Merchant Archive

Some of the more infamous moments in my career as a Merchant...

1) *Beep* Incoming email... Customer has bought small house. In fact, they bought all the small houses I had on my vendor. I thought 'cool!' back in the beginning days of the profession. Excited, I paged the customer with, "If you need more houses, just let me know, and I will be happy to make them for you," thinking it was someone buying houses for their new city or guild. I got a tell back, "Hey, I just found someone selling small houses for cheap, I'm buying them all to resell." Okay, mistell of course, but I still made money, no big deal. However, then they tell me back saying, "Yeah, I just needed some houses for my city." Me: "*smiles* Unfortunately you mis-telled your comment about reselling them to me first." *BAN*

Reselling, eh, alright, I still made a profit. Liars, I abhor.

2) I got a tell out of the blue saying, "Hey, <friend> recommended you, can you make me a large amount of small, medium and large houses for cheap?" In much worse grammer and typing of course. I say yes, but it will take some time, and here are my prices, leave me an email since I am heading offline. He asks a couple more questions, I respond, then ask, are you interested in placing an order still? Silence for a bit, I really had to go, so I did the polite thing and left him an email appoligizing for leaving, and if he needed anything to just email me and I will do the order in the morning. The next day I sign back in with that email forwarded to me from him saying, "&*(& *(@!) I don't know you, don't *&(& mass mail me. I'm going to report you."

Umm...

3) Most recent someone asked me to do some survey work for them. I agreed to do so. He wanted a location for fungus. I found a spot not too far away from his city with a high density, and it was the only fungus. I sent him an email with the location and stats on it. First he asked me what the quality was, not understanding what OQ meant. Then he said, but there is some higher quality stuff outside my house. I assured him that there was only one type of fungus on the planet, and that was it's stats. (Not to mention if he already knew this, why did he need me to survey for him?) I finally got a clue that he was new to the whole resource business and asked, when was the last time you checked for this resource? Silence, then a tell back, "Never mind, it changed."

Duh. Maybe I did know what I was talking about after all?

But this one gets a bit better. Then he asks me if I have any micro flora harvesters for sale. I say yes, I have several on my vendor with power and credits still in them. I'm selling them for 1cpu per credit and energy in left in them. (3.5k being the highest price, or there abouts). He said, great, can you go back to your planet, get them, and bring them to me? Me being on Tatooine, him being on Lok, with the nearest shuttleport 4k away from his city. I politely said no, and firmly pointed him to the direction of my vendors if he wanted them.

Resigned sigh.

Just some random things I've learned the hard way.

1) Money first, service after.

2) I do not like having people constantly looking over my shoulder, following me from room to room, when I decorate their home (on-site crafting in all cases).

3) Being nice to people is more often taken advantage of than not.

4) Ban and ignore are your friends.

5) Attempting to educate newbies results in frustration more often than not.

6) Do not take on apprentices.

7) Some people just don't understand the concept of role-playing and three-demisional characters.

On a postive note, though, there are exceptions to all of these cases. These people are on my friends list, and who recommend business my way, as I recommend business back their way. I love the community that has been developed between crafters and resource dealers (well, certain ones, with brains and clues). I still look forward to that next sale, to that next business challenge (you want how many heavy harvesters by when?). And I have fun bartering just to barter, or wheel and deal.

Mistress Kyphi Makarha

Master Architect, Master Tailor, Master Artisan, Merchant, Slaver

I've done the same thing with pricing mistakes. I did it with a 100k stack once...heh. The person who picked it up did reply to me when I realized what I'd done, and agreed to return the material. I gave him an extra 10k resources just for being honest enough to return it.

Course I've had others who wouldn't reply, and they got added to the /ban list from my shops without any hesitation.

---

ASHRID wrote:

Once I priced a small house at 1k rather than 10k. The only thing I could do was congratulate the buyer on spotting my mistake and grabbing himself a bargain.

You cant hold others responsible for your mistakes

Not responding to your emailsis the safest way of dealing with the situation (while you may be polite in your approach, theres no guarantee you'll stay that way if he's not interested in your proposal(s))

---

---

Armeno wrote:

and then there was the guy who stormed out of my store because it was on the planetary vendor advertisement, but didn't stock 700 base heal stim B's...

---

Forgive my ignorance, as I've never done any serious medicine crafting, but this isn't possible, is it?

I imagine that every profession gets this all the time... customers telling you what you can and cannot make because THEY know better than YOU. My wife made master smuggler just this past weekend after a few months of casual play, and had a guy ask her to slice his set of composite. She agreed, named her price, and the guy said sure, but he wanted it all sliced for effectiveness. She went on to explain to him that she couldn't choose the result of the slice and he refused to believe her because the armorsmith who had sold him the suit had told him differently. Well sure! The armorsmith will know WAY better than the smuggler what the smuggler can and cannot do, certainly!

/shootcustomer

Customers that know better than you are a staple in any business, even in real life. lol good stories good stories...keep'em comin'

Doc could we get this one stickied like we do in the Smuggler's forum?