a lot being in a prime space in Mos Quito Hills with many master crafters about, a lot of passing trade.

4 Boxes Away from Master on Kauri.



I did the Thank you email from Bazaar Sales and alsow word of mouth to get my Mining Buisness to where it is now.

Plus Whenever I goto other cities I but items cheap that will sell off the Bazaar/shops and then take them back and resell them at my shop for a nice profit to cover all my travelling fee's.