Merchant Archive

I am wondering are all merchants crafters? This cannot be the meaning that to be a successful crafter you have to waste a good portion of your skill points on Merchant. I have yet to meet a merchant that works just as a merchant and has free vendors to sale my wares.

This inturn will raise the price of my good as the merchant will need to make money. Which is kinda a bummer. But that is economy I guess, which would be fine if the economy functioned from the resource level but it doesn't as people ask insane prices for resources. But that is another rant

So are we all crafters?

I suppose there may be some pure merchants out there, but from my point of view I would struggle to get much enjoyment out of that. After all, what can you do on the hot summer nights, while you are waiting for your suppliers to deliver new stocks to place on the vendor ? Sit and count your credits ? Run around checking your harvesters for the 10th time that evening ? Even when new stocks come in how long can it take to restock the vendors ? For my money I need something else to do,so I craft, and then I sell what I made, THEN I count my credits, which are noticeably increased.

But then I am not really a Merchant with a crafting sideline, I am an Arch with the need to sell my products, so I went Merchant to do that, I suspect it is the same with a lot of Merchants, Crafter first and Merchant second.

There are some pure merchants, but not a lot of them. Many ran into trouble with suppliers when the suppliers realized the merchant resold their goods at a higher price, which after all is the original point of being merchant...

Not a lot of people are willing to sell to someone who resell their product at a markup.

It is very difficult being a merchant without crafting, however there are probably more of us than you think. I actually cheat a little becasuse I have two accounts. But honestly 80% of my business has always been from other crafters. It is possible. You have to work at it. And the design of the game makes it harder than it should be.

And as to how you fill your time. Running 5-6 vendors is a full time occupation at times

I'm doing pretty much the same thing Draznar is - power sales. But I'm trying to branch out into a wide variety of consumables provided to me by crafters who are not merchants, such as:

• power-ups


• molecular clamps


• camp kits


• stims & woundpacks


• personal shield generators


• probe & seeker droids


• mines & grenades


• food & drink buffs

I guess I just fail as a crafter, myself, even though I'm a master artisan. I love being on the move, surveying resources, stocked vendors across 5 planets, meeting people, wheeling and dealing... It's very immersive. Whenever I've tried serious crafting... sitting in one place, not having much time to interact with anyone...suddenly it's just me, sitting in front of my computer, clicking the mouse...gah! For me, crafting is just horribly dull! I love being a pure merchant.

---

Vipossk wrote:
i am a smuggler too

---

Me too as well as MA. I sell mostly smuggler supplies,various animal resourcesand whatever I get my hands on. Usually stuff I get in drops like jackets or weapons. I sell these pretty cheap and mostly get new players who can't afford Master Tailor/WS items yet. If they don't sell, no biggie. I'm just getting pistol xp anyway. Sometimes I may run a few droid batteries or personal extractors too but overall I don't spend alot of time crafting anything other than the smuggler stuff.

Brae-Lun

Pure merchant and mayor. I sell resources that I harvest, my guild mates bring me hide and meat that I sell. As mayor its my vendor in the cantia stocked with our locals chefs finest wares.

But to be honest for about the first 3 months it sucked. Running missions to get enough credits to buy the goods up front and sit and hope someone bought something. When they did, 66% of the sale went to buying a replacement item so I would always have a good stock on my vendors. Not to mention that by the middle of October all 3 of my main suppliers had disappeared without a word.

The biggestproblem to a pure merchant is the vendor in Business 3 and/or the ease of picking up novice merchant for an elite crafter. Its fairly easy to pick up a combat tree with one crafting profession and still have enough points to pick up some vendors out of merchant.

Esidrix

Master Merchant/Politician Innisfree, Rori, Wanderhome