Merchant Archive
Thread: Vendor Admin Proposal
Certainly fair comments, MortisNoir.
To add to the idea:
- No timed sales. Items stay on Vendor until the person who placed it (or Vendor owner, i.e. the Merchant who created it) removes it.
- Merchant can remove items from sale to the Storeroom if he does not want it to be sold. He cannot remove it from the Vendor, only to the Storeroom. In this case, the person who placed that item would get an email informing them of the fact.
- No mail except for when an item is actually sold.
- You only receive emails for items which you placed.
- Admin is given on a per Vendor basis.
- Merchant can specify the commission rate for each admin they add (0-100%).
Glad to see some support out there and some great ideas too.
I like this idea a lot, this is how I thought it was going to work, when I started up this tree. Offer stinks.
There is only one issue I have, There has to be a skill check. A lot of people have come to this board, asking is they can "Rent-a-Vendor" and we tell them NO, to partner with a merchant, and so on. So if we are to try to push this forward, we need to have a skill check. Given that 99% of the people that would want to do this would be crafters, I say, make it a skill in the Buss line, say a 3 or 4 skill. A partnership skill. So some points are invested, but not a lot. You can also attach it to the level 4 of all the crafter lines, but that way we keep is a real crafter merchant relationship. Not everyone should have that option.
My 2 credits.
Marqie,
I'm not sure I follow the downside of anyone being able to partner with me in this manner? I agree that it only makes sense to do this on a large scale. But why would it be a problem for a Scout to become a partner in my shop to sell 1000's of hide? Or a Master Rifleman to sell hundreds of looted Jedi Holocrons? There must be something I'm missing about not letting me set up a partnership with whomever I choose. I'm running on 3 hours of sleep so I may just be dense today.
Sigarni wrote:
I disagree with you there MortisNoir.
In my opinion the role of the merchant is to facilitate sales.She still needs to find and manage suppliers that provide good quality and quantity of stock, and then advertise that stock. I don't so see how handling every item herself will help her do this any better. In fact I'd say it's more likely to hinder her.
Small shops in real life don't necessarily handle the stocking of their merchandise. Vendors frequently send out representatives to put new stock in and take old stock out. Granted there is no automatic commission system in that , but the point is I sell things. I run a shop. Making me personally touch every item that is sold doesn't make me a better merchant. It is nearlyimpossible for me to handle multipleHIGH volume suppliers if I have to touch every piece of merchandise that goes in to the store. I currently have two extremely high volume suppliers. I spend several hours each night working on stockroom manipulations usually while they wait on me. There has to be an easier way to handle stocking the vendors and keeping track of the sales.
DocSavag wrote:
Sigarni wrote:
I disagree with you there MortisNoir.
In my opinion the role of the merchant is to facilitate sales.She still needs to find and manage suppliers that provide good quality and quantity of stock, and then advertise that stock. I don't so see how handling every item herself will help her do this any better. In fact I'd say it's more likely to hinder her.
Small shops in real life don't necessarily handle the stocking of their merchandise. Vendors frequently send out representatives to put new stock in and take old stock out. Granted there is no automatic commission system in that , but the point is I sell things. I run a shop. Making me personally touch every item that is sold doesn't make me a better merchant. It is nearlyimpossible for me to handle multipleHIGH volume suppliers if I have to touch every piece of merchandise that goes in to the store. I currently have two extremely high volume suppliers. I spend several hours each night working on stockroom manipulations usually while they wait on me. There has to be an easier way to handle stocking the vendors and keeping track of the sales.
Understood, but how exactly are you 'earning' your keep if your suppliers are still doing the work? I guess that could simply be an issue of ethics and how much commission you want to get out of your clients. Maybe it's just me but alot of Merchants seem to want the perks but none of the work. Might just be me *shrug*
marqiewrote:
There is only one issue I have, There has to be a skill check.
Yes, this sounds like a possibility. Maybe the Vndor in Business III could be replaced with "Vendor Management" which would be the skill that allows a person to manage a Vendor if they have been added to a Vendor admin list.
MortisNoirwrote:
Understood, but how exactly are you 'earning' your keep if your suppliers are still doing the work? ... Maybe it's just me but alot of Merchants seem to want the perks but none of the work.
MortisNoir makes a good point. It is a little known secret that achieving Master Merchant requires almost no effort at all. It happens automatically. People are slowly starting to realise this. Personally, I think the effort of finding suitable business partners is sufficient. In real life a business person or business owner does the majority of their work establishing supply contracts and managing staff. Once that is done they simply pay their staff to run the day to day activities. They are just the Manager. They do not, and should not, be intimately involved with every single transaction and sale that their staff make. A manager needs to maintain a broad appreciation of the whole business. I think the title granted to players who achieve Management IV is perfect.
(Manager)
A manager manages the big picture. The staff should do all the work, that is what they are paid to do. MortisNoir, yes I do want the perks but none of the work, at least not the actually behind the counter work. That is what being a manager is all about. It also suits my role-playing style perfectly. I enjoy chatting with people in town and establishing contacts. I do a lot of management work for my crafting PA. I cannot always be online at the times when mysuppliers have items to give me. They can offer items to my Vendors but why add the extra step of me having to go to my Vendor and tell them that they can actually sell it. I should be able to tell them once that a certain person is one of my suppliers and then trust them to handle it.
New developments on the idea
- Replace the Vendor +1 skill in Business III with a Vendor Management skill. Maybe call it "Sales" or "Supplier".
- Playerswithout Vendor Management can still make "offers" to Vendors as they can now.
Merchants would earn their keep buy keeping the shop running, drumming up buisness, and using their skills to sell items, thusallowing others to use skill points elsewhere. Not everything has to be as labor intensives as crafting. I think that along with the ability to partner, merchants should get access to special furniture, and the ability to customize shops. There would still be quite a bit of work if we were able to partner, as it is right now if we offer our vendors to others there is a great deal of trading back and forth, pricing arranging and working around the schedules of around 6 or 7 people. The people I have seen that manage Malls with 8 vendors or so spend an enormous amount of time online waiting around for crafters and transfering items from crafters to vendors. As it is crafters with merchant skills just drop there items on their vendors and leave, whats wrong about them doing that on vendors owned by merchants, merchants earn their keep by freeing up skill points for crafters while creating a more attractive enviroment to sell there goods. In addition we offer advertisingand the advantage of selling other peoples goods in higher traffic areas. Malls are very popular in that they're one stop shopping, so they get a higher volume of buisness then a single product type shop.
I hope that was coherent.
I'm earning my keep by wasting points on a set of skills so you don't have to. At the least, it saves YOU novice artisan and business 1-3.
Marthis
Doc,
In short, I can just see this making real merchants less valued. Because once you place a vendor for someone, you can, and my be, totaly out of the loop. That is a rent a vendor, and I think that is a bad idea.
So a skill check is needed. Buss 4, so that there is SOME points invested, not a freebie merchant skill to anyone with a merchant friend.
I personaly do not see a need for a Scout, or CH having a vendor, I just think it cheapens the whole crafter merchant thing if anyone can have one (And they will, because merchants will sell off the extra vendors for a price to anyone)
My 2 credits guys.
I don't really see how a skill check would make much difference Marqie. If you want to be a good merchant with a good setup, you'll pick your suppliers with care. If you are the type to just sell off your vendors, then a skill check of the business line isn't going to matter much.
The problem of being out of the loop isn't addressed at all by the supplier having a certain amount of business skill. A better idea would be to keep the merchant in the loop with the vendor/partner. Make it so that if the merchant doesn't regularly interect with the vendor, then business effectiveness is much reduced. (higher maintainance fees for one, perhaps)