Merchant Archive
Thread: Too many advertised vendors unintended, or by design?
The other problem (for Merchants) is selling multiple product catagories on a single vendor (either because you arent high up the managment tree, have more than 6 catagories for sale or have spread vendors acorss multiple planets). Due to the previous issue you are almost guaranted to miss potential customers by not being listed in a particular catagory
These 2 factors basically force Merchants into the situation we have today
Mackle wrote:
Exactly, but unfortunately the devs consider our whole profession low priority, I'm afaid.
I have to agree. Because most people engage in combat, it's obviously more important. And I guess since a lot of us have found a way around many of these problems and made some money anyway, they figure the problems must not be too bad. Maybe if every merchant stopped playing merchant for a week or two, and stopped doing anything to make money, then the wealth growth numbers would drop dramatically and they'd notice. Otherwise they just look at their stats, see tha people are making money, and think "well it can't be too bad, let's do other stuff first that more people are complaining about."
At least that's what it seems like.
since a lot of us have found a way around many of these problems and made some money anyway, they figure the problems must not be too bad.
I hate to say it, but I favor the "squeaky wheel" theory myself. Let's be honest: the combat folks are nothing if not vocal about their pet profession being "broken." (I myself, of course, am the Avatar of Pure Objectivity concerning the utterly defective nature of the Merchant profession. *cough*)
I dunno.I supposewe need to yell louder, but it's just not in my nature.
Maybe with all the money we makewe could hire a combatant to yell for us....
--Flatfingers
Flatfingers wrote:
Maybe with all the money we makewe could hire a combatant to yell for us....
Well, if the squeeky wheel theory has any sway here, I suspect it's in numbers of posts, which means we'd have to hire a LOT of them 
However, I actually don't think the only things that get attention are the things given the most posts. Otherwise a number of other things would have been fixed by now than have actually been addressed. They have an internal priority standard and they aren't going to tell us what that is other than in real general terms (like: exploits are first, game-breaking bugs are second, etc).
Since there are far more combat professions than there are marketing professions (1), those issues effect more players and thereby get higher priority, regardless of how many people actually post about them. But obviously more people will result in more posts.
However, there are a number of things about merchant that simply break it into near-unplayability (one reason I never bothered goign all the way to master,even though I could have by now. I don't want to spend the money or time or skill points on a bunch of useless skill boxes.
A new sign?? Wow! Yet a fifth vendor for my shop?? Oh yeah, that's worth 8k credits for training and another 2 skill points. I don't think anyone should ever get more than 3 vendors because it just encourages them to clutter up the ad space and the HUD map, but that's just my personal bias. I don't expect others to agree.
But the other really broken classes, like Squad Leader and Smuggler get love first, because they are much more popular perhaps...
Wow thanks Philomorph. I try to explain my worriesand you insult me.
I read the other posts, but honestly i dont want any changes. I like the way it is now. That was what i was saying. You didnt have to treat me like a lesser person, becasue i disagree with the changes.
.
The whole thing could be solved and improvedfor the most part if they didthree things:
1) Allow us to advertise our Shop - Generically - outside the Category sort
2) ADD MORE CATEGORIES - like the Bazaar
3) Allows us to advertise one vendor in multiple categories
All good ideas Rogue. But I don't think just those 3 steps will solve all the problems. It certainly makes sense to be able to advertise the same vendor in more than one category. You can do it in the yellow pages...
However, there will still be some merchants who want to advertise a bunch of vendors with their name on them in multiple slots, under the same category, to make them more noticeable. It's like buying a half-page ad in the phonebook instead of just having a small liting. It also gives the impression of size and diversity.
Unfortunately it alsoads to the clutter of the ad list. Limiting merchants to one ad per shop per category is also needed. Let us advertise out one shop in many categories if we like. But having 5 lines under Droids isn't necessary. But people will keep doing it because they either have to (to list all their various vendors) or they like to (to catch your eye). There's more to this discussion, but it's very late and I'm done thinking for the night
Sorry, I didn't mean to insult you. I was annoyed because it seems every time I start a thread, by the time there are five or six posts, many people stop reading past the first one or two andthe threadends up being a bunch of replies to one or two bits ofthe conversation.This seemed to be the case when you mistated my suggestion in a way that would have been partly understandable if you hadn't read past the original post. I'll try to be less snide in the future though. It's not really helpful to the discussion in most cases.
Jhava_Bein wrote:
Wow thanks Philomorph. I try to explain my worriesand you insult me.
I read the other posts, but honestly i dont want any changes. I like the way it is now. That was what i was saying. You didnt have to treat me like a lesser person, becasue i disagree with the changes.
