Merchant Archive
Thread: Perhaps some shops should be run out of business with the maintenance fee?
wow, you sell 10-30 items a day that MAY equal up to the cost oftwo of my weapons if you're not gouging people and you don't even need tough to find resources until MAYBE the last block in each group. Almost everything you make will be generic hides, fiberplast and metal. Wish my craft was so easy. The last thing I want to hear about from a tailor is how I should get out of the kitchen if it's too hot. My craft, to be successfultakes a hell of a lot more work than yours EVER will. So hush already or try a really difficult craft and then spout all that junk about how no one should be a merchant. Everyone should have the option to make and try to sell what they want without the dev's crippling theirincome because they can't figure out how to run a **edit** economy.
Lets also not foget that every since penny in the economy right now besides newbie starting cash came from missions.
30 items a day? well that's just pathetic. let's make the maintenence fee such that anyone who sells less than 40 goes out of business eh?
Ghartan wrote:
There really does seem to be a glut of a lot of shops out there as Holo mentioned a few times. And then when I read the responses to Q's question on vendor fees, I see many folks complaining this would put them out of business since they only sell one or two items a day. Now for an architect that is one thing ... but when I read post after post from tailors (and such) saying that is all they sell a day .. well ... that's just pitiful to be blunt.
I am a semi-casual player (play 7-10pm a few nights a week) and I easily sell 30+ items a day.
Just a flat hourly wage for the NPC and a Sales Tax won't keep peeps from just posting things at outragious prices so they won't be bought but won't take up floor space in their house either
Then put the sales tax on the item when you offer it on the vendor (like the bazaar, but as a percentage of offering price). Net financial effect to serious merchants is the same, and it discourages using vendors as storage or offering up items nobody will possiblywant to buy.
FalloutSBM wrote:
wow, you sell 10-30 items a day that MAY equal up to the cost oftwo of my weapons if you're not gouging people and you don't even need tough to find resources until MAYBE the last block in each group. Almost everything you make will be generic hides, fiberplast and metal. Wish my craft was so easy. The last thing I want to hear about from a tailor is how I should get out of the kitchen if it's too hot. My craft, to be successfultakes a hell of a lot more work than yours EVER will. So hush already or try a really difficult craft and then spout all that junk about how no one should be a merchant. Everyone should have the option to make and try to sell what they want without the dev's crippling theirincome because they can't figure out how to run a **edit** economy.
Lets also not foget that every since penny in the economy right now besides newbie starting cash came from missions.
different professions have different problems... have you ever had someone come in,have you make a shirt in10 different colors of (lets say) yellow, then decide he doesn't want it? a well-made weapon/armor is always sellable, but a shirt in hot pink and yellow doesn't sell so well 
there are tailor schematics that require rare material (green diamond crystalline gemstone and plexite armophous gemstone, anyone?), but i can imagine how armor/weaponsmiths can have larger problems with material. however, a dx2 will always look the same. armor can have colors, but the palette is not as big as a tailors (or so i heard). unless you're also a tailor, please don't tell us we don't work hard. we earned our titles just as you did.
I sit next to an almost mastered tailor and an almost mastered armorsmitha number ofevenings each week. I know exactly what you have to put up with. Just because I don't physically click the buttons doesn't mean I don't see exactly what she does and what she goes through. As for the gemstone, we've had 4 green diamonds so far, and 3 vertex...but thats just my server.
I understand coming up with that 1 or 2 rare resources is a pain and I understand that each profession presents it's own problems and solutions, but I think that hearing that I should either suck it up or quit...from a tailor...is just ridiculous seeing as it's one of the least resource demanding professions. Thats nothing against your profession, it still requires patience and dedication, but the overhead costs are slightly different and there is no real failure on a tailored item unless it's a critical failure and you lose the items, as experimentation has no real factors at all and you can critically fail all your experiments and still have a full color palette and nothing is lost except the time it took to experiment.
That is not the case with other crafting professions as you well know. I like tailors, i think they're great...and I'm just glad they can make wookiee clothing...but it's ridiculous to see a tailor pipe up about dealing with the changes when his initialcost is MUCH lower. 100 of his items all added together and 100 of my items added together are VERY different numbers.
Actually Blode ... I appear to be similar to you in skills ... Master Tailor and Dabbling Merchant ... with a daily volume of 30-50 items also (50-100k credits). This is out of an inventory of ... say ... 300-400 items (never really have counted).
I do stick to my point that I was reading post after post of folks that only sell 2-3 low cost items (not what you or I are doing), and they were getting mad about the vendor issue. I didn't even bother with a vendor till I was doing over 30,000 in clothing a day ... prior to that it was pure bazaar sales and custom orders.
Once I got a nice clientele and higher in the skill tree for more items to make and sell ... THEN ... AND ONLY THEN ... did I move to the vendor. 
if you are a tailor (or other low cost item crafter) and are *only* selling 2-3 items a day, you are merely dabbling in the profession and does that volume truly warrant the need for a vendor?!?
But how does it pick your pocket or break your leg if they want one?
If people want to dabble let them, it doesn't affect you. Let them enjoy their little game.
how does someone elses vendor hurt you ? Why shouldnt everyone have the opportunity to dabble in being a merchant ?
Well, the bottom line is that there are just too many items in the listing databases and it is causing a lot of performance problems for everyone who uses any merchant or the bazaar. So, unfortunately, there are technical realities that have to be faced here. I don't think the devs are being totally honest with people here in that they are simply looking for a money sink (althought that is needed too).
I agree that the "fix" is pretty harsh though, and I will be sorry to see people get run out of business. In the long run, the change is going to hurt the consumer because it wil cut down the variety of items available out there - only the popular, high volume sellers will really be available.
It is all about location for my shop. Me and my fellow guild mates have settled down quite far from a dev city, where we eventually will build our player city.
Vendor fees not based on sales would force me to relocate my shop close to a dev city where everyone else is. Personally I think it's a bit lame that everyone clogs up on the borders to the unbuildable zone.
I want to be able to run a remote shop as a service to players who go out and explore rather than mingle in the cities. In that shop I want to be able to offer a wide vareity of goods without getting ruined on fixed fees.
That's why I want fees based on sales rather than a fixed one.
Dragonian wrote:
The problem is keeping peeps from using vendors as storage containers. Just a flat hourly wage for the NPC and a Sales Tax won't keep peeps from just posting things at outragious prices so they won't be bought but won't take up floor space in their house either. It also won't help drive the prices down to more reaonsable levels because the Sales Tax wouldn't get paid unill ... well until it sells. So players won't be motivated to lower their prices till the stuffs moves quicker because the tax is always going to be the same.
I just don't see how this is an issue. Vendors are gated. Not everyone will have one.As a non-artisan you need to invest 24 skill points to get 1 vendor. If they want less vendors than move vendors up to Novice Merchant. Now it would take 35 skill points to get 1 vendor. People aren't going to do this to dabble their garbage. These are people that want to sell items. Lower the amount of vendors you get as Master Merchant. That would be another option. However blaming the fact that these vendors are being used as storage devices is asinine. Think about this, you could always charge 1 credit than withdraw the sale so the item sits in the store room. Where does your variable rate work there?
Simple solution for the DB issue:
Limit the number of items Vendors can have on them, including stockroom space, at least for Business Vendors.
For Merchants, make the maintainence reduction given at Efficiency and Master <b>significant</b>.