- "Register Vendor" is a selection from the House menu. I like the idea that, in addition to restricting it based on skill, it also be available only if there are actual vendors with actual items to sell.
- When you first get the "Register Vendor" option, perhaps with this change at Ad II, you get a single generic listing for your shop. It will pick up the name you have on your shop sign and that's it.
- At the next level, you get to choose up to a certain number of categories to cross-list in, and can change the text that shows on the planetary map.
- Master merchants can cross-list in an unlimited number of categories.
Also, it would be useful to have the category listing check against what you have for sale. For example, if you're not selling any weapons, then "Weapons" is not available to you. This would help avoid mistakes and also "spamming" the list by advertising in every category, even though you're only selling one type of thing.
Arrya wrote:
Registering multiple vendors can also send out the signal that you are a more serious crafter and not just some average joe with a dozen novice items listed- as a weapons crafter, I would like to convey that my shop sells all kinds of weapons:ranged, melee, commando, presliced, krayt enhanced, etc. I do think it would be better to have merchants register their shop globally rather than their vendors and be able to put in a short paragraph for a description. But that brings up other problems... what if you are running a vendor from someone else's house that does not have global advertising?
Plus, if you limited the global registration to one per character or something, that would prevent people from advertising multiple shops on different planets (something that I think should be encouraged as a merchant).
this house link to advetiseing on the global market would make total sense to me, would mean only the house owner would need the skill, which would make more people inclined to ask to be place a vendor in a shop that is already advertised, since they would not have to waste the points on the skills themselves making for more crafters working together to from shopping centers and in my opinion would stillleave the the skill worth taking, but not toally needed for selling to a wider audiance, just allow for a shop description when you click the waypoint or something, i think some idea a long these lines woule help all crafters
ithink this the best idea i've heard on the forums so far
just my 2 cents, but i agree that spamming the world map is getting to be a problem
I disagree. The feature works well, it's the merchants that need to really think and figure out what how best to advertise. I'd like to see some categories broken down a bit more but that's a different thread.
The purpose of the feature is two-fold:
- Allows Merchants to make potential customers aware of their shop without having to spam the starport areas (or along WITH spamming in some cases).
- Allows Customers to locate vendors of a particular product type without having to spam or run around randomly.
Anyhow, the point is that the feature is for the convenience of the customer. In the case of weaponsmiths, one smith (Bob) having shops registered for "Bob's Carbines", "Bob's Rifles", "Bob's Pistols", and "Bob's HeavyWpns" is redundant as "Bob's RngWpns" would say the same thing in one listing. However, if Bob just carries carbines, rifles, and pistols, it may be appropriate to list them separately as a Commando looking for a heavy weapon would know not to run out there. In my case, I'm a chef and my shop is listed under the generic heading of "Food". There are three distinct product lines in "Food" -- food/drink, spice, and pet food. If I carry food/drink and pet food, then two vendor listings for that shop are appropriate as I am targeting two different markets. But, listed vendors can be even more useful for the customer.
Within most professions, there a couple "tiers" of products -- the beginner (cheap) items and the advanced (expensive) items. Here again, we're looking at 2 distinct markets. If a Master Weaponsmith is going to carry nothing but the high end weapons, then the label "MstrBobs AdvRngWpns" tells the customer that this shop carries only ranged weapons and they are created by a Master Weaponsmith. Now, if Master Bob wants to sell the low-end market to the new adventurer, creating a specific vendor labeled"Basic RngWpns" gets that point across. Or, they may even want to put in a vendor to sell those "failed" experiments at a discount named "Discounted RngWpns".
Having 32 to 40 listings on the world map per category isn't too many unless the people listing those stores are not adding value to the communication. Used appropriately, vendor names and the world map can be very helpful for customers looking for a specific productby directing them to the most appropriate shop(s) for their needs.
It's all about the customer and trying to help the customer locate the product they want at the minimum hassle.
Cheers,
Kaizen Jonzun
Proprietor of The Drunken Jester and Master Chef
Radiant - Keren 2380 3819
Good ideas, Xelene and Nitro. Jonzun is correct, as has been pointed out, that vendors currently need to be able to list multiple things so people know that they actually have what they want. Listing just "Droids" doesn't tell the bounty hunter that they will have what they need, for example. And listing "Master level droids" doesn't tell the newbie that the vendor will have some cheap doirds too. They may only carry master level stuff, or maybe not.
But with a description system, it wouldn't be necessary to list multiple vendors in the same category on the adspace.
They finally got custom barking working, which means they are already storing free-form text for vendors. Why not ad one for the house too? The extra space would be partly offset by the fact each shop could only have one ad per category. And it doesn't need to be a lot of space. Just the same amount of text data as 3 or 4 vendor names even would be good. You don't need a paragraph to say what you've got.